Long rant warning.

About a month ago, after a series of missed meetings and frustrating events, we decided to confront our programmer about his complete lack of maturity over countless issues. We tolerated his explosive and often hostile attitude, but when it comes to irresponsibility and a near non-existant control of his own life, we've simply had enough.

The final straw came when he missed two critical meetings (critical because the time-window for planning is very short, considering that we all have our academic studies to contend with), each time with unacceptable reasons. "Oh, I forgot to tell my parents." "Oh, I forgot I had an appointment with the doctor." Those came after we clearly agreed that we would have a 2-hour meeting every Thursday afternoon. Those don't seem troubling on their own, but it's the climax of a long series of unbelievably annoying problems we used to laugh off as his weird quirks.

Put simply, he's a kid. He's extremely talented with programming and his enthusiasm was quite strong. I've known him for a long time, so it's almost natural to have him on the team. I've always thought of him as a powerful specialist who can accomplish much more than I am capable of, but that perception slowly crumbled over the past year.

Well, if maturity alone is the problem, the whole issue wouldn't have been as serious, but he also has a nasty "defeatist" attitude that was, for a while, eclipsed by his firery work habits.

First of all, he's an idealist without boundaries. It's clear after a year of work with him that he can't manage his time and maintain good grades. And yet, beginning his term, he hopes to bring his GPA up, work on the team project, finish his own game, while also adding two serious out-of-college courses to his list of "to-do's". It's insane.

He wants to pursue loli-anime art, even though I've said time and time again that his skills are too weak (his true visual artistic talent lies in product design, such as hi-tech weapons to tanks). He doesn't care to learn how to draw anime, and he doesn't have innate talent to work up an original style on his own. After 4 years, he's still hopeful that something will change. Not unless he himself is willing to change. The thing is, he's obsessed with loli-anime to the point where it's starting to frighten everyone else who knows him. It is his passion, or is it his obsession? There's a fine line there - and I know for a FACT that his talent isn't loli-art.

And then, out of nowhere, he wants to try music composition. Doesn't sound too bad, right? He has absolutely no background in music. All he really listens to is J-Pop. He doesn't know how to appreciate Classical music, which suggests that he's a passive - not active - listener. Also, remember how he needs to improve his grades? Well, if he has some strong motivation from within, that's another story, but that's where it gets much worse.

Here's the thing... much of his life is not in his own control. His mother tells him what to do, and pretty much treats him like a pet in a cage. Nothing wrong with his mother, but although he said himself that he's not content to be chained like that, he's not doing anything to break free. And when he does try, he doesn't know how. And it all comes back to how he's immature. The reason why his parents are not giving him control over his own life is because they don't trust that he can make the right decisions. And it's little wonder why.

He's indeed a specialist, but one that knows little about the world beyond the little coocoon where he's in. There are only a handful of things he ever talk about during any conversation - games, anime, programming, and bits and strands of other stuff. It's not preference - he simply doesn't have a choice; he knows so little beyond the world of games. It's actually disturbing.

Again, his defeatist attitude adds insult to injury. If he wants to break free, he has to do something different. He has to make a change. However, he's blaming his situation to a circumstance that cannot be changed, accepting the cage, because well, that's the only thing he knows about this world. Sad.

As if that's not bad enough, he still exhibits adolescent attitudes. He gets pissed when he loses in games and enjoys winning even though he has to cheat. Meh, insecure adolescent power fantasies. He completely misses the fact that the point of life is "getting there", not "there". He doesn't realize that the beauty of games is in the "process" - the "experience" - and the goal is just there so that you move through the enjoyable process. If it's just limited to games, that's one thing, but he has this attitude towards everything. He curses and screams when the finds a bug in his programming. Amusing at first, but after a while, it's no longer funny.

And there's more to it. When I give him advice, he counters like an angry teenager who refuses to listen to his parent. Why the anger? Has he no integrity?

