Don't apply for mod (unless you're going for local boards, I guess). Applying for mod usually makes it seem like you want mod for the wrong intentions. Not all staff are "moderators" of boards, either, some like hilariousandco with a very large amount of reports are patrollers who can perform moderation actions on posts by Newbies (viewable at the patrol page).

And yes. Mod ain't really fun, you should only want to go for it if you're passionate about it...though 95% of people who desperately want mod read warnings like this and disregard them thinking it's fun. After owning a MC server for quite some time I can testify you get to deal with a lot of idiots. You can probably see that from the Meta section, too.