Team work. Team building. Team meetings.

There’s a whole lot of team-themed language that’s used in how we think about the folks we work with and the projects we develop. And teams are great. Darn great. But last night I started to think maybe the team analogy had spread just a bit too far.

I had a beverage and was talking to tech support trying to get an adaptor for my computer. The guy on the other end of the phone was clearly baffled by what i was asking for and I was about to hang up and offer to call back during the day when he peaked my interest and said, “Hey. I’m stumped here. Let me consult my team members. Is that okay?”

Is that okay? It was awesome. I suddenly felt like a VIP having folks huddle up for a super important chat about my problem. Need for second beverage aborted. I had a team on it.

Tech support guy comes back on the line within a minute and says, “I’m super sorry. They didn’t know either. Its really a tough one.”

That was a pretty fast team meeting, I thought. Did no one have to even use dry erase markers? Get together an action list? Disappointed I asked, “So who is your team? Am I going to get the same team working on this if I call during the day?”

“Oh no!” tech support said. “You’ll have another team for sure. They might know.”

I persisted. “So your team is…..??”

Sigh on the other end of the line, “Well,” he confessed, “I’m working out of the house, so I asked my son. He has that kind of computer.”

So that would be a hard no on if they used dry erase markers to solve my problem.

Update: Latest search of Google News suggests no cure for cancer. These folks are just really happy. Why can’t my team get that excited about their protein assays?

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