I find the role in which I am most comfortable in my work teams is a strange mix of arbitrator/rescue worker/jester. I try to keep everyone getting along, or failing that, act as the go-between for people who cant speak directly to each other without blowing up. Im good about getting my assigned work done on schedule, but for some reason a last-minute emergency kicks me into Code Monkey Overdrive and I can accomplish miracles in 6 hours when a normal task took me a week. Maybe its the adrenaline. On the last one, I try to inject humor into meetings, chat rooms, emails, you name it. Probably because Ive noticed that unless were in a crisis time-crunch situation, defusing the atmosphere with a silly laugh or two loosens people up, and the ideas start flowing better and more willingly. People stop running in mental circles of OH GOD WHAT IF WE CANT FIX THIS and after they finish snickering, are more like OK, so seriously, what should we do to fix this? Ideas? I got into the habit of it because its just my nature; I abhor tense, confrontational situations like nobodys business. Its only in the last few years that Ive started realizing it actually might count as a beneficial work skill rather than just a coping mechanism. Hard to put on a resume though. (Not that I need that at the moment, thankfully!) Todays example: our team was doing a post-work sprint retrospective meeting. Normally we have four categories up on the white board for people to write comments under: Things that worked, Things that didnt work, Action items for next sprint, and Kudos to people. Since I got there before the manager, I took the initiative and decided to lend some Southern Cali flair to the meeting: Things that were righteous, Things that were bogus, Stuff we got on tha down-low, and Peeps who are shibby! ^_^
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 02:04:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015