[Steve W]

Boy Andrew, you must have had some bad experiences.

The goal of FIRST is to CHANGE the society that we are in. If you thought that when you reached the real world that everything would be roses then we mislead you. What FIRST wants is that you will be prepared and shown a different way to deal with issues and start to implement were you can. Fill the bucket 1 drop at a time. Will it be easy? NOPE!!! Will you get discouraged? YEP!!! Can you make a difference? Well that one is up to you.

As for working together in the real world and showing GP, yes it is there and can be done. With my job I work with different suppliers and different competition. In both cases things that I have learned in FIRST have allowed me to approach things differently and every time I have gotten better results than those that met with confrontation. The end result every time should be that you (your company) look good without tearing the others down. By doing this GP wins out. The result may not be that you win or get your way BUT people see a positive win-win type of person that they will want representing them.