true colors shining through

Today was miserable. Actually, I was in a pretty good mood--I think I thrive in masochistic, chaotic situations. Logically, I should have been in a terrible mood. I had a training on successful mentoring from 9-6, but that didn't obviate the need for me to do all of my other work, and so I ended up staying at the office until after 10pm. Spending fourteen hours in the office when it's not even really a crunchtime scenario is painful. It's even more painful when operating under an extreme hangover. When I woke up at 7:30 this morning, I was pretty sure that I was still drunk, although this feeling was blasted away slightly by a v. hot shower. However, five hours of sleep combined with the remnants of too much alcohol combined to make me feel rather violently ill, and I spent the first hour or two of training wondering if I was going to vomit from the effects of the alcohol or from the saccharine sweetness of helping others to develop into effective individual contributors. Ugh. A whole day of corporate-speak is always enough to drive me to the opposite extreme. So I came home after ten p.m., defrosted a single-serving vegetarian lasagna (mistake; I should have ordered Indian food or gone for fish 'n' chips, but I'm trying to eat healthy again and this was theoretically the best easily-available option), and read part of this silly book about vampires that I always turn to when I'm looking for solace. Katie, you'll be happy to know that I've moved on from Martian flat-cats; this book, however, is not really literature even if it is extremely well-written. I'm sure I've mentioned it before ('Sunshine' by Robin McKinley); Robin McKinley is one of my top five (probably top three) writers of all time, even though she writes mostly fantasy and fairy-tale reworkings, primarily because she uses amazing language and imagery to tell stories of heroines making the heroic best of bad situations. Reading part of the book helped me to unwind, but I should have gone to bed two hours ago instead. I don't think I will ever learn.

The mentoring session today was good, but rather standard; it started off with an ubiquitous personality test, and spent an entire afternoon on roleplays, which I typically despise. I got to pretend to be dyslexic, though, which was fun, I guess. Also, my personality test results were happily consistent with other personality tests I've taken, even if I think that my profile makes me sound like an uncooperative bitch. The test was 'True Colors', which is essentially Myers-Briggs boiled down to four personality types, rather than sixteen. I'm a green. According to the results page handed out in the session, that means:

'I am aware of the intricacies of business systems and organizations. I like to design systems that improve the functioning of my organization. I can be impatient with personal interactions, which are irrelevant. It is my goal to design an environment in which everyone can perform successfully. I find it difficult to be repetitive once any system is funcitoning. My greatest organizational contributions are my ideas and my ability to solve problems. I am a designer and an inventor. I contribute my best. I am an excellent analyst. I am principled. I enjoy complex systems. I value intelligence and competence. My attitudes are scientific. I think abstractly.'

Pretty accurate, eh? It's no wonder I never really want to meet people casually while I'm travelling--I have such ridiculously high standards that I am almost always bored or disappointed with casual interactions, and I'd rather hang out alone than expend any effort humoring someone whom I will never see again. I'm fully capable of developing new friendships when I'm in a situation where I'm not allowed to completely disengage from the person, but in general I avoid new people because they're probably lame and not worth the effort. How awful is that?

On that rather depressing and perhaps too-honest analysis of my opinion of humanity, I think I'll go to bed.