Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard

Discussion in 'Staff Goodbyes' started by Bionicrm, Sep 6, 2014.

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    Bionicrm

    Hello,

    I have been a BukkitDev staff member for over three months now. You may be led to believe that writing a sentimental "goodbye" post as a relatively new staff member is silly, but I think it is necessary. I wish that the project had not reached this point, but every beginning has an end.

    Being a staff member was time consuming yet rewarding. While money was not involved, the feeling of helping create a safe environment for anyone to download any plugin they'd like with no worries was a good one. There's always going to be people rushing us to review their files when really they just need a bit of patience, but then there are others that genuinely appreciate the time we spend doing what we do in the limited time we all have. Those people are the ones that push me to work harder, even when we were falling behind in the queue.

    The BukkitDev staff team is not called a team for no reason. Not only are we 'co-workers', 'co-volunteers', or what have you, but we are friends. We are all supportive of each other and help one another. That is a fact. We stick together and handle issues together. I have grown close to the the other members of the BukkitDev staff team. I believe every team needs to be a cohesive unit. That was a strongpoint of Bukkit that made my experience so enjoyable.

    I'd like to thank some of my friends that I've made along the way, as I surely could not have made it to where I am today without them:

    EvilSeph - He wanted to be in this letter so here.

    TnT - He seemed to always know how to appropriately handle a situation. He defended the team as a whole on the forums when people would complain about anything. He really did and does care about all of us.

    mbaxter - He is a nice guy :) He helped me out when I needed it and taught me quite a few things. Much like TnT, Bukkit would not be complete without him.

    ZeusAllMighty11 - He was my original mentor, and was the first person I became close to when joining the team.

    lol768 - He is my best friend. Before I say more about that, story time! I joined IRC at the beginning of 2014. I had never heard of IRC (and actually thought it was VOIP) in the past. The first channel I joined was #bukkitdev, which I regularly chatted in, saying hello every morning and goodbye every night for months. Later, however, I had issues with my project and contacted lol768 about it, which he helped me with. He probably noticed that I was pretty active in the BukkitDev channel and assumed I still had no clue what IRC was or at least all the things I could do.

    I was invited to another channel not Bukkit related and started talking with people from there, which mostly included other BukkitDev staff members and some regulars. lol768 offered me a bouncer (which I've been using ever since), and so I set it up. I wasn't really sure why he wanted to help me out (and I still don't to this day), but I was grateful. Months passed, and I was staying fairly active, trying to help others with Bukkit development problems and asking some questions myself. I chatted with the people in those channels, and gradually joined some other personal channels and spoke there.

    I was PM'd by lol768 one night, asking if I wanted to be a BukkitDev staff member. I had never submitted an application, but planned to apply in the next month or so. I went through the process of joining the team and was warmly welcomed by everyone. I was now a part of something.

    ZeusAllMighty11 was my mentor (the one that taught me how to BukkitDev). He was pretty busy at the time thanks to school, so lol768 tagged along and really got me going. We started talking more, and he helped me with everything, even non-Bukkit related matters. He was essentially a computer science teacher for me. I later found out that he actually recommended me to join the team.

    I setup a VPS for my own personal site, which I didn't know how to get to work because it was a Ubuntu CLI (and I'm a Windows guy). lol768 taught me some things to get it setup, and I started to trust him much more, giving him root access to configure the server. He later introduced me to Laravel, a PHP framework. He taught me how to use it for weeks. He's a collaborator for the repo (Bionicrm.com) and would push commits and show me how everything works. I started to get to know PHP better, and he supported me in setting up a database, and later help me setup XenForo for a maybe-but-probably-not-to-be MC network.

    While developing other Java applications, he taught me more about Java, and topics such as design patterns, binary and hex, and much more. He spent time critiquing my work and giving feedback. He is very attentive to details and was harsh in his feedback for the sake of me seeing my pitfalls and strengths, which really helped me in the long run. As a result of all of this help, I've come to love computer science much more and plan to have a career in computer science.

    There are countless other situations lol768 has helped me in. I cannot thank him enough for everything he's ever done for me. Note that I'm not telling this story because it is the end of our friendship, I just want to explain how he's helped me thus far and how thankful I am. I hope that none of the people I've met drop off the face of the earth and that we all can stay in touch.

    Thank you, and goodbye.


    (Title quote by Dave Mustaine)
     
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    codename_UDMC

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    lol768

    Thanks Bionicrm, you're a great guy :)
     
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    ZeusAllMighty11

    It was awesome to have the privileged of bringing you onto the staff team! I hope I was as much of as help to you as you were to me. Thanks for contributing :D
     
    DSH105 and Bionicrm like this.
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    milesmcc

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    DrPyroCupcake

    That made me cry a little.
     
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    jonoaa

    Farewell to you, and thank you for the contribution to Bukkit!
     
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    GodsDead

    Good luck! If you need any web-based help or PHP help throw us a message :)
     
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