In life, we must have balance. Having said that, when I am almost bursting with joy at the potential of a situation…reality will inevitably step in and say, “Snarkwife, you knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, right?”

With my newfound confidence yesterday morning, I set out to build a team. I found a couple of people with whom I’d like to work and immediately shot off emails to them. I likened this to a virtual playground, where you start picking teams for dodgeball and eventually, the “losers” are left standing around awkwardly without anywhere to go until someone takes pity on them…well, because they have to. You’re left wondering why those people didn’t think you were good enough…or smart enough.

It was for this specific reason that I sent my requests out via email…it just seemed more polite, probably because I was one of those kids who was rather far down on the pecking order for teams. Other people in the class though, took to using the threaded discussion itself to recruit team members. We’ve had roughly 25 people introduce themselves, and three have jumped right in and said, “I think you, Mary, Bob and I (or Mike, Matt, Karen & Jennifer) would be a great team. Let me know what you think.” The bummer part…one of them was someone I emailed at about 8 AM yesterday, but hadn’t heard back.

With that, I’ve formed a team with two other people, and we’re on the hunt for a fourth…sounds like we’re about to play a round of golf. A few emails have been exchanged, and we’ve even discussed meeting for mai tais somewhere in Hawaii when I’m there, rather than meeting up at some stuffy Starbucks! One of my teammates is a competitive triathlete in her spare time…another has three sisters, and has said he wouldn’t mind being the only guy on the team.

I’m amazed at the new things I learn about myself every day by taking these classes and interacting with different people. For example, I can’t run - nor do I want to - with the “big dogs”. I don’t have the aggressive Type-A personality these people have. I’m competitive, but I’m competitive with a humble nature. So, I suspect this is all ultimately a blessing in disguise, as I don’t want to work with people who can’t practice common courtesy in communication.

And for the record, if someone ever asks you to be on a team…or on a committee, and you’re either already on one or choose to be on another one or just don’t think the relationship would be a good fit or don’t want to do it, don’t be a jerk and just not respond to their request. If you have to (or want to) decline an offer, it takes about three minutes to craft a polite response. It’s not tough people…give it a try.

**For anyone who wanted to give these folks the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps they just hadn’t received my email…they did, because they all responded to each other on the message board, “Got your email! I’m in!”**