My five favorite ways to irritate my teammates
Thursday, June 6, 2019
Who needs a healthy dynamic when you can have the pure pleasure of driving your teammates nuts? There are countless ways to do this obviously, but here are the most effective!
Don’t do your homework
Who needs to memorize all those ridiculous formations between camps? Learning which way to turn is so damned rigid. Superstars wing everything, studying is for losers. Make sure you lie and say you are doing the visualizing you all agreed to, then make it clear from your dumbfounded look on the creeper pad that you have no idea how to do the formation you have practiced for the last three camps.
Check your email/instafacetwit constantly during the day
Some skydiving days have some down time, which is nice. We are all addicted to our phones, so those little moments might as well be filled with that. But you are a champion irritator. You can take this to the next level. Make sure you are conducting stressful and distracting phone calls during your break. Up the frequency by checking your phone while you are debriefing. Be late for the mock up. For a gold star you can even check your phone on the plane! Your teammates will realize you are way too cool to focus on these trivial dives.
Whine about or weasel out of the costs you committed to
Commitment is for schmucks. Big impactful life changes like losing your job aside or major illness (stuff happens!), make sure that you complain about the costs you agreed to at the beginning of the season. Threaten to cancel camps, insist on packing yourself despite agreeing to use packers, make suggestions to drop camps, or offer to fire the video guy and find someone cheaper. This works best if you had a clear commitment early on and are now acting like it is a surprise. Once or twice a camp bring up your sudden financial stress on the airplane for max effect.
Jump on your teammate’s mistakes (but don’t admit your own!)
You are a Rockstar. If everyone on your team would only realize that they should listen to the depths of your wisdom, you’d all be so much faster. You are also kind and generous, so make sure you are the first person to point out your teammate’s mistakes (especially brain locks!). It will help them understand they are messing it all up. Of course, to keep your authority unquestionable you should always deny being anything less than a perfect butterfly.
Argue with the coach
Teams hire a coach to shortcut the learning process and ease the team dynamic by appointing a leader. But of course, you know better! Don’t just ask genuine questions as a positive person would do. Real questions for more information, to clarify your technique, or to deepen your understanding are way too healthy and useful. I suggest you question every single unimportant decision. Everything. The plan, the manifest calls, the weather, choice of lunch, start time, end time, calls, how they are choosing every exit, and what team shirt to wear. Make it clear you aren’t really going to implement the coach’s instructions regarding anything. That is ridiculous. The whole point of the coach is to have a witness around that can confirm your vast library of FS knowledge. You pay them $400 a day to tell them how you would do every block.
Bonus: Show up late consistently
As a super bonus, make sure you are late every time. Not just last, late. And you don’t have to constrain this to just the meeting time in the morning! You have opportunities to be late to the creeper pad, mock-up, and debrief. Take it to new heights. By the end of the season, your teammates will think your first name is “where is”!
Do all this and your teammates will go completely mad! It will be fun to watch the fireworks from afar if you can make it to Nationals!
Tags: team
