DMing is great practice for running small group meetings, which are most of my work meetings.
Learning how to keep the meeting on track, synthesizing a bunch of discussion into a coherent flow, knowing when and how to interrupt, paying attention to people who maybe need you to make space for them to interject have all been super useful skills.
One of the other managers at my work brought in a resume he got for everyone to laugh at because the guy had put being a WoW raid leader as part of his skills. I had done a little of it, so I said “Imagine getting 40 people together virtually on headsets. They’re broken into three different main roles, but within those each has different abilities. You have to lead them through an encounter where everyone has to do their part, there might be a lot of coordinated moving around, and some of the mechanics might be complicated. If just one person screws up, all 40 people could die, and you have to start over. Some of the people may never have seen it before. It’s your job to explain what’s going to happen, lead 40 people through it, and keep everyone calm and focused if something goes wrong. How many of our current leaders could do that?”
I think I made the point, but the problem is that very, very few hiring managers are going to know what a raid leader is, and are just going to see it as playing a video game.
It got you hired, didn’t it?
At work they joke about how I put Dungeon Master on my resume. It is so staying on there.
DMing is great practice for running small group meetings, which are most of my work meetings.
Learning how to keep the meeting on track, synthesizing a bunch of discussion into a coherent flow, knowing when and how to interrupt, paying attention to people who maybe need you to make space for them to interject have all been super useful skills.
This sounds like the posting by an ex drug dealer emphasizing how running a drug empire gave him the skills to prosper in a legitimate career.
Also, though, I agree with your point.
One of the other managers at my work brought in a resume he got for everyone to laugh at because the guy had put being a WoW raid leader as part of his skills. I had done a little of it, so I said “Imagine getting 40 people together virtually on headsets. They’re broken into three different main roles, but within those each has different abilities. You have to lead them through an encounter where everyone has to do their part, there might be a lot of coordinated moving around, and some of the mechanics might be complicated. If just one person screws up, all 40 people could die, and you have to start over. Some of the people may never have seen it before. It’s your job to explain what’s going to happen, lead 40 people through it, and keep everyone calm and focused if something goes wrong. How many of our current leaders could do that?”
I think I made the point, but the problem is that very, very few hiring managers are going to know what a raid leader is, and are just going to see it as playing a video game.
More dots!
That is so awesome… Please never change…
Technically I was already hired at that point, but otherwise yeah, that was roughly my attitude.