As this is my personal blog, I don’t want to write much about my work life in detail. However today my work team had a meeting after filling out tests for Margerison-McCann Team Management Profiles.
I was placed on the bottom right of the wheel; major role was Concluder-Producer, followed by Thruster-Organiser and Controller-Inspector. As I already was well aware of, I am on the extreme end of the “Introvert” scale. But it was so, so interesting to read through my profile, and more importantly, for my colleagues to read about my profile and for me to read theirs.
It’s amusing that I am such an Introvert considering my role as receptionist; however I’m fortunate that being on the front desk of this organisation is quite a minor element of my role, as most visitors to our office arrive for regular meetings and I already know them.
I haven’t always been such an extreme Introvert; I think during school I wasn’t too different in my working techniques to now, but I definitely spoke out a lot more, and contributed to all aspects of school life more verbally. I went through my most extreme stage of Extroversion during my first year in Wellington; meeting people, partying, attempting to be as outgoing as I could possibly manage. And that year ended with some messed-up stuff, which I think has affected me a lot, and it seems quite obvious now that I somehow associated the bad things that happened with the outgoing person I was. I’m now a great deal more self-conscious than I used to be. I think I’ve always had a tendency to blush, but when I was younger I had the confidence not to care, where as now, as soon as I feel myself going red, I get even more embarrassed, want to hide, and definitely don’t want anyone to look at me.
When I have a project to work on, I like to do it all myself, and only present the polished result. This is something I’m actively working on to fit in better with my colleagues, but it was really nice reading it written down, and made me understand why I work like that.
In my personal life, I am usually quite quiet (there are some friends who would disagree with that, but I think they’re people I’ve either known a long time/very well, and feel extremely comfortable around). I don’t like making small talk, I’m comfortable with silence when in the company of another person, and don’t feel compelled to fill silence unless I have something I feel is worth saying. A lot of people I meet at Tweet Ups are surprised at how quiet I am, because my Tweets can be a bit... er, “out-there”. Now I realise, that even the most fickle of my Tweets (man, I’m such a geek) have been thought out in my mind for longer than they would be if I said them out loud as I thought of them. They have a chance to be re-worded and polished. Additionally, I feel comfortable saying whatever I like on Twitter, because no one can see me as I say it. I’m constantly thinking in all aspects of my life, but I don’t voice many of my thoughts in person. For example, I’m happy to go away from a meeting, and compose an email of my thoughts, but in person; forget about it. I get nervous, I forget what I wanted to say... and if I do manage to get some words out, then I sit back, relieved the attention is off me, and suddenly remember a whole bunch of other points I wanted to make, that my nerves made me forget.
Today has made me think a lot more about where I’m heading in my career, and definitely made me go back to considering tertiary study for my near future.
One other thing I’ll mention is some of my colleagues who said they were deadline-driven, and gave their last-minute work for University qualifications as an example. One of them said how they’d realised that about themselves, that there was nothing they could do to change it, and that they’d just had to learn how to manage it. I found that really interesting, because we’re taught in school how to plan our time, research, not to leave assignments to the last minute. These are obviously great skills to learn about, but this makes me wonder whether there is too much emphasis placed on that method. Obviously some people are naturally inclined to leave things to the last minute, and if that contradicts all the methods being taught in school, subsequently some are going to feel like failures.
Sorry for the massive post (the Introvert venting her thoughts!)
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