Team Work
"I am a team player" - another buzz expression of this days that anyone will bring up if are asked. "Why are you team player?" this is the question to ask and answer.
Personally I find the saying "one had is good, two is better" quite true. It's not just in pairing, it's in everything. When a few people working together (and not necessarily developers only, those can be different skills individuals), they bring up to the table a variety of skills and knowledge. The amount of useful thoughts and information exchanged over a short period of time being is enormous. As a part of the team, even the smallest contribution produces higher chances of success, and as a result of that builds up the confidence and productivity. So being a part of the team is not just being a monkey, but an equal citizen with all the right and responsibilities.
Responsibilities are important. Team player should be responsible to contribute the most to the group effort towards success, and at the same time not to alienate team mates against itself by making them secondary players. Tasks are solely responsibilities of those that have committed to tackle them. Suggesting help is important as much as offering it when being asked. Yet forcing help, or worse, providing the slack in form of completing others tasks constantly is creating a huge flaw IMO. As a responsible team player you have to let others know and understand that help is always there, but it doesn't mean that a person can just write the tasks off to someone else. That way team is no longer a properly functional team.
Every team player has the right to ask for help and not be afraid of that. If you never ask, you never learn, right? Historically we were lead into thinking that if you are asking for help, then you just can't pull it off (common, as a software developers our ego is riding kilometres ahead of us). Wrong thinking. Asking for help is vital when it's required. Pride is not going to solve the problem, but waste time and value that could be provided if only the problem/task would have being solved. Yet one sign of warning with the right to ask for help - not to abuse it. It is easy to go down the road of just shifting it on someone else plate. True team player doesn't do it.
All this being said, I am not trying to define what team player is. This is more a reflective thinking, personal experience and how I see the team work working successfully.