If you're still following, let's go back to his motivation for learning music composition. There's this game developer who creates a very popular shmup series based on oriental loli girls blasting away at each other. Ever heard of "Toho"? Anyway, it's a "one-man" developer who started a cult following all on his own. He makes each game (allegedly) by himself, doing everything from graphics to music. Suun is the original creator of R-Type, and that alone means that he's godly.

In other words, his incentive is external. Remember how he's obsessed with games and loli? Well, now a superb loli-game comes along, and it's no surprise that now he wants to follow in the footsteps of the creator. The big problem is that you can't follow another person's path so late in life. My teammate's true talent lies in product design and programming, and yet, he's formally pursuing music composition in hopes of being able to become a clone of a legend.

We told him that's he's crazy for trying to do too much. We told him to choose. He chose music composition, so he's officially out of our team. We gave him a great deal of advice though and spent hours upon hours of counseling.

After 2 weeks, the sound guy said that he's hopeless. After 4 weeks, the sound guy said that there's no way we can help him. "He didn't seem to understand anything we said at all." I was doubtful that he's truly passionate about this, and his lack of enthusiasm about music only confirms my fears. Hell, he pushes a book about music appreciation aside; he doesn't realize that the two are intimately connected. After all, for someone who knows so little about music to begin with, how would he compose a great piece without grasping the spirit of what make certain pieces so legendary and timeless?

And I have to add, he doesn't even know enough about hardware to speak up more than a few times during one conservation about computers. And he's definitely not a shy person. He's a programmer who doesn't know hardware. At all.

At first, we decided to wait and see whether he'll turn around and realize his error the hard way, but at this point, I'm personally considering the possibility of refusing his re-entry into the team even though that happens.

Still, there were moments of hope. A number of days ago, the sound guy told me that the guy composed 4 pieces of music on his mobile phone. I was relieved for a second... until "he did it because his van broke down and he had nothing else to do". Ok, not too bad. "They're not his original songs, he just copied stuff". I give up.

Ok, maybe not just yet. I'm going to have one last serious talk with him before I submit to the thought that he's a "non-salvagable" failure. And leave him to discover for himself a life of lost potential. He can be a master programmer and a mean 3D artist, but looks like it ain't happening.

Sorry for the long read. Believe it or not, this is a small slice of it.

so, is this "suun" cat you speak of the same guy as "zun"?  is suun just another way to spell zun?
(zun is the lone-wolf that goes by the name of team shanghai alice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Shanghai_Alice)

That's right.

very, very interesting indeed.
so, is that a thai way of spelling it?  if so, are a lot of japanese (even other languages) words commonly "re-spelled" to maintain a intuitive phonetics?

So what?  I don't give a monkey about classical music.  It's no better than modern music, and deserves no special status.  Maybe people get together and drone on about how technically acomplished some of it is, they're welcome to that. 

I'm very into music, I tend to analyse every detail when I listen.  However, I find most classical music boring, and if your chum does too I don't think it's fair to use that as something to judge his musical tastes and/or talent on.

Wait, you say that Zun has worked for Irem? Do you have a source for this?

Also, would Zun's shooters really be considered "loli?" Unless there's an innocuous sense of the word I don't know about, I've never caught a hint of that and I really hope it isn't true--I'd have to stop playing some of my favorite games.

Just a thought; If we're on the topic of team structure, cohesion, pofessionalism etc., is posting a post-mortem rant about someone else's life, dreams and problems for all the world to read really the best thing to do? I guess the chances of him finding and reading this are slim - at least, I hope so.... I'd certainly have something to say if the leader of a team I was ousted from for 'immaturity' went a-postin' sans my knowledge as soon as things went bad.

Ah, well, I can understand you letting off some steam at a frustrating person. So I'm going to consider most of that just an overexaggeration. I bet you will too in a couple of weeks after you cool off.

wait, what does the "loli" prefix mean?
i'm starting to catch some hint of potential negative connotation...

If you're a well rounded musican you should be able to enjoy, or at least appreciate it. Generally, we don't like what we can't do or understand.