I climbed a mountain with Anton. Anton is a friend from
Melbourne, in sales, and moved up to Brisbane to expand the business he works
with. So we met in the Glasshouse Mountains to climb Mt Tibrogargan. Bonus
points for all Australian naming organizations by the way. I drive by a road
called Tumblegum every day to work.
I had thought Mt Tibrogargan was going to be like the other
mountains I’ve “climbed”, just a sort of a hike. I did not expect to be using
all of my limbs. But there we were, spidering up the rock face. Past frozen tourists,
children could not go any higher, and fit couples who were finding a different
way to use their bodies for the afternoon.
You have to yell “rock!” when you dislodge a rock. Which I
think is silly because if you’re climbing and you look up to see the rock it’s
more likely to hit you in the face. Which seems worse than the top of your head
or leaning in and bracing yourself to the cliff. Anton thinks it’s so you can
dodge the rock. But I think if you’re holding yourself against the igneous slabs
you’re probably not nimble enough to perform any evasive maneuvers.
When we got to the top of the mountain we sat and ate a
salami stick and talked about the Greek debt crisis, financing education, and
people we’ve slept with.
Anton is an ENTP in the Myers-Briggs test, and I’ll get to why I think Myers-Briggs is a crock pot in a second. But for Anton, his Myers-Briggs is pretty spot on. He’s a very logical opportunity oriented person, in constant appraisal of his surroundings. We were on the beach later and he said “This is very good sand for sculpting. You could make a great sculpture with this sand.” And everything is like that, a real entrepreneurial type.
Anyway, we often have opposing viewpoints, I recently
migrated to the slightly socialist side (which still makes me puke) and he’s a
capitalist “this is the way the world works” type. We talked about education,
and while I was vouching for free education, he comes from Belgium which is
edu-freebie. He thinks the failings in state sponsored education come from the
classic disengaging of incentive and free rider issues, from which all
socialism suffers.
I won’t be able to do a perfect illustration of his stance
but basically, everybody and their mom goes to college in Belgium. Good right?
Yea everyone gets to know the four languages they speak there, but if you don’t
charge students then they’ve got no incentive to work. That’s pretty obvi. It’s
a good way for a government to get its people to go into the workforce, basically
forcing them. And then markets sort out the rest. You can be an engie and get
paid more so more people become engies if they know they gotta crank back
100,000 to their alma mater. And engies are needed in society.
I countered with “if people are money motivated then it
doesn’t matter what the price of college is, the people who are doing things
for money will still do the higher paying jobs.” And he countered with “why
should the state pay for your education if you’re going to be a psychology
major and not work in that field and contribute nothing”. All good points.
We later debated about environmentalism. But we were drunk.
So I’ll recount it later. But the good news is that Anton is a good mental
sparring partner and you can still be friends with people on the other side of
the spectrum.
So Myers-Briggs. Anton and I share the NTP of the results…
sometimes… I jump around with my Briggadiering. Which might be why I think its
crap.
HEY! You can’t qualify people down to 16 different types. It’s
ridiculous if you think that’s who you are. That’s like the cis-gender view of
personality. It’s broader than that you monkeys. Yea I know you need sorting
mechanisms for all kinds of things, but sorting people so you can predict who
will work better together? Just learn about the person! Don’t make them take a
test you lazy backburner manager. This is just a crumby tool that a few psychologists
convinced enough businesses to use. It’s a big corporate scam! Like bottled
water and expensive socks. I can’t believe it was taught to me in business
school. That’s like triple stupid. Stupid that it exists (yes people are different,
moron, no there aren’t 16 types), stupid that companies use it, and stupid that
so many companies use it that it’s taught in school.
Here are more methodical
criticisms of Myers-Briggs. People are
influenced by their outcome, and they start to play the role. This has been
proven over and over in all sorts of ways. If you say somebody is bad at math, nine
times out of ten they’re gonna start thinking they’re a math person. If you say
it with a lab coat on and make a big fancy deal about it then they’re really
gonna take it seriously.
And people change! People say people don’t change but people
do. The person that first said people don’t change probably changed their mind.
I was going to say “his mind”, because that’s the default but then I wrote “hers”
because I want to illustrate the default gender and make people think. But then
since I’m saying that the person was wrong I didn’t want to give the impression
that I thought that women are always wrong so then I went with “their”.
Finally, the results of a Myers-Briggs test are sooooo
vague. And slightly complimentary. So if you get something like “You work well
with data and facts, and use these to your advantage in solving complex
problems, but you may have trouble understanding emotional appeals” then of
course you’re inclined to believe it. It hasn’t really said anything! It’s literally
just a horoscope.
Cut it out, Myers-Briggs.
