Hardest personal lesson learned?

[polytechnique]

I learned that it's extremely hard to overcome past reputations and bad first impressions. I have to assume the role of lead mechanic and team president next year, and I can barely think sometimes with the amount of social pressure that a less than savory past couple years of poor attitude and sociability created.

I learned to do my best to not let the little things get to me. Before I would just pop off at the smallest of things, somehow believing it was part of 'being an engineer' and how we 'love to argue.' I was just being a jerk to the people that I didn't need to be, and I regret it. I came from a background that left me extremely socially inept and unacclimated to a public high school climate, and I am paying for it. But sometimes the hardest thing is just keeping a head on my shoulders when half of my team bears down on me and won't let me go from past events and decisions that I just want to distance myself from.

And now I'm praying things will look up and that we can all work together to improve some of the deeper issues with our team, but it might be impossible when some of them drop progress and cooperation for drama and harassment over things that really shouldn't matter anymore.