Personal Reputation

When I was six years old my grandpa taught me how to play chess. At the time I was still living in Romania and there weren’t any real competitions or tournaments for my age group where I could test my skills. Instead I would usually go to parks near my house with my grandpa and play chess against retired people. It was something I enjoyed doing and had fun whenever I would actually win. Even though later I would realize that the chess that I learned to play in the parks was very unconventional and not recommended for a beginner I came to realize that the eccentrics of it helped me see things different and from a different point of view when I learned how to play more professionally. When I came to America my parents quickly found some local chess tournaments and they took me to see how I would do. I played unconventional openings without much strategy that many kids my age had. Nonetheless I finished third in that tournament and won myself my first trophy. At the time my English wasn’t very good so playing chess was an easy way for me to interact with other kids without having to speak much. Pretty soon after I started participating in chess tournaments on a weekly basis and so my reputation started to increase amongst other players and the parents that were involved. The better I got the more I moved up to the point I would play against opponents that were on average five years older than me.

After a couple of years of playing chess professionally, filling my room up with trophies and medals and getting trained by an actual chess grandmaster I started to become confident and cocky knowing that most often I was better than anyone from my area. That year was also the first time I participated in a state tournament for all of the players from Illinois. The first couple of games from that tournament I quickly found out that for one I wasn’t as good as I thought I was and second I made a lot of critical errors because I didn’t focus enough and went into the games too confident and cocky. I did terrible that tournament and quickly became discouraged when I saw how many games I lost and that most of the games that I lost were to people younger than me. After that tournament I felt that my reputation degraded and my friends started to make fun of me because I lost to a seven-year-old kid at the state tournament. After that tournament I actually quit playing chess for a couple of months because I was too embarrassed at how badly I did at the state tournament and I felt like everything that I worked hard for crumbled down on me. I felt like none would see me as a real threat anymore and they wouldn’t be scared to play against me because they knew that if a seven-year-old could beat me then so could they.

I was disappointed in myself because I let my reputation be in control of me and make me lose my focus when I needed it most. After a couple of months of being absent from any chess competitions I finally decided I wanted to go back to playing but now for a different reason. Instead of me trying to rebuild my reputation within the chess community in my town I opted to just go and play for fun, play the same unconventional style of play that I was raised up to and had a lot of fun with. I no longer had an instructor to teach me different openings and strategies and I no longer wanted to get to the point I was at before because I realized just how stressful it was to stay at a high level.

Consequently, me starting to play for fun and becoming humbler made me realize that there was more to life and to this game than reputation and the more fun I had playing the better I did in games and inadvertently my reputation increased again. The national chess tournament was happening that year also and my mom persuaded me to give it a try since I have been doing so well in my recent local tournaments. This was when I was in eight grade and I was getting ready to go to high school and I no longer wanted to pursue a chess career instead I wanted to try to move away from chess for a while and try new things in high school so going to nationals that year was an end to my competitive chess career for a while. Going in to that tournament without any expectations and without being cocky made me get the 67^th place nationwide for my age group out of 900 players. Even though I didn’t win first place I ended up making a name for myself throughout my friend group at school and outside of school. The lessons that I learned about how to handle reputation is an invaluable tool for me and it taught me how important it is to not let the confidence and cockiness that comes with reputation get to your head if you actually strive to maintain it at a high level. For me in the present day I prefer being an underdog and not let something that I did in the past influence the people around me, instead I want my actions in the present to build my reputation. 

