So my boss had us do this work personality test the other week, some quick online quiz that was on the intranet. I hate those things, because they always suggest that I should be a nurse or counsellor or something because I’m so damn empathic and nurturing. Yeah, fuck that shit, I hate people. If these tests could just have a question like “Do you hate people? Y/N” they could quit this false categorizing and let me get back to what I’m supposedly not suited to do.
This test was about “Communication Styles”, with the four possible styles being Analytical, Driver, Amiable and Expressive. Or, as I see it, Spock, Kirk, Uhura and Scotty, but you can read up the style descriptions here if you hate Star Trek and don’t mind character encoding errors on your web pages.
Because I’m the fucking sweetest nicest piece of ass this side of the Thompson, I’m Amiable. It sounds like such a cop-out category, as if this were a beauty contest and the best that could be said of me is that I have a good personality. If my most important characteristic is that I’m nice, I’m leaving.
People who have an Amiable style are [...] more likely to express emotion. Amiables are very loyal and tend to be excellent team players.
Fine, I’m emotional. I blame it on the ovaries and because life is crap sometimes. And I’m a team player because once in a while they give me rides home from work.
People and relationships are what are most important to an Amiable. [...] They tend to be very warm people.
Wha? I live alone with a cat. What’s most important to me is avoiding people and relationships, but I don’t think that’s what they meant. Plus this sort of reads like a horoscope, what with all the relationship talk. Your lucky numbers are…
In any case, it’s bollocks. It’s too extreme. I did a bunch of these personality tests back in high school, but longer ones, and the results tended to put me right on the border between sensitive and practical, because I am both of those. I have a music degree and a computer science degree, and I got the same grades in both of them (though it could also mean the grading system was rigged). That doesn’t mean everything but it doesn’t exclude anything either. And in this test I would’ve thought I’d be as likely to be written up as Analytical instead:
People who have an Analytical style are very thorough and detail oriented. They don’t mind working alone and will often go above and beyond for the task at hand. [... But] their focus on perfection can mean that those around them perceive Analyticals as not being as fast with their work.
That’s me to a T. That’s me most of the time on the job, doing extra work, focusing on the details, wasting time by failing at perfectionism. Not giving people hugs and reacharounds like your mom. But nooooooooo I can’t be Analytical because I answered that I leaned in when I talked to people. Even though it could just mean I’m deaf.
The reason that all this bugs me is that I’ve had to deal with people in my life who have questioned my career choices and used such test results as proof that I’m in the wrong job (thankfully not this time, but it’s grating). As if I’m somehow going against what’s natural in my daily life, and progressing in a career despite my temperament, not because of it. And let’s not get started on the hauntings of affirmative action.
It’s otherwise not that bad being a chick doing a guy’s work, because people in IT are generally nice and not likely to judge you on your lack of penis so long as you’re still able to operate a computer without one. But people outside of IT, well-meaning family members, conservative types, men who feel threatened by my ability to operate a computer without their penis, they think I’m supposed to find some nice 40-hour-a-week stress-free job because women aren’t supposed to work like this. Some of them think that would make me happier, but maybe I don’t want to be that happy. Or that sort of happy.
Of course I’m blowing this out of proportion (because I’m so emotional) as this test was about learning to communicate with others based on personality traits, and not about career path at all. But I don’t need to tally-up questionnaire answers to know I enjoy whining and complaining, so here came this rant. All I’m really trying to say is that I’m glad I didn’t listen to those people who wanted me to embrace my sensitive side and pick a typically feminine lifestyle over this one; and I hope others don’t put so much weight on these tests in deciding their lives. We are the sum of our choices as much as our character, and just like in elementary school, I’d rather go play with the boys.
