Seifer jumped up on the hood of a Taxi driver while he is away eating breakfast…

Just a small question I wanted to bring forth this morning, as time has passed and people have come accustom to quantity over quality the question I have is the caliber on recruiting your recruits, and should the quality or detail hopefully bear a solid member?

Not pointing out names but so many people simply asking “You did our work you should join our family”, ive even come across people telling me “You did our work, now you have to join our family”. Now I know as my father was a proud mobster, I don’t appreciate people telling me what I “have” to do unless it is my boss, nor do I think its an appropriate approach to try and force somebody into doing something they might not want to do, hell ive even went into detail with some sponsors and they were mad I had questions? Of course people should be respected, and ranks should be respected, but where in the contract does it say im not allowed to choose, or ask for better knowledge to who I am working for? People simply just expected me to join them because they asked and messaged back, and when I say no, there are some hands or sponsors getting snappy with me, explaining that im a waist of there time?

Ive always been a fan of hearing conversation over someone slamming me with a massive novel to read over, I would think that most new comers are the very same. Surely they want to experience our way of life, with some guidance of course with a one on one with an advisor or someone that knows our way of life.

I or the new guy will have different questions then the next, this is the beauty of one on one learning, and what should be taken in high priority as what interests one guy might not be the focus of the next.

Speaking of all honesty a large number of new comers will not produce in our world to the sole purpose of the way things are, which is understandable on both ends. (They loose interest, or don’t agree with the actual lack of mafia standards this place up holds. At the same time our world demands a certain standards for ranks, CL’s, and GFs but is not up held when it comes to looking for hands, or family positions, people want experience) Now the understanding is there, that bloodlines and such have teachings of such experience through journals and such that the new comers do not which gives a lot of the new comers a dis advantage, at the same time the younger mafisos who have seen the way of our life and learned through parental guidance what to do is favored. My point being is that someday everyone wants to be there own boss, or in high stature to there GF or boss. This aint a tea party, nor has our world ever been fair, it’s the mafia. But I do ask about the lives of our new comers, are they just a number, or are we truly teaching them  and giving the option to go where they want?

I always favored that an individual had to make the decision what was best for them, and not be forced, or for there not be bad blood over a decision you made coming into our world.

Jumping off the taxi he see’s the driver coming out with some left over’s, he then offers the taxi driver a bill for his left over feast which he accepts where he then continues down the street gobbling up his left over breaky...

Tony overhears the speaker on the hood of a taxi cab. He wonders to himself if teh guy was perhaps drunk "but then again" he says to himself. "I know a drunk when i see one and he isnt living up to the right standard that Drunky has set, if he is in fact drunk. I think i will humor him" said Tony to no one in particular. 

My dear friend, i completely understand where you come from. i cant speak for other sponsors, but i have always been partial to the small talk. You can tell a lot about a person just by RPing a bar scene and buying your potential recruit a drink. I can assure you that none of what you speak of would come from me. You are absolutely correct when you say that you dont "have" to do anything when your not in a crew. However, if you dont like the way a sponsor approaches you, you can always stear a convo in a way that would suit you.  I can tell alot about the person i am speaking to just by the way he talks. As long as you are respectful i see no reason why you cant speak your mind to the sponsor in question. You can also just tell him that you appreciate the offer but want to keep your options open and just move on to a different crew's jobs and talk with them. As a Sponsor we are responsible for setting a good first impression for our crew. some are good at recruiting and some arent. it just depends on the person. Thats all i can really tell you man.

Walks up to tony an offers his hand for a friendly handshake…

 I can assure you, im not drunk though I wish I was, for the sake of some of the recruitment messages I had received maybe I would not be so worried and just shrugged it off. Guess it is outta my league none the less, just thought it would be important for people to know that there still is some out there looking for a respectable person to approach them.

Seems some people cant even produce the RP for an introduction.

Its simply, hey you did our work you should join us?

What if I was a person looking to rogue, not saying that I am im just saying people are in it for the numbers, they might as well just send and invite without even talking to people if this is the norm.

I truly believe if a leader respects there family, they should respect who joins it. I don’t want to be just a number, I don’t know how someone can expect me to put in solid work for them without giving me some insurance that is appreciated or helping, sorry but im not a tool, sponsors and such should be role models, if they are mute and lazy, what kind of members do you expect them to produce?

Sadly enough, most sponsors don’t actually know there role, or up keep with it. They just want to invite people to make the numbers look good.

Tony takes Seifer's hand and gives him a firm but friendly handshake.

I agree. you shouldnt just ask someone to join you without first learning a little about them. unfortunately though, even doing it the right way we have no way of knowing who will rogue or who is a good member, without first giving them a chance to show us what they got. However, some sponsors should rethink their methods of recruiting. when i join a family i want to know what they can do for me, not just what they want me to do for them. its like i said before, its all about teh first impression.