The Principal Agent Problem

I have not had the opportunity to witness this principal-agent model too much because the jobs that I worked at never really had any of these issues worth talking about regardless of the lack of exposure to this issue I have witnessed this a couple of years ago when I visited my uncle in Scotland and worked part time at his amusement park. This park was divided in two parts; one part was filled with animals you could look at and even feed some and the other half was filled with a track for ATVs and some slides that little kids could go through. The main issue that took place there was with people complaining that the staff was being rude to them for not letting them either pet all of the animals or ride the ATVs faster than what the limit was set on them. These measures were set in place as a safety measure for everyone and the managers understood that the staff was just doing their jobs and took our side most often although in front of the customer they would side with them to show them that they cared. Although this relationship worked for many years one summer when I was working at the park there was an incident that happened. There was a change in managers over that summer and some of them wanted to start to make the rules less restrictive because they believe that those safety measures deterred a lot of people away from coming to the park but a group of the old managers still supported the old rules put in place. Well within two weeks there began to be a lot of confusion amongst the staff regarding what to do. One of the new rules was to make the ATVs less restricted and faster. That was a main issue for a lot of the staff because we realized that doing that would mean it becoming less safe for the visitors so no one really did anything with that until one day when one of the new managers went down to the ATV area and told us to take off the restrictions because the park was losing money since people wanted the ATVs to go faster. That day a kid came to go on the ATVs and although we instructed him to go slow at first in order to get a feel for the ATV and only after a while to ramp up the speed. Well he started alright but quickly panicked and instead of hitting the break he accidently hit the acceleration throttle making him accelerate off of the track and into a creek that was nearby. He ended up with a broken arm, broken leg, and some broken ribs. A helicopter had to come pick him up and take him to the hospital because the injuries were that serious. This incident caused a lot of stress for everyone working there because they didn’t know what to do and what to say when the parents threatened to sue the place for being unsafe for children. We were in trouble because we followed the orders of one of the managers but the written rules were still the same as before in regards to the restrictions of the ATVs. Gladly the other managers realized what had happened and the lack of communication that was going on lead to a life threatening incident. The manager that decided to change the rules without going through the process was quickly terminated and the park paid the family for the lawsuit. In this case the staff was also disciplined because it was also our fault for listening to one of the managers without receiving a physical change of rules or being briefed by everyone beforehand. Personally after this incident and all of the stress it has put me through I learned to always question things and to make sure that before I make a change to something that it is alright with everyone else as well and before I take orders that involve big changes such as this to make sure that I am protected by following these changes by seeing something written or being instructed to do so by a collective of managers.

The Fountainhead Conflict

From the book The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand there is a dispute between an architect and his boss. The architect (Howard Roark) wants to design buildings of unique style that doesn’t match anything that has been done in the past while the firm that he works for wants him to design only what people tell him or follow some style of architecture that has been done in the past.  The architect was recently expelled because of a lack of working with other people and making the designs that were asked by his professor. He didn’t believe in following the instructions of the professor because his beliefs were that if the architects were to only design and follow old architectural models then there will never be an advance in the designs and everything will plateau. Although he had this type of independence about him he was still undeniably considered a genius and was hired by one of the biggest architectural firms in New York. At one point in his early career his boss asked him to design a house for an important client, but it had to be done in the same style as an old British house. Howard was torn between actually following the guidelines given to him or doing his own design on the house and trusting that his skills to convince the buyer that his design would be more practical and prettier. Without telling anyone about his plans he started working and a while later his boss found out about Howard’s intentions but by the time he found out the foundation for the house already started and a lot of money has been put in. The disputes between Howard and his boss started. Howard was a shy person that kept to himself most of the time and he would only give a one-word answer most of the time but regardless of his personality he believed in his design and stood up for it even if it meant that he would get fired. His boss was furious at the subordination of his employee and was ready to fire him but after he saw how much money has been invested he took a chance with Howard threatening to sue/fire him if the building would not be to the customer’s expectations. Later that year when the house was finished it become one of the most popular/beautiful houses in New York.

            After the gain of trust and gaining some popularity amongst other architects he quickly moved up in rank in his firm, to the point where his life took a turning point and he was asked by his boss to try to “woo” one of his biggest client’s daughter in order to get in a better relationship with him. This caused many problems with Howard because he already had a girlfriend and this looked unethical to him. Because Howard liked to be independent in his thinking and do whatever he thought was best didn’t want to pursue this request and had a hard time deciding what to do. His mother also urged him to try to purse this woman but the way he saw everything is that in doing this he would be lying to himself and secondly since the woman was the lead editor of an architectural magazine it would like he was only trying to get to know her for the sole reason to better himself in the architectural world. Also, another conflict was that one of his better friends was currently trying to talk with her and had a little bit of history with this woman. Ultimately in order to keep both his boss happy and his mom happy he gave in and started talking with the woman (Dominique Francon). Although he gave in and for the first time he followed someone’s orders he didn’t feel himself anymore and he believed that because of this his architectural integrity was breached and at most times felt inadequate to design his style of buildings anymore.

            He felt that he could not keep this up anymore and the only solution was to break up with Dominique and quit his job if this is what it took to regain his personality again. This solution lead to him getting a single bedroom apartment in New York and starting his own practice but it wasn’t easy for the young architect to gain traction because of the negative comments that were published in the papers by Dominique and his former boss but at least he now felt like himself again and even though he didn’t receive many orders and mostly did small inexpensive building designs he was finally happy again. Throughout the book he once again gains fame and popularity but this time by doing things his own way. Analyzing the conflict that happened between Howard and his boss we see that following direction is not always the best for the individual and conforming to society leads to one forgetting who they are. Although not always best it is important to break rules once in a while, believe in yourself and do things the way you think should be done. By doing this Howard was able to escape the feeling of being trapped and love himself again. The one regret that he mentions that he had is that he waited that long to resolve his conflicts and take action.