Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Team Player

In an email thread earlier today, Nikki brought up the subject of team players and how she's not one. I had a few words to say about that, but I decided to save it for this forum (and give the IT department fewer inappropriate emails to rifle through from my work account).

In my humble opinion, an office team player is a euphemism for person who bends over and takes it up the ass. I'm ashamed to say that I've been a team player for a while now. It's one of the things my boss likes about me. When the department's a (wo)man down, I try and pick up a little slack to keep the ship afloat. When a new person starts, I take them under my wing and show them the ropes.

But, when you toil and toil in a job where you don't feel like you're truly appreciated, the "team player" bullshit starts to get old really quickly. Not only do you stop picking up the slack or showing somebody the ropes, but you start to actively not participate. I feel sorry for Moonrat's replacement because I don't know what he/she will get from me. We have the kind of job that you learn to do mostly from kindness and wisdom of others. I'm afraid that I'm bone dry of that happy, fuzzy stuff.

1 comment:

moonrat said...

I was *so* lucky to have you at all. Other people who were then on our team were known to tell me that they didn't really have time to help but you have NEVER said that (even when you really didn't have time). I feel a little bad for my successor, too, but I hope I've paved the road. I've left really detailed documents that describe most processes and I've crash-coursed Stephanie. Not that there aren't things that are just beyond the realm of document explanations. I wish I could free you of that whole pseudo-responsibility entirely, especially now that you have so much else with which to keep yourself occupied. But alas, that's how I'm not a team player.

I'm sorry (in Buddhist terms) that I never had an opportunity to pay off my corporate debt to you, personally (I don't feel that I have any other unpaid corporate debt, in fact). I can only hope that (in Buddhist terms) in my/our next professional lifetime I will have the opportunity to do so (thereby setting my feet on the path toward enlightenment).