Timon was walking down the street when he heard the faint voice coming from around the corner. Out of interest, he approached the scene and listened to the man speak. After he was finished, Timon stepped forward and voiced his own.

"Good evening, Seifer. After hearing what you had to say there was some that threw me off, and some I understand completely. I certainly can see where doing jobs for families can certainly bring their attention to your front doorstep, and that's the time you get to use to know each other a little better. As far as questions go about what they are about and what the city efforts are, I can see why. Nothing wrong with that at all.  I've always been a man whose bloodline always liked to chat with a few people running families before making my choice.

It has worked for my ancestors very well.

However, hands and CLs getting snappy with you? I'm sorry, but I honestly find that extremely hard to believe. When my bloodline has looked for a family I don't think I ever got that vibe from people because I show them respect to begin with. They certainly deserve it a lot more than just some blood fresh off the boat. I don't think the majority of them would go on the offensive unless they felt disrespect first in some point. Which I'm sure that the sole fact of not joining their family probably isn't the reason they would act like you claim.

Newcomers on this shore have just as good chance as anyone else these days. There is a ton of room for new blood to work their ass off and make something of themselves with all the options of crews, choices of Godfathers to work for, and to the opportunity to choose from any of the different flavors out there that is lurking about. With crews being smaller than they once were, it opens room for more hands on teaching. There are spots out there for the taking, they just have to reach up and grab them.

The hard truth is.... In this world, no one makes you do anything. The choice is always yours."

He gives a nod to the man and takes a step back to make room for others to speak. While waiting, Timon pulls out a cigarette but can't seem to find his matches.

"hands and CLs getting snappy with you"

I can assure you there was no CLs getting snappy, by sponsors I mean people in there family trying to recruit.

And LH who admitted he was green, but felt I should not question him because he was a LH. Which would have been rite in most cases if I had done something to insult him, asking questions and him comparing his views compared to my fathers is not a crime is it? I never insulted him, or gave im a reason to jump on my back.

After all he approached me, I was just being honest with his questions, again not in a dis respectful manner. Its not my style.

He was just quick to act like my boss, and expected me to fold over and bow to his position before I was even part of his organization.

Im not pointing fingers because I have respect, I just made the speech so people know its going on.

I come from the old country, excuse my ignorance, but this is where my teachings come from.

Timon nods his head some more in agreement and finally finds some matches in his front pocket. He pulls one out, lights it, and took a drag from his cigarette.

"My apologies, I completely misheard you. I'm just on my way to grab a coffee and some donuts this fine morning. I'm afraid I have had a rough night; impossible to catch some good sleep.

I was just comparing my encounters using the same method as yourself and never ran into that problem. However, I can see an individual doing something of that sort. Which doesn't seem fair to the fresh blood, but I think the interested felt their money directed to the jobs had been wasted. That's completely off basis though as that's what the money is there for.

I wouldn't call it ignorance on your part either, my friend. I completely see where you're coming from. Things shouldn't be like that in the slightest. My belief is that some people are just better at recruiting than others. There are some you can tell that might not be that great at it at all, but they do give a very well fought effort at doing well. Other have a speech memorized by heart, and I know there are some out there that will strike you with a sentence or two to try and spark up some kind of conversation.

I guess all of that just depends on the person... I wouldn't think of any I named as bad ways of doing it, but some people like yourself are a tad old school about things and know differently through your bloodlines' journals. I wouldn't call that a fault. I'd call that a gift."

Not even bother to RP an introduction? Someone get this man to an OOCitis clinic. At the risk of joining him in the loony bin, though, please tell me: What, pray tell, do you call the thousand or more words of RPed jobs you just did but an introduction? Why do you expect that, after you've already put in at least three full days of work for us, that we'd need to say something more detailed than "hey, wanna make that gig you've already been doing permanent?"

Those jobs you did were an introduction to the family. Those jobs took the place of a large portion of the of interaction that might have happened via mail. Your character has, by the time you get that first mail delivered to your house, spent several days interacting with me. At that point I have already experienced the fact that you're willing to do some work and it doesn't have to be the 'clean' variety. That alone is enough to justify pulling someone in as an associate.

You want to move up to become a friend of ours rather than a friend of mine? Yeah, I'll need to get to know you more for that. I'll have plenty of opportunity for that part later. To be nothing more than an associate? Hell no!

Shifting gears. It's early and I haven't had my Irish coffee yet. I have some... thoughts... about people who would send a message saying you "have" to join them after a few jobs. I'll save it for a later time to express those thoughts. Spoiler alert: they're not very nice thoughts.

