My Errors & Briggs: IIST

Several times a year, someone brings up what always sounds to me like The Mystery Particle that could pull together all the missing links in physics, but instead is more akin (as far as I can tell) to voodoo: Myers-Briggs.

If you are one of the twenty one [1] people on the planet who has not been subjected to this test, it purports to divine all the details of your personality, so that:

1. You understand yourself;
2. Others understand you;
3. You understand how to interact with others subjected to MB;
4. Your boss can better manage you.

Hang on to that last one; we'll come back to it.

The test consists of a series of questions designed to test your sanity. They range from false dichotomies

7. Which is more important? [ ] Justice [ ] Grace

to the incomprehensible:

31. Which of these does not belong? [ ] a rainbow  [ ] a Big Mac

The results are four letters, such as INTF, ESFJ, or SQZX. When asked, I explain I'm an IIST[3]. The MB types look at me oddly and ask, "A what?"

"An IIST. I Ignore Stupid Tests."

At this point, they usually change the subject.

I'm OK with that. Thankfully, the only time I was forced to take the official MB[2] test, I never heard the results/ I say "thankfully" because when you get the results, you apparently get brainwashed. Every person I have met who has taken one of these tests is obsessed with knowing the "Myers-Briggs" type of everyone around them. Frankly, I'm surprised the MB people don't just run a massive online site and feed the results into e-Harmony. Within a very few weeks, the world (apart from twenty two of us) would all be so busy dating and getting married there would be no time for terrorism, taxes, trauma, and other terrible "T" words.

Only one other time did I made it all the way through any test like this. The result was a graph in four boxes of color (red, yellow, green, blue. My employer at the time mandated all employees take this test. Everyone else got a clear cut classification. Jezebel (Not Her Real Name) called me into her office where she sat staring at my results and making strange noises for a couple of minutes. Finally she said it was an impossible result; one box should have a dominant peak but all the boxes showed a dominant peak. The experts agreed it was impossible, and were sequestered with their software team double checking their algorithms and code. She sent me away with no new insight into how to deal with me.

I was OK with that.

[1] Which happens to be the number of followers this blog currently has. [ ] Coincidence or [ ] Conspiracy?
[2] I tend to get the order of these letters confused in my mind, at least when thinking about this test.
[3] Sometimes I'm nicer and use "IITT"; "I Ignore These tests".