Lafille's Story

This post is about lafilleaveclevisage, also known as Taylor's experience as Help Force staff.

I joined Help Force in late April 2020 where I was fairly active in events and segments, yet too shy to talk in chat until about a month after I joined. I started talking due to the community of wonderful people that I could relate to during quarantine while I couldn’t see my friends in real life. However, this community started to shift in late June and early July when I got offered staff. During my trial everyone was happy for me and super excited for me to get staff, yet a couple of days after I got staff, it felt like my friendships with most of the people in HF were over. For no reason to my knowledge other than a falling out with a Helper to which I lost a lot of friends and felt alienated by staff and Helpers alike.

    About two weeks after I was added to the staff team, two of the four US staff went inactive due to personal issues. Due to this, the other General (5ic) that was in the timezone with me, Monika, was promoted to Marshal which was our 4ic. I had no issue with that at the time as she had been staff for a bit over a month, but you will see later that I have an issue with it now. Monika and I kept the timezone afloat and functioning despite it just being the two of us along with Kendall (4ic) who came back a bit after.

 

Despite Kendall coming back, Monika and I were the only ones involved in choosing which people would be chosen for trial as Kendall was inactive for the two days that I was involved in the decision. This gave me a weird feeling as Kendall was the most experienced staff out of the three of us. I always felt that she was mistreated and not shown the respect she should have been receiving due to her level of staff experience.

 

  

Despite Tistle saying that Monika would be leaving the US timezone, she stayed in the timezone for about a month or so while she was in Europe. This was an issue as she would fall asleep before segments and events which Kendall or I weren’t always able to pick up the slack on as we both had things going on in real life such as me working and moving back to college and Kendall having family obligations. When approaching Monika about her shortcomings for the US timezone, I was met with excuses and deflection onto other things I was not concerned about.

 

 

 

I talked with Kendall multiple times about Monika missing segments and events that she or I could’ve hosted if we had been given the chance to, but, since Monika took them and did not show up to them or would fall asleep or leave halfway through, there was no way for me or Kendall to fix anything.

 

 

 

Despite there being three US staff, Monika felt the need to take every segment yet blame Kendall and I for not caring enough or being inactive which was beyond our control. The day that she switched from US to EU she had this to say to another member of staff:

 

This made me feel unneeded despite being counted on to do so many things at the same time. I guess I never realized how much I actually did for Help Force due to not being recognized for any of it. After Monika moved to the EU timezone, I continued sacrificing and further ruining my social life and my grades for HF.

Despite the efforts of both myself and Kendall, the US time zone was still struggling to reach even 20+ maxes. The staff from other time zones seemed to think of this as something funny and not something to help us figure out the root problem of.

 

 

 

There were countless issues with only having Kendall and I as US staff was that both of us had busy lives and weren’t always able to make it to every event or plan ahead for a member of staff from another timezone to help us out.

 

A large example of this was a fashion show Kendall and I did not have the time to do. Here are screenshots showcasing the unneeded drama that ensued due to our supposed "lack of caring and lack of planning".

  

 

  

Another issue that day was Kendall was being put on break for another staff argument, that was not caused by her in my opinion, right as another trials week was ending. In this trials week, the US timezone was expected to be getting five new staff members. Instead of me getting promoted like Monika did when Kendall and Alexei went inactive, I was expected to lead the US division as a 5ic, our lowest staff rank, while Kendall was gone. 

I starteed getting help on how to schedule and plan things.

Rather than training me further, our leader Barnito decided that a better idea than me leading the division would be to shove an EU Marshal and an AUSIA Marshal into the US chat.

 

 

Since I wasn’t being trusted to handle scheduling events and segments for the timezone, I started questioning my capabilities as a staff member and wondering if it was worth it to even try for Marshal anymore or if I should just leave staff before I got my hopes up.

  

While holding down the US time zone as well as I could, I was dmed by a couple of other staff saying that my promotion was coming soon and should have even come earlier than it was supposed to, even back then.

 

 

But this so-called promotion never seemed to come.

Barnito dmed me for a bit of time helping to train me for leading the time zone, but his communication overall started to cut off once Hannah stepped down from 2ic.

 

An overall lack of staff communication and integration was another reason for my departure. After Hannah left HF, staff communication came to an all-time low as Hannah was the one who kept Kendall and I in the loop of what was going on in the EU timezone along with general stuff we as staff should have been informed about.

