The Gremlin Allegory

Brothers,

Several of our Chapters are fighting tooth and nail against Gremlins this semester.

If you've never seen the hit 1984 film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Steven Spielberg, I encourage you to rent it, pick up some movie-style popcorn at the grocery store, grab your favorite soft drink and treat yourself to something nice.

To give you a little teaser-description, picture the tiniest, cutest little Furbee-esque (Mogwai came first, but you'll get the reference this way) creature you've ever seen. Feed it after midnight and it morphs into an evil reptilian demon. Just add water, and you have a horde of horror on your hands.

What the heck does this have to do with Mu Beta Psi? you ask.

Brothers getting submissions in on the last day before they're due. Re-prioritizing Psi business somewhere lower on the chain to free up some 'me' time. Skipping out on a rush event because this one night out of the whole rush week they were invited to a party by some guys in a social.

Alone, each of these circumstantial excuses are fine. Once in a long while, they're not exactly a big deal. Harmless, even. But string them together, or spread them among several Brothers at a time, and we end up with a serious problem. Last-minute submissions leave no time for revisions on mistakes, and late submissions slow down the whole organization. If half the Brothers skip a rush event, it's not much of a rush event. Who's there for the potential pledges to meet? Putting off Psi business collectively means not doing anything, not fulfilling our purposes, not having a Brotherhood. Just add water, and our small excuse-powered indiscretions become major problems.

Don't get me wrong; we all need a break in our schedules, and Mu Beta Psi is absolutely an additional responsibility. However, it's one that has HUGE rewards for the work we put in. If we all commit to every rush event, we demonstrate and reinforce solidarity in our Brotherhood - and we have more fun there, anyway, knowing we've all made the same time for each other. If we get all of our submissions in early, not only will the National Office be better equipped to help us when we need it, but we'll totally get bragging rights as the most responsible Chapter (Oh, and did I mention I'm giving a prize at Convention for that this year? Yeah that's happening).

Some people think the most important reason for handling your elected or appointed positions well, for getting your requirements out of the way -- for takin' care of business, if you will (oh, it's gonna be stuck in your head all day now. I'm not sorry.) -- is that sense of accomplishment, that knowledge that our Fraternity is continuing on the right track and we're getting stuff done. Sure, that's a valuable feeling and a vital *result*. But I really believe the most important reason for living up to our fraternal responsibilities is exactly that - they are *fraternal* responsibilities - obligations to our Brothers. When I take on a position, a project, even a small task in this organization, I take it seriously not just because I'm an upstanding citizen with a conscientious attitude (though I am that, and modest, too ;-D) but because I treat each new accepted responsibility as a promise to my Brothers. They're counting on me to do what I've taken on and to do it well, and I refuse to let them down. That's what Brotherhood is based on, after all - our trust in one another, the fact that we can count on each other to be there. What better way to demonstrate trustworthiness than to make good on promises, even those that are only implicit?

I'm not going to pull any preachy rhetorical stunt by returning to my Gremlins parallel - I think you got the point. If you love your Brothers, do your job better than you ever expected to be able to. They will love you back for it, and you'll avert disaster. Two gremlins, one stone...

In Brotherhood always,
Garrett Cooperman
NVPCM