Once A Prefect

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What spurious titles / nebulous positions of "authority" have you held? Do you manage anyone? Are you president of any clubs? Did you start them yourself? And so on....

― Tom, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(This arises out of a conversation with Alex T where I twigged that co-moderating ILE is nearer to being a prefect at boarding school than any experience I've had since.)

― Tom, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was the "Dionysus" of my college literary magazine. I was such a "joiner" back then *sigh*

― felicity, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was an enormously bossy kid and so always (tacitly) the top dog in any club I (invariably) started (rollerskating and spying are the ones I remember - the former marked mainly by minor injuries, the second by total tedium). Prefect and library monitor (breaks spent inside! comfy beanbags!!!)at junior school. Somehow I got it knocked out of me at secondary school and shunned positions of authority thereafter (probably just bitter), until recent explorations in gradstudent repping, motivated largely out of impatience and an unfamiliar but insistent feeling that no-one else knew what the hell they were doing or talking about. This kind of arrogance sits awkwardly with me, and I was relieved to stop.

― Ellie, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i was Auditor of the Theological Society in Trinity College Dublin.

And I am central mailer of Frank's APA.

I really am a powergamer, only in real life rather than a game.

― DV, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

aside from taing , i prefer to be the power behind the throne .

― anthony, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Being a teenage punX0r I spurned all authority, which was just as well as ICHS would never have let me be a prefect in a million years. I was a 'reading prefect' at Chadwell High, although why 'prefect' I'll never know, all I did was sit and listen to year 7s read, and then write comments in their reading log. This was more difficult than it sounds cos a lot of them couldn't bloody read to save their lives, so I was caught between being scathing and possibly putting them off reading forever or being nice and letting them carry on in their bad reading ways. Yikes!

― DG, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Would you put me in charge of anything?

(I was on the College Radio committee, but mainly because only one other person turned up to that meeting, though all it involved was sorting out slots at the start of each half-term and tidying the room up occasionally (radio = PA in canteen))

― Graham, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was vice-president of the Harvard Glee Club, Hastings High School Drama Club, and the Hastings High School chapter of National Honor Society. I was also president of the high school concert choir. People in both of my current choirs are trying to make me join management committees, but I'm dodging that bullet.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was not a prefect and I had no responsibilities. I think this is a good thing, I prefer to pull the strings in the background :)

― Menelaus Darcy, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was 'elected' prefect at my local comprehensive school in a pseudo- democratic process nu-lab would have been proud of. As reward we were given a number of ungrateful tasks teachers couldn't be bothered doing.

― stevo, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I still have a prefect's badge as a relic of my bossy heyday aged about 11. Sadly at secondary school we didn't have prefects. At primary school I was a Sweet Prefect which meant that I distributed little sugary sweeties after lunch - 6 for clean kids and only 5 for those who had made a mess.

― Emma, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

To me this is a funny question and I have an equally funny answer! Years ago I met a nice man. His mom was a good friend and a person I had helped on occasion. He is a prominent Movie producer/writer/director. When his Mom introduced us, he said" I finally get to meet the woman who can walk on water... acording to my mother!" Needless to say I don't fit that bill. I told him he must be joking. lol

― Gale Deslongchamps, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My english teacher told me they would be making me a prefect in my second last year and I said I didn't want it. I rock, screw the man.

― Ronan, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Please tell me what a Glee Club is. Is it like a Rag Committee? Or a Student Council?

― Sam, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

its a poncey choir

― anthony, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How disappointing. I was imagining some Young Men In Spats with gaping grins, chock-full of champagne and coke. With Perry carried shoulder-high.

― Sam, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was president of Historical Society which meant organising talks, refreshments and promotion. Out of a catchment audience of, ooh, 950, we would never really get more than 15, ten if we were lucky, maybe 8 being the average (including at least three teachers.) When we did a Christmas quiz, we got slightly more, because it was a 'fun' event. (Actually, it was, because I persuaded the teaching general knowledge king to be on my team, and we won. made me feel big for about 5 seconds.) I was all for the introduction of compulsory attendance for the sixth formers doing history, whom numbered about 65 - I mean, surely this could have been of some use to the lazy bastards. ('Oh, but we don't want to listen to boring stuff' then why are you doing a subject you find dull then, for god's sake?) At my previous school, I was odds-on favourite to be set captain (the saxons set was wot I was in), but I never even got made a prefect, and I liked this, because otherwise I would have had to stay till at least six every day and/or help serve the boarders tea. The teachers told me it was because I was probably too quiet, and they were probably right, although I ended up doing more for the set that year than any of my other 15 years at school. strange.

― Bill, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm never a leader in anything. I sit back quietly and get things done, and I get known for doing things instead of being a cool person. Frankly I don't really care.

― Maira, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

for most of the time spent growing up i craved some kind of authority. every time it has been given to me since then i have misused it (not deliberately abused, just fucked up). it took the obtaining of a position of serious responsibility at university, the subsequent collosal failure and ensuing descent into mental illness before i finally twigged, i just ain't fit to hold any such position.

much as i hate to admit it, i am only fit to be told what to do.

― another james, Saturday, 22 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hi James, You have come a long way you know just really by knowing what the problem is. I'm proud of you! Hugs.

― Gale Deslongchamps, Saturday, 22 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was going to rebut Anthony's charge about a glee club being a poncy choir, but he's absolutely right.

― Dan Perry, Saturday, 22 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

thank you gale. i do feel that shirking all resposibility is, if not the way forward, for now at least the way sideways. i also hug for nato, so have a big cuddle from me.

― another james, Sunday, 23 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i was not a prefect. i was too irresponsible. and worst of all, i didn't play sport!

― di, Sunday, 23 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You people had prefects when you went to school? Did you all go to school in the 18th century?

― hamish, Tuesday, 25 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

close enough Hamish, I went to columba. We aren't all progressive like your scary doll collceting family :)

― Menelaus Darcy, Tuesday, 25 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two years pass...

REVIVE!

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Monday, 19 July 2004 11:02 (twenty-one years ago)

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