One thing that rubbed me the wrong way throughout the time that Kendall was an Admiral (3ic) and I was a General (5ic) was that Barnito would come to me about US timezone matters and ask for my opinion of how to make it better without consulting with Kendall as well. I was not mad about Barnito asking for my input, I was more so frustrated at the lack of staff communication and disregard for Kendall’s hard-earned rank.

 

Despite what Hannah had said way back in late September, my Marshal promotion kept not coming and I started to lose hope that I would ever get it at all. Over a month after Hannah promised me the promotion was coming, Barney finally gave it to me at a point in time that was so late I could barely even appreciate it anymore. 

 

This just proves that staff promotions in HF are all over the place. This late promotion really irked me as many other staff were given promotions after only one month as staff with minimal work whereas mine was three and a half months of busting my ass to keep my timezone afloat in an effort to show Barnito that I really did care about HF and wanted US activity and numbers to improve in order to receive a half-assed promotion. Still great to see that it wasn’t good enough.

 

 

 

Leaving HF for me was something that I had been talking about for months on and off depending on how staff situations were handled and what was going on in my real life. Life as HF staff was incredibly draining and was worsening the longer that I stayed.

 

 

Despite the hard times, things started looking up in the last few weeks before my departure. US started maxing over 30+ and even 40+ at events due to myself finding better times for US events to be along with stacking the timezone with more fun segments and tournaments instead of recruiting all the time.

 

 

Despite this, personal troubles were brewing in my real life and HF things were about to get a lot worse. I talked to Kendall the day before I left about leaving and moving on with my life and what could possibly happen to HF after I left. Ironic how I mentioned Joe getting a promotion as he received it about 12 hours later.

 

 

 

Recently, on November 19th, a US staff member named Joe received a promotion to Marshal. This was a slap in the face as it was not even three weeks after I had received my promotion to Marshal and Joe had gotten staff not even two months before this promotion. Yes, Joe hosted a lot and led at a lot of events however, I felt as though his promotion was not deserved. I was the one that planned all the US events as to who was leading, pinging, dming, etc. and was also the one who kept the timezone afloat when there were only three and then two US staff members. I also led the timezone as a General for a period of time when I had little to no guidance as to how to take it on.

In HF, it is almost known that hosting segments and leading events holds a higher priority than planning everything behind the scenes making sure that it goes smoothly. I believe that this is the wrong way to go as many staff members received promotions based not on their maturity, moderating abilities, and leading abilities but based on their activeness and hosting frequency.

The second I saw that Joe received his promotion, I knew what my decision was. I was leaving Help Force. The first thing I did was tell Kendall and made sure that I was not making a decision in haste, more so doing the right thing for me. 

 

I then typed up a message to send to staff:

 

And then another to send in general chat which was later deleted by the remaining staff in an effort to silence me:

 

In conclusion, HF was my home up until I received a promotion to staff after successfully completing my trial week. Despite losing most of my friends, I still tried my hardest to make the US timezone better, stay out of drama, and most of all create a fun environment for Helpers to thrive in. Behind the scenes I was insanely active along with in chat throughout my time as staff. Whenever I had the chance to be online, I was on Discord in the Help Force server being the best HF staff member I believed I could be. Being staff took all of my strength and will to live at some points, but I kept with it and pushed on. I was put into unfavorable situations that I could have handled if I had been given a fair amount of guidance and advice just like the other more favored staff were given. The circumstances of my time as staff along with the continuous mistreatment of my staff friends by other staff I respected on the staff team led me to my decision to leave. I do not believe I will ever go back to the Help Force server. Although my hard work was not appreciated by the other staff, I still believe that I was a crucial part of the staff team and deserved better than I was treated. I am writing this in an effort to make sure this level of unfairness is never reached in Help Force staff again as it is detrimental not only to staff morale but a person’s image of their own self-worth and self-esteem. Help Force as an army still holds an important place in my life, but I could have lived without the outright disrespect and unfairness that the staff team held in its core.

I would also just like to clear up the misconception that I caused the other staff that left to leave. I was not planning on any other staff retiring aside from myself. Also, to my knowledge, peer pressure was not used to get any other staff to leave. The staff that left left for their respective reasons. I left HF for the sake of myself just like the others that left staff did.

Click on each link to read more:

Introduction | Kendall's Story | Lafille's Story | Dawn's Story | Anon's Story | Conclusion