I had kind of a lot going on in 2018. But if I were to focus on the “Work Life” sub-account of 2018, and then the sub-sub-account of “Work Life - Good Stuff”, one of the highlights was the fact that 2018 was the first year my work team was stable for a whole, entire, calendar year. And therefore, it was the teamiest year yet. I mean, we teamed the heck out of stuff. We collaborated. We edited each other’s documentation. We cross-trained until we had backups of backups for all of the systems we administer. We shared allergy meds and Excedrin. We were truly team-tacular.
In all seriousness (for about 5 seconds), I spent years slowly building this team of fantastic people. They could frankly be kicking butt elsewhere for more money and fame and sports cars, or at least better office spaces, but for the time being, here they are. And, well, it was nice to have them in my 2018. There was a lot of change in our organization during the year, and a lot of weird new challenges. Being surrounded by people who work hard, innovate, and do it all with almost no direction made it much less of a crazy-pants year.
But speaking of crazy-pants, have I mentioned that my team is also hilarious and outrageous? They are my tribe. We make each other laugh. They accept that I have zero leadership skills but insist that I do. And sometimes we do strange things and call it team-building. We rarely have team meetings anymore, because such meetings tend to be redundant when collaboration is ongoing, but I’ve always insisted on having a team name. The names have ranged from “Team Defeated” to “Team Earth, Wind, Fire, and Kenneth”, but when my newest employee started, we quickly decided upon “Team Random Squirrel”. That was based on our propensity for getting off topic almost immediately, and usually in unexpected and untraceable directions. The name has stuck longer than any other team name, even while we continue to be random (but in a good way).
Here’s hoping that 2019 is a little calmer in the workplace and in life. And here’s to another year of Instructional Technology Randomness with my peeps.
[Random Squirrel logo courtesy @kenneth_rogers / Team Christmas photo courtesy @rseilham holding someone's cellphone]
