Monday, January 3, 2011

Today's fortune: January 3, 2011

Today's fortune: You would do well to work as a team in the coming week.
Okay, embarrassing confession time. There's a certain television program to which I am addicted. It's not appointment TV for me, but whenever I come across the show, I have to stop and watch.

The show is Wonder Pets.

I'm not five years old, and I don't have a child, so there's no logic behind my affection for the show. Jamie would probably say I have a five-year-old sense of humor, which is probably true. But there's something about Linny, Tuck and Ming-Ming too, and whenever I see those cute little Wonder Pets on TV, I'm hooked.

The whole premise of the show is that you can accomplish more as a team than you ever can as an individual. Their most famous expression is, "What's gonna work? TEAMWORK!"



Jamie and I have taken to chanting this around the house, especially when we're both working together on chores or cooking dinner. I know... it's stupid. But, well, there it is. We do it anyway.

I only mention the Wonder Pets because in most ways I think their slogan is true: teamwork, in whatever form, is always the best way to get things done.

The irony of today's fortune is that just today I got out of a teamwork situation and into an individual performance role. At work, I'm nearing the end of a seven-week training session, which has been mostly a classroom setting. As a class, we all worked together to solve problems. Today, we started working individually (which more closely reflects the job). For me, and I think for others in the class, the experience has been a bit jarring. We don't have each other to lean on any more. We're all alone. And it's a little scary.

Teams provide a security blanket. And when a team suddenly disappears, that blanket is yanked away.

We're all going to have to learn how to fend for ourselves now, and in a way that's good. Stronger individuals make up better teams. And if we can swim as individuals, any teams we're on in the future are that much less likely to sink.

Let's talk details: the fortune states that "You would do well to work as a team in the coming week."

Timewise, fortunes don't get much more specific than that.

What other team situations are going to present themselves to me this week? It's difficult to foresee anything coming down the road. But here's something: my wife and I work as a team every day. We complete one another. We finish each other's sentences. I'm generally lost and confused when she's not around. In the coming week, I need to focus on that, and find ways to make our husband-wife team function even more efficiently.

Also, there's this: at my place of employment, there are tons of opportunities to get involved with teams on an extracurricular basis. They have clubs of all kinds, sporting activities and other get-togethers. When I finally leave training in a couple weeks, I'll be on a team with six or seven people. And the managers at my work always refer to the employees as a family. "Family," in a corporate setting at least, is just a softer word for "team."

As Ming-Ming would say, this is sewious. And I'm going to take it sewiously.

Vewy sewiously.

3 comments:

  1. As someone with a kid, I am very familiar with the Wonder Pets. I get those songs stuck in my head a lot, LOL.

    There is another preschool program that I find myself hooked to. It's called Yo Gabba Gabba. I enjoy it most because it hones in on my 80's childhood, with Atari style game/graphics, comic books, and underground music! It's a very fun show!

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  2. The Wonder Pets theme song is my phone's ringer!

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