Page 122 of The Examiner

Is Alyson coming in to the studio at all before the event?

Gela Nathaniel

She has professional commitments to fulfil and can’t participate as fully as she’d like, but she’s very much on board still.

Jem Badhuri

When did you last speak to her – face-to-face or over the phone?

Gela Nathaniel

A few days ago. We message or she leaves notes in my pigeonhole when she’s been in overnight.

Jem Badhuri

Did you tell her we’re another person short, precisely when we’ve got to re-design the installation?

Gela Nathaniel

Jem, in the real world people must work to tight and moving schedules, colleagues leave or are absent, there are unforeseen problems and the team is understaffed to solve them. And exactly like in the real world, your value will be determined NOT by how you behave when things go right, but by how you respond when things go WRONG.

Jem Badhuri

Thanks, Gela. I feel a lot better.

Gela Nathaniel

That’s the spirit! Work on being a conscientious team member who goes with the flow. You can say all you want in your long essay about how the process unfolded.

Jem Badhuri

Thinking about Mae’s feedback, I’m sure we can come up with a new design that will blow RD8 away.

Royal Hastings, University of London Multimedia Art MA *Final Project*

Candidate name: Jemisha Badhuri

Candidate number: 0883479

Teamwork vs help:

I’ve never had ‘good team player’ on my CV. I don’t like relying on other people any more than I have to. If I can do something myself, then I go right ahead and do it. Which is fine. Art in its purest form isn’t something that benefits from teamwork, so working with others on a collective project is a new concept for me. And that’s why I’m here after all.

Help, on the other hand, is something I often find myself on the receiving end of, whether I want it or not. Dad says I must always be grateful for help, because if I’m grumpy and send a person packing, they may not help someone else in future, when that someone might really need a hand. He’s probably right, in that annoying way parents are.

One thing this course has taught me is that I too can help people, even if I risk them being grumpy and ungrateful, just as I’ve been many times in the past.

A good team player is an obedient member of the pack. A people-pleaser. But I’m a good team leader, because I know what’s right and wrong and I’m decisive. I can make decisions over and above the consensus of the majority. Which is why I found working with this group of personalities so frustrating.

What do you do if you know the team leader has made the wrong decision? Escalate your concerns. What if you do that and nothing happens because the ‘line manager’ – or, in our case, the tutor – is as deluded as the others? You see, the notion of teamwork can be exploited in all sorts of ways. The team will carry lazy members who don’t want to work. A poor leader will delegate tasks they don’t like to weak members. People take credit for things they had no hand in – and crush those who did. So why do organisations value teamwork so much? If you ask me, it only serves the domineering bully who can’t achieve anything on their own.

I spoke up, I asked questions and I escalated my concerns on numerous occasions, but when all is said and done, I investigated Alyson’s disappearance all by myself.

To: MMAM(FTP)

From: Gela Nathaniel

Date: 1 May 2024