distilling a personality with four simple letters

Today was another work retreat like the one we did last month. Which meant bringing in both a breakfast and lunch and again eating it while everyone else ordered from the restaurant menu. For someone who prefers not to call attention to herself, I've become remarkably ambivalent about this. Remarkable only to me, perhaps, but still.

We took one of those personality/temperament tests (a Myers-Briggs sort of test) as a team building exercise, and let me just say that I am apparently the most textbook case of the "Rational" temperament ever invented. I am, in fact, an INTJ, quantified in this particular test as a "Rational Mastermind". Which makes me sound like the most boringly benign super villain ever. Among other things, I:

• have a temperament (Rational) considered rare (5% to 10% of the population) and a personality type (Mastermind) even more scarce (1% to 2% of the population). [No wonder I often feel like I'm from another planet.]
• value logic and pragmatism above almost all else. [And that planet was apparently Vulcan.]
• am ingenious, independent, strong-willed, and skeptical.
• am generally even-tempered and goal-oriented. [Unless there's something good on TV.]
• yearn for achievement and accomplishment. [A high score on the Scrabble game on my phone counts as an achievement, right?]
• have an innate ability to grasp a project's necessary progression and understand how each step leads to the next.
• prefer to stay in the background, reluctant to take command despite a skill for big picture thinking and focus on details. [HAHAHAHAHA TEST PEOPLE HOW DO YOU READ MY BRAIN WITHOUT A PROBE SCANNER THINGIE FROM A SCI-FI MOVIE.]
• am fascinated with developing strategic plans for others to use. [Hello, my entire job.]
• prefer a work environment where I can exercise intellectual freedom, am provided with challenging work, and have flexible hours, needing time to play at my own outside interests. [Otherwise, I get a little stabbity stabbity.]
• am more comfortable alone than in a crowd, and if a job or social situation requires me to be outgoing or take center stage, I can soon become exhausted and need down time in a quiet place to rest and recharge. [SRSLY TEST PEOPLE YOU ARE KIND OF CREEPING ME OUT WITH YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF ME.]
• draw energy from private, solitary activities, including reading, listening to music, and working by myself on my latest project or hobby.
• crave closure and finality, as well as orderly procedure, and can be quick to make schedules, agendas, or timetables for myself or others to follow. [Excel is my woobie.]
• feel unhappy or unsettled when my personal space is a mess. [HAHAHAHAHA NO REALLY]

There are actually 18 pages of details and charts in the report. My entire me-ness distilled into 18 pages with the accuracy of a DNA test. I read some of it to Sal last night and it was so spot on that he just started laughing. Somewhere around page three.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• cream cheese and barrel pickle in a sundried tomato wrap
• Fuji apple chunk with an heirloom carrot garnish
• peanut butter for dipping

lunch, Paris slimline:

• honey-glazed red garnet yams, with a yam garnish
• steamed broccoli
• parmesan-breaded chicken breast
• orzo pasta salad (mushrooms, roasted red peppers, caramelized onion, parsley, rosemary, and balsamic vinaigrette)
• Fuji apple slices and heirloom carrot sticks
• peanut butter for dipping with carrot garnish
• yogurt covered raisins with carrot garnish