My preferred role: Plant

If life were just one long groundhog movie set at a university, what role would you play? Would you want to be the ambitious, diligent bio scientist? The lazy but brilliant student who always passes without studying? It’s a no brainer for me; I would choose to be the scatterbrained professor rushing around the university grounds with a stacks of seemingly unorganised papers mumbling to themselves about how to solve capitalist america taking over the world or reminding myself to water the tomatoes tonight. Why would anyone want to be the eccentric, continually preoccupied soul of the campus? Well, I would because they have all the best ideas of course.

I love ideas. I love ideas of ideas. I love ideas that are shocking. I love ideas that err on the side of no possible chance in hell of ever happening. I mean, who needs logic bogging you down anyway right???  I love ideas that create or show others a different way of looking at something. I love ideas for the sake of the conversations they create. And at work I love ideas that create solutions. In fact, I may even be slightly obsessed about that last type of idea. So much so that I have found I have developed into the “plant” of my work team.

As the plant I find myself continually putting my thoughts and ideas out there during our team meetings. While my fellow workmates: a monitor, a co-ordinator and a implementer, sit around discussing the strengths of our current behavioural plan and to put it plainly, playing it safe, I am thinking about the weaknesses and how to initiate change. Of course not every idea I have is a good one, and sometimes I allow a stream of consciousness to exit my mouth without thinking. But I wouldn't change a thing about my preferred role. I start conversations, initiate new ideas and often my extroverted method of communication encourages a sense amenability that allows others to share their ideas easier.

I love being the plant and feel my team role leads me to be an impassioned care worker continually going the extra mile in order to enhance the life of another. Hmmm, do I hear a Mother Theresa complex anyone??? Close, but no cigar. One of the downsides of my team role is that I tend to overvalue my skills and therefore underrate the skills of my fellow workers and overlook their strengths that could be focused on and utilised. Luckily my team get along and work well together so that helps alleviate my messiah type characteristics. 

I have grown personally and professionally through adopting the role of the plant at work. I use to be timid and incredibly unassertive but now I have more confidence and the fact that I did not shy away from the Team Leader position in our group assignment is a good representation of how I have grown. Don't be afraid to fill that slot needed in your group even when you are unsure you have the ability. Challenges are how we grow and mistakes are those lessons that help the most.