Over the many, many years of working together with a myriad of people, I've climbed the learning curve. It's pretty damn steep, I must say! I started off being a very difficult person to work with and more often than not, I prefer to work alone - a "me, myself and I" concept. Going back to college or uni assignments that required teamwork, I would sometimes finish up the team's assignment and only delegated some minor bits and pieces to my team mates. No, no, don't get me wrong. I don't do that because I lacked faith in my team mates or I do not respect their opinions. I do that simply because I want to work at my pace, and I want it done my way, and I want the entire assignment to flow my style. I have no issues about sharing the credit, of course! We were always in the "A" zone :)
Of course, given the industry I chose to launch my career in, this didn't quite pan out as expected :P (I should've gone on the science skills and become an M.E. instead :P) Because I realized the fact that I generally lacked skills in other areas. Fine example is my disability to draw. I cannot draw to save my life! As such, in an ad agency environment, when a client's brief comes in, I have to partner-up with the creative team and try to get them to follow the brief. Needless to say, I learnt the skills to work with someone else because you relied on that person.
Many years after my starting fumbles, I have acquired some skills. Namely tolerance, patience - BOTH of which I am STILL learning to master, the art of dodging bullets - whether they be intended for you or not, the art of walking a tight rope, the art of keeping faith and having trusts, the art of coping with being sandwiched, the art of choosing your battles - the list goes on. My dearest Ah Por imparted this wisdom to me : "Sometimes, in life, it is necessary to drink both sides of the tea." Simply said, it is the art of not taking sides. Which ultimately leads to learning the skills of getting comfy in a sandwiched position :P It is a never-ending learning curve to climb. And it is pretty damn tiring!
A lot of work indeed, eh? Whilst different partnerships have different dynamics and require different "skills" in making it work, I do believe that partnership is indeed team work. There is no point in calculating who did more, when and what and there is no point in calculating who is "willing" and who isn't either. It is knowing that you can have your squabbles and cat-fights and disgreements and apple-polishing (you know how you sometimes need to pujuk, pujuk, beg and beg someone to do the job for you within deadline? :P) and what-nots, but you never lose sight of the goal post ahead of you at all times.
To me, a partnership is deemed dysfunctional when either one or two parties start pointing fingers or start passing twit remarks or threatening remarks or remarks that are tainted with malicious intent and most importantly, loses sight of the goal post. Don't even talk about screwing a partner over - that's just a straight-into-coffin option for the partnership.
For me, keeping the big picture in mind, I choose to to achieve higher tolerance levels (ok - I just laughed at this statement :P) or rather, I HOPE to achieve higher tolerance levels to make things work. At this stage of my life, I have the option of choosing my battles. If it ain't my battle, then it just ain't my battle to win. You can call me a dumb-ass for all I care! Focus-On-Goal-Post.
Now, hand me that cup of tea, please!
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