About me
Hello, my name is Jordan, or Tek as people call me here. I'm a 16 year old High School student living in Norwich currently studying History, Business Studies, Further Science and Computer Science at GCSE. In future I hope to take Computer Science and Maths at A level and maybe even go on to University, who knows. I'd like to think of myself as an avid Gamer. I got my first gaming system (the Xbox 360) in 2011, and started playing Call of Duty and other games. Eventually it hit the point where I wanted the flexibility of PC gaming, and Arma 3 was on my mind. I bought a Laptop and started playing Arma 3, it was pretty bad but it coaxed me to buy a Gaming PC, and here I am today. Most of my spare time, which I have a lot of, is spent on playing Arma and other games, and through nearly all of it I have been on the GTA teamspeak. You can mostly find me in the DMT channel, either working on what was once my pride and joy or just watching YouTube. I don't really do any extra-curricular activities but sometimes I'll stay at school an extra hour for revision sessions, I'm not in the right state of mind to revise at home as I usually just want to chill and eat some food.

I like to think of myself as an accommodating person. I don't judge somebody straight away and will always give someone a fair chance to present themselves to me before I create an opinion. I think that this is an extremely important quality in any Staff Member as you should try to remain as neutral as possible, and you do represent the community after all. I also have a good mindset when it comes to dealing with official business. When resolving a situation or just helping someone out I try to remain as professional as possible and make a minimal amount of jokes too (unless the people I am talking to have set that mood. I like to go with whatever the other person(s) feel comfortable with). I do like to mess around, everyone does, but I always leave it until after I am finished with something serious. Having a representative of the community using poor language all the time, refusing to help anyone with problems, and generally giving off a bad impression is someone that shouldn't be representing the community at all. That's my opinion, anyway.

As for the cap on Blufor Staff, I have been thinking of leaving the APC for a while and I'm getting pretty close to doing it. Things may change in the future, I could get C/Supt or just stick around, anything could happen. Just throwing this in, as if it makes a difference.

Why I want to be a Staff Member

I have been interested in joining the Staff Team for a while now, and there are a few reasons why. I have been in this community for just over a year, and throughout my time I have learned how to be a cop, how to roleplay properly, how to use the forums, how to deal with disputes between players, the rules, and generally how things are. I also gained my first management role here, I became the Chief of the Designated Marksman Team and changed everything about it. I changed some of the rules, the handbook, and I also helped to create and improve the database we use to keep information on members too. Then, I became an Inspector and later a Superintendent in the APC. I run a Police Department day-to-day and deal with common issues, and I love all of it. Browsing the forums and doing stuff is something that interests me as well, and I first took interest in forum work when I became a Police RTO. During my time as an RTO, I dealt with most of the Applications and I was relatively active on the forums during that time period. I always checked the forums for work to do, and I kinda miss the whole routine. Nowadays I read a report or two, comment on threads where people ask questions and report supposed issues, but I can't do much more than that. I think that becoming a member of the Staff Team will allow me to do something I enjoy once more and will open up opportunities for me, as well as fill some sort of metaphorical hole.

I remember that I originally became interested in becoming a Staff Member during Staff Round 9. I thought I'd throw in a Staff Application, which looking back on, was very poor. I was excited to see who'd get it, as reaching the closing of apps I realised I had no chance in hell. I checked the forums after the new Staff were welcomed in and I was somewhat jealous, I wanted to do what they did. I waited and played until the next staff round, and put in another Application. I kept my hopes up but ultimately it was all for nothing, between now and then I have seriously considered applying once more and becoming a Staff Member is just something I want to do, it's not easily explainable. I have been in this community for just over a year and most of the hours I have spent on my computer have probably been in the GrandTheftArma community as a whole (talking to people on TeamSpeak, browsing the forums or even just playing ingame. Each of which I have done quite a bit of).

Joining the Staff Team is one of my biggest desires, and I'll do my best to reach my goal.

Why I think I'd make a good Staff Member

There's a few reasons why I think I'd make a good Staff Member, I'll break them down below.

