the official analysis: scarily objective and critical (2006-03-27 - 10:29 p.m.)

It's official, folks: INTP.

That's right: I got to spend all morning "analyzing" my personality. Work brought in a Myers-Briggs consultant (who happened to be the boss's sister: "Conflicts of interest are okay as long as they are declared", apparently.) I would really like to be snarky about the pop psychology nature of this whole exercise, except that I actually really enjoyed it and can't argue too much with the conclusions it came to about my personality. (I am sure that it helped that I filled in the questionnaire directly after my immediate supervisor took us out for lunch and a glass of wine).

So the above refers to Introvert (vs. Extrovert), Intuitive (vs. Sensing), Thinking (vs. Feeling), Perceiving (vs. Judging). I am "logical, analytical and objectively critical. [I] like to find the prinicples underlying interesting ideas and develop additional principles." Sounds about right, except maybe the logical bit.

what else... "somewhat quiet and reserved" (depends where and when you happened to meet me!), "many theories and insights to share with others" (yes, and they all should listen), "prefer finding a solution to implementing a solution" (well yeah, who would want to do the grunt-work and sort out the details?!). "Likes to work with autonomy" (heck yeah!)

So having read that, I realised that my job description is perhaps the exact opposite of that suggested as ideal for my personality type. I asked the instructor about this (perhaps a bad idea: as mentioned she's the boss's sister) and she told me it was an "excellent opportunity to work on my areas of weakness". Fair enough, I suppose, but doesn't sound much like a fun year. Yay! I get to wake up every day and go do things I'm bad at to work on my weaknesses!

My mantra has become: "It's only a year..."

However: I am happy to work because having money is so very exciting. I spent a lot of it this weekend in one big splurge on stuff that I have been denying myself for two years now. And also groceries. Man, what a high. I can see where this "retail therapy" business comes from. I think I'm done for a while now, but it sure was fun.

Also a very social weekend. Friday Feast, Saturday brunch, hanging out with my awesome great-aunt, attending the Latitude 53 fundraiser (53 Ways to Leave Your Lover), and reading Much Ado About Nothing with a group of like-minded lit geeks. Oh, and hanging out in the hot tub with Rene and a random German friend. Did I mention we have a hot tub? It was very nice, with the backyard trees surrounding us and the stars above.

I'm not demanding a re-test, like certain co-workers I could mention - but I have to say. I know I'm all about the science and the "show me the proof", but I would have thought my results would be a bit more skewed towards the Feeling side. I'm not that bad with people, surely!

Oh well, will happily spend the next few days reading over my giant Myers-Briggs printout thing and thinking about my personality (or lack thereof). Ironic, considering it was brought in mostly to help us better understand our co-workers...

backwards ~ onwards

Tell me about it...

(7 comments so far)

Missed anything?
moved! - 2008-05-12
Sunday = time to ramble on - 2008-05-11
apparently I'm doing monthly updates these days. Sorry. - 2008-05-04
watershed - 2008-04-06
end of trip - 2008-03-31

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