Monday, January 28, 2013

January Relationships: Productivity Partners

Don't you wish you could choose your own colleagues? You know yourself well enough to know what types of people help you create your magic, and which ones you wish would magically disappear. Unfortunately, most of the time, it isn't up to you to make these decisions. You simply wait for the new hire to appear and either mesh or squash whatever dynamic you have going in your work enviornment.

Well, we don't have that problem here at 6&1/2things. Sorry to rub it in your faces that we have the unique opportunity to choose who we work with here at the blog, but we did want to share with you that perfect work enviornments do not exist (even if self-manufactured). Okay, that's a little modest. It is pretty close to perfect here, but it does not exist without many strange little quirks. Here we will share with you some of the more interesting ways that we have had to adapt to one another's style in the hopes that you may have at least a little take away about how to work with one another in a more productive manner. 

CT on Morgz
Working with another person can be tough. I never liked group projects in school. Basically, I always thought my partners would ruin it. However, working with Morgz is easy and never dull. It's structured, but relaxed. We take breaks to paint our nails, we obsess over notebooks and pens, and we sometimes (often) work from Morgz's bed. We both love writing and brainstorm super well together (more like brain tsunami actually because it's messy and foreign and at times destructive). 
Morgz's train of thought can be particularly frightening. It reminds me of a dog watching cars go by, although that would give her too much credit for staying focused on one thing, when in reality she focuses on everything in the world all at the same time. Yet somehow, she is the one that keeps us reigned in on our goals and facilitates all of the planning month to month.

One of Morgan's weird "outfits."  See #2 below. 

Funny things about Morgz that I have gotten used to: 
1. She gets passionately upset about having to pee. It's weird to say the least. She just hates the fact that it is a necessary human function that disrupts so many other activities and trains of thought. 
2. On most days, Morgan's work attire consists of pajamas. A particular Tinkerbell oversized tee shirt comes to mind (she also has an Eeyore one). Her outfits in general can just be plain weird at times. 
3. She likes to work at coffee shops but dislikes coffee. 
4. Her mom calls to check on her often and before she answers she always turns to me and says "shhh... I'm cleaning my house." 
5. She's incredibly passionate about music and wants to listen to it, talk about it, and insert it into every single blog post possible. Sometimes she listens to two stereos at once. While playing the drums. Badly. 
6. She randomly laughs a LOT about stuff that she remembers from the past. I never really know what she is laughing about unless she decides to revisit the object of her laughter and share it with me.  
6.5. This isn't really so much about her, but more about me. An ex-flame of hers from France gave her the nickname Morgz and I have no idea why it stuck with her. I think it's dumb. 

Morgz on CT
I almost just want to show you video proof after video proof of what it is like to work with Sassy Cassie. She is the best and worst colleague I have ever had. And I love her for it. She is my creative counterpart in many ways when it comes to writing and event planning and we just share a ton of the same visions about making our lives in Memphis more fun. She is very, very hard to pin down for actual "work" time because she has rehearsal constantly (the life of a blossoming starlet), but when we do find that time to work together, we are productive enough for a month's worth of work. She is a ball of fun mostly all of the time, unless she is in one of her rare sassy moods, in which case, we just point out the obvious and move on to something else to laugh about. She is the fun and creative spark that this blog needs to survive and venture on paths that I would never think of on my own.

Cassie's unparalleled professionalism on the job

Cassie Quirks that make blogging more fun: 
1. She has to write everything by hand. I think it's because she is fairly narcissistic about her handwriting and doesn't function as well typing on a computer. She has a dance that she is unaware of when she writes. 
2. She will often be "working on a blog post" and when I try and take a look at what progress she has made, I instead see little animal drawings with song lyrics word bubbles instead. 
3. She says weird things that no one else says, like "a of all, b of all." It's supposed to be "first of all, second of all." 
4. She talks to herself while she writes. At one point, a timer I set read thirty straight minutes of talking to herself without a single response from me. 
5. If she has chosen to work on my computer that day, I will find all sorts of weird baby animal pictures on my desktop that weren't there before. Last week, I found a picture of a random animated rat fraggle sucking from a straw. 
6. She freaks out on a constant basis about her teeth, skin, and hair. She will go from wanting to dye her hair brown to blonder within thirty seconds time. 
6.5. She is just jealous that there is a "z" in my nickname and not in hers. 

We seriously doubt that we have given you any help on how to get along with your colleagues, but we do just want to say that we have learned to accept that the other ones works very differently from the other. Trying to fit a colleague into your own work style box could be just as destructive as a 7.8 earthquake. Let them be them and see what kinds of different viewpoints that will bring to the table. As always, if you have any comments or stories of your own that you wish to share, please email us at sixandahalfthings@blogspot.com. Also, p.s. we are going to be adding new writers to the team very, very soon so be on the lookout. 

- Morgz and CT

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