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The Snapper is undergoing yet another battery of tests next week. Junior year seems to be so full of them that I wonder how there is any time left to actually learn something other than how to take a test. After he finishes the tests next week he gears up for his ACT test—which is followed by his AP tests.
I know I didn’t take that many tests in high school, though George seems to think that he did. I said maybe my high school wasn’t geared that way and he suggested that maybe I had just cut those classes.
Probably.
So when Wally called and asked me to take a personality test I tried to squirm out of it. He insisted. He said , “Come on, it will take 5 minutes and it’s fun” , which I believe is the same logic I employed on him in elementary school.
He said, “It’s called Myers-Briggs and it tells you cool stuff about yourself.” I said, “I think I took something like that in high school and it recommended that I become a beautician.” Wally pointed out that I did like to give everyone a manicure, so maybe it wasn’t so far off.
It’s true—I also mix my one nail colors. Sometimes I think I’ve missed my calling.
I logged on to take the test, http://www.humanmetrics.com:80/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp, which despite being 75 questions did not actually take a lot of time. I came back as an INTJ, which is Introverted, Intuitive (somehow I knew that), Thinking, Judging.
I clicked through to careers and found I’d been upgraded to scientist. I called Wally back and said, “Okay, I took the test but I still don’t think I’m a scientist” and he urged me to click over to the Keirsey site, which breaks down the results into four profiles: Guardians, Idealists, Artisans and Rationals (http://keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&f=fourtemps&tab=1&c=overview ) .
I was profiled as a Rational. When I dug down further I saw that my profile was actually MASTERMIND. I was thrilled! It sounded like something out of a Tom Wolfe novel!
The profile says that Masterminds comprise about 1% of the population and “their aim is maximum efficiency…They are head and shoulders above all the rest in contingency planning...Masterminds never set off on their current project without a Plan A firmly in mind, but they are always prepared to switch to Plan B or C or D if need be.”
My fellow Masterminds include Isaac Asimov, Dwight Eisenhower, Frederick Nietzsche, Lisa Meitner and Ulysses S. Grant. I know could have fun with this group, even though I doubt anyone of them would be interested in a manicure. Maybe Lisa—who says physicists can’t enjoy Revlon Red?
I pinged George to let him know I was a Mastermind. I added, “Now I understand why I was so addicted to ‘The A Team’ in the 80’s. They might have been the A Team but it was always Plan B that carried them through.” He said, “That’s a pretty creative excuse for enjoying bad TV” and I said that’s why I was a Mastermind.
I spent a couple of days feeling pretty good about my Mastermind status. When friends called and asked how I was doing, I said, “I’m a Mastermind.” It imbued me with a sense of satisfaction that called to mind the “Designing Women” episode where Annie Potts’ character puts on a pair of fake boobs and goes out to a bar, where
