Recently at work they conducted an MBTI test for me. For those who don't know, the MBTI test is a personality test used by organizational psychologists in companies and organizations. It is supposed to describe the best way you communicate, the best way of giving and receiving feedback, and for managers that test is supposed to explain to them the best way to manage their employees (I'm over simplifying, I know).
My profile came up as some kind of introvert (and when I was told that I said "What? Me, an introvert? No way!"). The profile has these letters that describe your personality from different perspectives, and mine is INTJ. They call that profile "the scientist" or "the architect". Introverted - iNtuitive - Thinking - Judging.
Here's the thing, regardless of how useful or effective the test is, the place where I work goes by it and uses it as a handbook. People in my work group commonly talk about each other using those MBTI terms, and sometimes I hear people saying things like "that's the J in me". I am like, whatever. Honestly I think that those tests are lame attempts at having shortcuts in getting to know and learning how to work with people, or an excuse to explain what otherwise would be chaos and constant conflict. Again, whatever.
Anyway, one thing that I hated when reading in my profile, but unfortunately I believe was on point, is the fact that I seem to thrive or communicate better in a negative way, using negativity, even my humor. According to the profile I'm supposed to use "negative humor" when trying to be humorous. And yes, I hate to admit it, but it's true. Just take a look at most of my post replies and see how negative I tend to be, even when I'm being humorous.
Is negativity negative (what I mean is, does negativity has a negative effect)? Not necessarily, at least in my experience. At work, for example, when we're interviewing candidates for job positions, I love playing "the devil's advocate". The questions I ask and how I frame them help providing a great deal of information about how a candidate can handle him/herself in different situations (BTW, I am the only INTJ in my group). Most importantly, negative doesn't mean untrue, nor does it mean inaccurate, nor dishonest. it only means negative.
When I feel strongly about something, I do love using my negative humor, sarcasm and struggle with people skills (typical traits of the INTJ personality) to make my point. Furthermore, in many conversations I have, and in many instances when somebody claims that I have been offensive to them, I find myself stating "I'm not being offensive; I'm just saying something you don't like hearing. (Depending on the situation, sometimes I add "Grow up!")".
Which is why I am posting this in an ex-JW forum. For some reason, as I was reading my profile, most of the instances in which I could think about when describing situations where my personality profile was evident, had to do with my JW upbringing.
The most notable was this one time when both my JW parents were alive and I went to visit them in the Dominican Republic where they retired. My parents have always been very crass when talking about other people's religious believes, as they feel/felt superior for being in "the truth". They loved mocking people when they saw them doing anything religious that was not according to their "truth".
One of their typical mocking jokes was about people leaving flowers on graves. They would always make stupid comments about the dead not being able to see or smell the flowers. Every time they saw a roadside memorial with crosses and/or flowers, one would tell the other "Look, apparently those pagan idiots expect the dead to go there to smell the flowers! What a waste of time and money", or something like that. Sometimes their choice of words was not exactly nice; it wasn't pleasant hearing them (leave alone growing up hearing them all the time saying that).
One day they did that same disrespectful mocking joke while driving with me in their car. We passed by some roadside memorial and there they were, making some stupid comment. "Look, another idiot expecting the dead to come smell the flowers". Fed up with their cockiness, and also me now being an independent non-JW adult, out of the JW nonsense for decades, I said "Well, I know of people who are worse. I know of idiots who claim that they are going to live 1,000 years".
And that's the best example I could come up with about my INTJ profile accuracy.
