Well I have read the whole thread, and now I am going to completely ignore what everyone else has said and say what I think. I'm going to go on two perspectives.
First of all, rudeness in the world should not exist. People get mad when someone tells them something mean. World conflicts, divorces, government issues, pesky neighbors, racism... all are caused by conflict. Is there anyway to avoid all conflict, no, but each of us (the world) can do our part to make the world a better place. I never tell anyone they are stupid, an idiot, or anything else rude unless it is in a cheerful and joking manner, even then it may not be acceptable. Almost everyday at robotics one of the team members calls me stupid for giving my opinion, even opinions that turn out to be correct.
Me, I just ignore whatever that person says. Some people are just rude because that is there personality, no matter how much everybody else hates it. Volunteers in
FIRST have been rude to me before, and I just take it as a fact that people have their own problems and take it out on the first person they meet.
While I cannot even come close to promising that things will get better, you are the only one that can make a difference. If you believe that what these people have said to you is reason enough to leave
FIRST, then you should contact the appropriate people to attempt to have this problem fixed so it does not happen to someone else. The damage is already done. What you must do is try to fix the damage before the damage comes back and hurts someone else.
(Going with the posts above)
I believe this thread is not only a cry for help, but a warning to those who do have done these things that it will come back to haunt them.
FIRST is an organization that focuses on "Gracious Professionalism" and everyone involved in the organization should exemplify these standards, not just the teams.
EDIT:
I just re-read Craig's post, and I have one more thing to say. I'm talking about the part where he said a power-delusional person kicked him off the team.
I believe the problem with a lot of this world is the use of vertical communication (and if Coach Rusty reads this for some odd reason, I hope I represent you well, as this has really made me think about how people organize businesses).
Vertical communication is a way of communicating from a boss or leader and going down the ladder to the lowest person such as the person who cleans up after everyone is done. Vertical communication corrupts. Also, thought I might add this quote in from somewhere "absolute power corrupts absolutely."
On our team we use horizontal communication. Everybody is basically equal and have the same opportunities. I am the team leader/president/boss so to speak, but on any given day, you would not be able to tell this unless you were on the team and you received emails from me once a week on upcoming events. I do not boss people around and I hate to make anyone mad. I try to do my best to be patient and practice gracious professionalism all the time (to prove it, I taught about 10 elementary and middle school students how to program their VEX robots with MPLAB today). I delegate my tasks to everyone else. Whenever someone has a problem or a question they come to me and I will try to send them to the right person if I cannot help. Today I took out the trash at Fusion, a job that would be looked upon by most as disgusting, especially since whatever was in that bag has had a few days to ripen after all the rain lately. I guess really our team is setup without a president. I'm like the secretary. I have no power to do anything, but I relay information to the team. The only person who has the power to kick someone off the team is the teacher, and he can only do so based on people's behavior and grades. I also look at that person like I would a co-worker. He's not special in anyway except he's the teacher and the one that buys everything and makes sure everyone's grades are up to par.
Here is a good article of what I'm trying to convey:
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/c...full/40/24/4-a