the.com/team player
Corporate code for 'does extra work without extra credit, cheerfully.'
means Someone who puts the group's goals ahead of personal credit and works well with others toward a shared result.
from Team traces to Old English 'team' meaning a family of draft animals pulling together — the image of yoked oxen hauling in sync. Player comes from Old English 'plegan,' to exercise or engage in sport. The compound 'team player' is a 20th-century sports metaphor exported straight into office life, carrying its athletic DNA with it — the idea that a workplace is a locker room and everyone should be willing to pass the ball instead of hogging the glory.
- resume frequency
- appears on 85 percent of resumes, unverifiable by design
- hiring signal
- often means will not report your mistakes upward
- origin
- borrowed from sports, where the metaphor actually required skill
- red flag version
- sometimes means tolerates being talked over in meetings