There is no "I" in Team, but there is one in Cliché

Yesterday was the first day of my summer job. For those of you who don't know, I work at a Camp for kids with special needs in Broomall. And make no mistake about it, I love my work. It's rewarding in many different ways, and I legitimately enjoy getting up on weekday mornings in July and August because of this. Like any job, however, it has it's annoying points. One such point was yesterday, where "Melting Pot Day" (AKA Awkward Orientation Day) consumed both my time and my cliché quota.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the concept of chemistry on a job site. It makes the work easier, and ultimately, the day shorter, because there's a flow that it wouldn't have if everyone hated each other. But yesterday was the embodiment of the opposite extreme, where the big wigs think a day of ice-breakers and team unity meetings will ultimately result in coworker chemistry. This, as you can imagine, is false.

I could go into all the juicy details of what made this day painfully slow and uncomfortable but I will just recount one 45 minute seminar on being excellent "head counselors". The leader of this talk was one of the camp directors who is well loved by Easter Seals because he is a by-the-book, team player (vomiting in my mouth) who runs his camp in a way that gets the financiers of the operation to open their wallets wide. While I admire his work and dedication to the job, I am not certain that he is a real person. For 45 minutes this guy rattled off overused quotes, unrelated quotes (to the subject matter), nonsensical quotes (sounded like someone was attempting to be profound and failing miserably) and team clichés. He harped on one quote more than others, one that he undoubtedly made up.(NOTE: I would write the quote but I intentionally blocked it from my memory) He had us go around in the circle and say what the quote meant to us individually and how it related to best carrying out our jobs. My turn hit, and I couldn't help but be brutally honest. "I really think this quote was taken from a Hallmark Card in the "Encouragement" section and has nothing to do at all with what we're talking about, but I think a good leader...." Needless to say, my ideas weren't his favorite. Teacher's Pet Award went to the girl to the right of me, who chimed in by relating the quote to a genius acronym. When she heard the quote, she thought of TEAM: TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE. Almost to the point of awe-inspired tears, he brought up the "There is no 'I' in TEAM" garbage and continued to give more gems for the duration of the meeting.

At one point he said with an underlying tone of care (and idiocy), "Listen guys. We all have days where we wake up on the wrong side of the bed...figuratively speaking."

Oooooh, thanks for clarifying, because I was under the impression that you meant the literal wrong side of the bed. Listen, I'm sure his intentions were great, but he spoke in a way that was incredibly pretentious, and he wasn't exactly imparting any groud-breaking knowledge on anyone.
(SIDE NOTE: I love the word "pretentious" Truth be told, I think I'm a pretentious you-know-what sometimes....still, it's one of my favorite words)

I'm glad that the worst day of the Summer Camp has passed and I'm sure that I will incorporate information gleaned into being a more well-rounded group member in my place of employment. GO TEAM!!!