I know your type

Went off tonight in the pouring rain to do some preparation for a Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) training day I'm helping with for a ministry team in the south of the diocese. If you don't know, or don't care for, Myers Briggs, you can skip the rest of this post. i qualified as a practitioner in October, and so am looking for opportunities to "consolidate my learning" as we trainers say. After we'd done the prep, we played around with some of the jokey stuff you can download from the internet for Myers Briggs workshops, how many of each type does it take to change a lightbulb, and so on. Myers Briggs is relentlessly positive, so just for a change someone has written some negative descriptions. One of the spoof descriptions has "ESTJ - Stuffed Shirt - no imagination, no flexibility, no common sense, no capacity for tolerance of others with different priorities". Then "ISTJ (me!) - Bean Counter" - Like ESTJ, but with less vision."

Bean Counter! My insult of choice for the people I dislike most! How could they! Do they not realise our gifts! Anyway, I like to think that I am an ISTJ who has come over to the Light Side, one who has decided to use his Powers for Good; a sort of White ISTJ, unlike those others, the Black ISTJs, who have misused the Force and who end up making a stack of money as corporate finance directors for Nestle and Microsoft. I spend my time bringing joy into the world, helping ENFPs find the lost files on their computers, and devising church service timetables for ministry teams full of NF types who can't make decisions. I never make any money. And if i did, I wouldn't be able to count it without help.

By the way, on Eeyoreness: I found one of those questionnaire columns in a magazine, filled in by Raymond Briggs, the author. Clearly a kindred spirit. "What disappointments have you had in your life?" he was asked. "I'm a pessimist," he replied, "We don't have disappointments."

The training day is next week. I'll let you know how it goes.