But I also have some thoughts about how someone who had absolutely no intention of joining anyone would go do a bunch of their jobs, which you obviously knew would be an expensive proposition for them, and then act all surprised that people got upset that you wasted their time and money. You not only did it, you did it knowingly and contemptuously disregarding the effect it would have on other people.

Now, you can look at the mail you got from me after I fired you, and you can see that I didn't let that annoyance show until now. I'm a cool guy like that. But if you're going to go speechifying about this sort of thing I'll express it. I'd say just for starters, the first thing you probably should do is reimburse all the people whose money you drained. And I don't mean in the amount of the paychecks you drew from them. I mean in terms of the actual cost of those training programs -- a number which I understand is something on the order of twenty times higher than the paychecks themselves. We didn't put those training programs in place so that we could piss away our money on folks who never had any intention of putting those skills to use for us. We put those training programs in place to provide an introduction to people who would be potentially interested in joining the crew.

I don't see why you're being all self-righteous about the fact that people told you off when, in all honesty, you pretty much deserved it. It maybe wasn't that classy of them to tell you off. But it's not very classy to call them out for it, either.

Drunky, I was not actually talking about anyone from your family, though I did do some of your families work. (Because the tutorial told me to, and in order for me to buy drugs before I got an invite to where I wanted to be, yes I had to get past that part on the tutorial to play the game and I rushed into some work before I joined the family I was intending to join, you want the couple hundred back, by all means take it.)

But just speaking on the subject if I was a new blood to this world, family’s jobs are all I can do, there are no petty crimes like after you are in an organization for me too do. I have no choice but to commit the crimes designated by the leaders. So if people are upset that I don’t wish to join them after doing there crimes, that’s on them because ive been forced to do a dozen others to advance and learn.

I had messages shortly after I set foot on this street, without even doing a crimes asking me to join crews, hell I cant be certain as they instantly got cleared but I don’t even think I got messages for some of the invites that were passed out!

Im glad you have put a certain caliber into your jobs, and take pride in them as I would, but if you think your jobs are going to be a deciding factor in who comes your way im sorry, im not only speaking for myself, I noticed people want to talk to people, they will have questions. (Is there guidance in your crew, if your not here is there others to look towards, perks to being in a particular city maybe, maybe I like to RP can I look forward to that in your city? Its easy for me to see what everyone else see’s, can I expect the same excitement after doing your crimes?). When someone approaches me, yes I hope there is a sort of introduction, im not looking for an insight on the whole family dig but id like to know who and what organization is approaching me and why?

Is it because I did there crimes? Perhaps they like my work? (if I politely say no can I really be at fault since I have really no choice but to choose from your family crimes or another?)

Maybe they caught me in jail trying to bust people out?

Maybe they caught me doing another act?

I got none of this, I may have gotten one message from you about your work, and I didn’t even finish all of it. And I politely and correctly stated my purpose. I wasn’t hiding anything or did anything wrong.

I do not how ever liked being whored when there ARE people like you putting in an effort, trying to make a difference. If no body says anything who is to know, I haven’t named any names or dis respected any people directly, call it a heads up if you will, some people still give shit.

Call you what you will, ive done this is the most respectable way I could, without pointing a single finger in the most public fashion a thug like myself could.

I'll be petitioning City Hall to make an opt out for the jobs boards either exist, or be more prominent than it currently is. I was certainly under the impression that no one would be in the position of being forced to mooch people's jobs to gain the street cred needed to approach a drug dealer. I think much of my rant may have missed the mark because of that misunderstanding.

In any case, from my perspective of attempting to use the job board to reach new faces, I find it a travesty -- a waste of everyone involved's time, and my money -- that someone who has no intention of joining a crew should feel compelled to do that crew's jobs anyway.

I will say the jobs board is not a perfect system, with people proving in the coffee shops on irc avenue how abusable it was.  It was not till i moved down to bip's crew how frustrating it could be to say to someone look you done a few jobs for us, you new or whats your plans here and 75% of the time to be ignored or here they already know where they are going and just wanted cash.  My guess is city hall should limit how many jobs for different families people can do, but thats just me.

As for whoring, is not the first reports i have heard regarding unsolicited invites with a left hand from an east coast city sending out invites without talking to people as soon as they see them new to the shores.  The old days they would be named and shamed and maybe the whole family killed off, but we have a softer approach for some reason these days.

I believe if players want guidance and interaction the mails they will get anyway after using the jobs board and the quality of them is what will attract some even though many will still go wherever they were going anyway, fall into a coma or join a crew saying the right things just to suicide later.  It becomes i guess more frustrating when in some cases people ask for an invite after a level of conversation with people and stll join someone else or go ia but maybe thats just me.