Activity

I am very active ingame and on the forums. I play ingame nearly every day for at least a few hours, and will be able to offer as much assistance as possible there. I always check the forums, it's usually the first thing I do when I open Chrome actually. I often find myself with 3-4 tabs open on the forums, most of which are just on the homepage and not looking at any threads. I don't know why this happens as I'm usually too busy browsing, but it must be some hefty browsing. I am always on the Teamspeak, without fail (unless I'm not even on my computer). I am easily available to contact to either deal with disputes or answer simple questions (when I was a Helper the majority of my assistance was giving through private messages, which I responded to as fast as possible). As I said earlier, you can either find me in the DMT channel or one of the Patreon lounges. I could see my activity start to narrow a little when coming up to the GCSE period, but I doubt it would have much of an effect.

Dedication

If I were to become a member of the Staff Team, I would be dedicated to what I would be doing. When I became the Chief of DMT, I spent a lot of my time working on it. I'm not going to go into specifics, btu I did so much in a short space of time that the slots quickly filled up and I ran out of things to do. With the recent choice I made to promote zHavoc to Co-Chief, we have a lot of work on our hands that can be done over a long period of time. I am also Management in the RPU department, so I add people to forms and do some other basic stuff, a pretty minimal amount of work to do there. I plan to see these final changes to DMT through and unless something else changes, I will leave the APC. I am not bored of the APC in any way shape or form, but seeing as there are only a few rebels gangs that do anything, I think it's time to get a better experience of things from a Rebel side of things. Anyway, the whole point being, I get dedicated to what I do, and don't get tired/bored of it easily. I seriously doubt the reports and questions and many other things to do as a Staff Member would dry up, so I don't see myself getting bored of it any time soon.

Neutrality

I have been on both sides of the law. Undoubtedly most of my time has been spent in the APC, but I have been in a large Rebel gang, The Increment. I wasn't in TI for very long as there were some complications, but I have experienced rule breaks from both sides and it has had an effect on me. I can understand things from both sides, which helps me to remain neutral (unlike some of the Helpers, which have only ever experienced things from a Blufor side. It seems that 100% neutrality is a rarity these days.). I have had no problem in the past of accusing APC members or rebels of being wrong, I don't really take what each party thinks of me following the resolution, I aim to resolve the problem as fast as possible. Of course I will try to find a middle ground where everyone is happy but sometimes you can't please everyone, and tough decisions have to be made.

Knowledge of the Rules

After playing for a year, I can safely say I've seen a huge array of different rules called into question. Whether it be simple ways of doing runs to full on combat and banks, I am confident in my ability to resolve almost all situations. If there is a rule I myself do not know, I always have and always will refer to someone higher than me that can give me an answer. I don't claim to know all of the rules and the 'unwritten' ones, but I'd say I know a sizeable amount of them.

All about improvement

I have been in many situations where I have been RDM'd or have been a victim to FailRP. Each time I have called the people involved into a Teamspeak channel and as with every situation I resolve, I established a system where one person speaks at a time, and this helps to resolve the each situation smoothly. As I have explained to every single person, I don't usually care too much about compensation or punishment. This is because I am a cop at the moment, if I were to become a rebel I would probably ask for compensation. But the main objective is to push the point that the people involved learn what they did wrong and don't do it again. However, when somebody knows the rule they broke but still did it anyway, that's when I will go for punishment. I think I am a fair person, when it comes to compensation (and I am the victim) I usually drop out certain items or don't demand the full price. When I am the one resolving the situation, I will try to discuss fair compensation terms and 99% of people involved come out happy.

Use of Power

Being a Member of Staff is a privilege, and the powers that come with it should not be abused. I could not picture myself ever abusing Staff Powers, purely because I enjoy winning a fair fight and there would be too much to lose anyway. The member of Staff in the room is the one that decides what happens, and that person should understand the power they have in their hands. I try to be as fair as possible, and see this power as a way to help people that cannot help themselves, not something that should be used for personal gain.

What to expect from me

I consider myself to be somewhat professional when it comes to official business. Everyone likes to have fun and mess around, me too. But I am a relatively serious person and when I ask a serious question I expect a serious answer and not a joke. I check the forums every hour or two, so expect me to be doing the odd report and answering questions, moving and locking threads, issuing warning points etc. I enjoy playing ingame and when I do, I like to put everything else aside for a bit (except for emergencies of course). I also make sure that everything I post is checked through and ready to go. I'd say my grammar and spelling are near perfect, and around 95% of my posts are constructive too.

There may come a time where I have to dedicate a lot of my spare time to revision but I doubt it. I did pretty much no revision for my mock GCSE exams and I still felt confident going in, I came out better than I expected too (A's and B's).