Learning to live... with you.

We've had about one full week here in the Shenandoah Valley. The snow has kept us home today, but we're still working on AmeriCorps requirements and reviewing our training notes from the office. And blogging, because why not? 

Just for fun: we live with 9 people in 1 house. Here's our "pantry" that lasts us for one week. It doesn't last longer than that!

The past week has been a whole new world. Denver was populated, we were separated from each other, we were mixed with other teams. We didn't hang out in the same room every night and we weren't together ALL. THE. TIME. The worst part? We didn't get to know each other. 

At the beginning, we did light team bonding activities that didn't go over well and received low responses. We had team meetings to review updates and information, and then we were on our way. We got to Denver, and everyone worked in different areas. We only ate together 3 times each week, and our Team PT usually involved other teams so we could have bigger games. Having other teams to be around in Denver was great for our social lives, but it was highly toxic to my team's morale. Did I love it? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Probably. 

I'm not usually the first to admit my faults, but I know I could have done more to bring my team together. However, it would have felt forced and unnatural and I hate to be "that guy" who is always forcing people into activities that they hate. I don't really like to be the asshole, although as a Team Leader it kind of happens a lot.

Being here in the Shenandoah Valley is a different experience for us. We all live in one building, TOGETHER! We cook TOGETHER and eat TOGETHER and work out TOGETHER. The girls share a room, the guys share a room, and I have my own room (one of the TL perks. It usually doesn't happen so I'm enjoying it while it lasts). We have space for meetings and games. We have a game table! It's full of things for us to do together. It's pretty awesome, all of this "togetherness."

I should probably get to the point of this post. The togetherness is killing us. We're just not very good at it. I'm not good at it - I'm an introvert. I'm trying and pushing myself (quite far) to develop my extraverted side. But there are 8 other people who function quite differently than I do, and differently from each other (only two people are the same on their Myers-Briggs test, the rest of us are different!). So I am running a series of Team Workshops to help us learn how we all function. Our first one was Myers-Briggs. While it may not be 100% accurate, it helps us get the general idea that people function differently and have different social needs. If we remember that other people are introverted or extraverted, or that people have stronger feelings or need step-by-step directions or a fully planned out daily schedule, we open ourselves to be accepting of other styles and remember that we each might need to stretch to find a middle ground. For this workshop, we went through each trait and split into groups, and wrote a list of 5 things that will help the opposite work with us, what we need from them, and what about us that we want them to understand. The feedback from the team was really positive, and I hope that we'll continue on a positive path.

A common subject brought up by all members is positivity. They want each other to be more positive, but there are still a lot of bad attitudes floating around, and we are all guilty. Negativity is contagious and misery loves company, but positivity is contagious too. This week we are going to move in to attitudes and moods, and hopefully it generates constructive discussion. I've talked to a few team members about this already, and I'm still receiving input, but so far we've decided that we are going to approach topics from "Can I talk to you before you have your coffee?" to "When you're down, what can I do to lift you back up?" If you had asked me about these conversations before joining AmeriCorps, I would have told you that conversations like this are "bullsh*t" and "unimportant" and that "they don't matter" but honestly, it helps people live in a team environment together. When I think of living with people, I think of family. I've always struggled with roommates, and I lived by myself for my last year of college. Other than that, it's been immediate family. My parents have known me for my entire life. They don't need to ask me what they can do for me if I'm down, they already know. My sisters know when I'm grumpy before I do. The only other person I would picture living with would be a spouse, and not that I have any experience, but I would imagine that those are the kind of relationships where you already know a lot about that person and are willing to compromise. The people you've lived with for your whole life are those who you have been able to mold from, and you have molded them in ways too.  Its is a very different feeling from being thrown into a house with 9 very different people from very different places. You have to learn new things and ways of interacting, and learn how to live with them, because this isn't your childhood home anymore. The little things are usually the things that matter the most, because of perception. Everyone perceives differently, and an issue that seems minuscule to one person is likely a grenade to someone else.

My biggest hope for this round is that we all learn to live together, have fun together, and be open with each other. I feel terrifyingly like my parents when I say this, but the biggest Team Goal I have for Round 2 is one day, just ONE DAY out of our two and a half months, that everyone is pleasant, no one fights, and we all just get along.

I can hear my dad right now in my head, "Good luck, Kid."