To my annoying teammate.

Day 63. A Thursday. An iheart story.

Every time I have put down, “Team Player” in my resume I have lied. I’m not a team player, I’d always rather work alone. In fact I’d rather play alone too.

But now I have a teammate! Technically I should be calling him a partner – but it sounds too corporate-y/marriage-y to my ear, while co-founder sounds too start-up-ey pretentious? So I’m going with teammate, cause I think that says: we have managed to create work that feels like play to both of us.

Here’s the thing though, you’d think that if a self-absorbed narcissist like me enjoys working with another soul, that soul must be Mother Teresa or at least a saint.

He is not. He gets on my last nerve in the following ways:

• He is not a slob

I’d like to believe mood/inspiration has something to do with writing. Apparently not if you have the will-power of an ox? An ant? Whatever animal/bird/flower signifies the epitome of “getting off your butt.” Annoying!

• He is crazy about fitness

Ya, this shouldn’t have anything to do with us working together, but when your teammate makes himself accountable for your fitness goals, work will sometimes begin with the question – “Did you run today?” Annoying!

• He has tall and wide standards

He’d have read this piece before anyone else and is going to pick on my indiscriminate use of hyphens and annoying overuse of annoying so just to annoy him – Annoying!

• He is pessimistically practical

I’m the day-dream believer or in his words, “the hopeless optimist.” The day we began the company, my dreams began. Dreams of writing something that would make the world stand up and take notice, dreams of making so much money we could travel the world twice over, dreams of creating a fun harbour for all those figuring out their lives….

This annoying trait I concede works for me I’m not the one who has to be awake.

• He is punctual – scratch that he is always early.

I’m usually the punctual one – but as usual he has to take it to the next level. So if I tell you about how he panics if we don’t reply to an email within a couple of hours, it’s easy to believe right? Back to being annoying!

• He can’t leave anything to tomorrow that can be done today

And I’m a born procrastinator and I’m going to die a procrastinator. He on the other hand is a precrastinator, you guessed it, it’s annoying.

• He is a funnier writer than I am.

I’m not going to qualify that statement.

I could call him a neighbour, a friend, a fellow clueless sojourner, and they’d all be true – but I’m going with teammate cause that’s the one I’m most grateful for this year.

Cause that’s the one that’s brought me hope and purpose.