RE: "Team Player" - Please Define?

["Higgins, Lisa" <LHiggins -at- carrieraccess -dot- com>]

Tony:

> > I am looking at a tech comm job listing that states that 
> > the future employee must be a "team player".  What is meant by this?  
> > Specifics  please.

Well, in my limited experience, the term 'team player' is generally preceded
with 'not a' and is a safe and legal way to get someone fired for being
funny looking or smelly or having shifty eyes.

My reaction to seeing it without the negation is similar to my reaction to
words like 'gruntled' and 'ept.' If we treat it as a back formation, then,
I'd say it means someone who fits some nebulous and abstract criterion that
we'll know when we see it.

Andrew Plato:

> Inequality is the natural state of all social beings, some will
> excel while others will fail. Not everybody gets to be CEO. 

I also don't 'get to' have antlers or a parasitic twin. Dang! 
 
> A true team player is probably somebody that would make you want to puke
they
> were such a goody-goody, teacher's pet goober. 

See now, I think that if the term had not been coopted by soulless
reprobates, a team player would be someone who is open, helpful, and hard
working; someone who spent his or her energies on doing a good job rather
than appearing to do a good job. But we live in a parallel universe--which
is why we all wear turtlenecks and have little black goatees--and a 'team
player' in our world is a lying, thieving ingrate.

If you want the job, make sure to regale them with tales of hoodwinking old
ladies and thonking kittens* on the head to get their balls of yarn. 

Lisa.

*The use of kittens in this example is an obsequious attempt to curry the
favors of Andrew Plato in hopes that he won't flame me and hurt my feelings.