Someone I work with

[Minde]

He's the co-founder of his company. The company is pretty small right now, only five total employees (himself included) plus a few contractors (like myself). I have only relatively recently begun working with them but so far it's going nicely and they treat me well.

I have some ideas on his type, but I'd like more opinions. Please ask questions as they occur to you.


Some traits:

- Anti-exclusivity - Some people say they are like this, but he is without needing to announce it. He doesn't like TED talks, for example, because they ask for "lifetime achievements" in their application for registration process.

- I asked today, "What's the normal schedule around here?" He replied, "'Normal' and 'schedule' are not words we're comfortable with around here."

- Thinks it is possible to do a project perfectly right from the start, even though he has never yet done it. This came up after I said every project will have flaws so I think it might be wise to be prepared to backtrack at least a little, if not actually plan for it.

- Likes "stupid humor" movies (perhaps as opposed to dry humor?)

- Satirical, sarcastic. Sometimes he'll say things in a serious tone that I'll totally not get as a joke. He says I should be able to tell when he's joking because what he says is so ridiculous, but the problem with that is I don't know him well enough yet to know what he thinks is ridiculous or not.

- Along the same lines, delights in the absurd/silly and will place himself subtly (or not subtly) at the end of the joke. Like the name of his company, his online name, what he calls his team.

- A likely very insignificant example of humor: I told him how my sister is a CNA as well as a security guard and he says, "So she beats people up in one job and puts them back together in the other?"

- Appears to be in constant movement; doesn't appear to like sitting still for very long periods of time, though he's perfectly capable of being productive.

- Has a protective streak. One time I told him about a volunteer project where some of the people were being slightly less than... nice, I guess. Longish story, but anyway he leaned over me and said something to the effect of, "[Minde], that's f---'n b---s---. You know that, right? You're too good [at what you do] to be treated like that." (Strong language, but the sentiment gave me warm fuzzies.)

- He says he always welcomes questions. I'm not sure how true this is yet. I can ask lots of questions once started...

- He can be kind of awkward in conversation. Does this sort of stop-start style of talking.

- He will go into cuss-filled tirades when he sees, um, flaws in setups. (It amuses me, but I'm trying not to instigate them too often.)

- Despite his reactions to badly set up things and poor decision-making, he seems reasonably good at communicating with clients and able to pleasingly manage their expectations.

- He was a teacher before getting into the tech industry. A student introduced him to the internet.


Pictures (please don't quote):








I have a video (or, rather, a link to one). If you want to see it PM me, and if I know and trust you I'll share.

[Trevor]

Is he married?

[Minde]

Is he married?

Yes, and has a child. Why do you ask?

[silke]

I'd say EP or IJ, EP more likely one of the Pe subtypes (sounds like he is very spontaneous), probably a logical type, Se-SLE or Ne-ILE.

By stupid humor what do you mean? I'd like to take a look at the video if you can pm it to me please.

[noid]

Ne Si, seems EP temperament with contact function more valued

[Trevor]

Yes, and has a child. Why do you ask?

curious, obviously, lol

[eunice]

He looks Ne-ENTp imo. In addition,based on the way Minde had described him and the impression she had, it appears like how a Supervisor would describe a Supervisee (in terms of intertype relations).

[Lobo]

Hmm, the "stupid humor" part doesn't sound like ENTp. All the ones I know don't seem to be a fan of slapstick and/or humor that doesn't require some kind of thinking.

The part about saying things in a serious tone and expecting you to know it's a joke, doesn't come off as Fe valuing to me. Saying that you should know if it's true or not by it making sense doesn't indicate Ti or Te valuing imo, even though from face value it seems Ti.

Just based on the pictures and vibes I get from them... ESFj, ENTp, SEE, ESTj.

[The Ineffable]

I like the guy, I could identify with him here and there - esp against the TED bullshit, though...

"[Minde], that's f---'n b---s---. You know that, right? You're too good [at what you do] to be treated like that." (Strong language, but the sentiment gave me warm fuzzies.)

That is really, really, really and totally not ILE (descriptions anyone?). In fact that's in a way anti-ILE... And so is his strong confidence, that he's doing "the proper job", that things will go flawlessly & so on. I think Fe-Base, ESE or EIE, is closer or the real answer (I could see him IEI too, though it's very hard to see him Irrational).

Edit: his appearance reminds me of an EIE art director I worked with, though based on the description I'm considering ESE >. Is he sometimes slightly pressing people, for instance, when someone is close to go home, to remind him of different other tasks, like he does not acknowledge that person was supposed to go home? Or tends he to push things always "higher"? Does he appear sometimes as believing that people think more about work and have a more interest in the company than their lives? - that work plays a major part in the life of the employees, I mean... Does he appear to wish that, even if he doesn't make allusions?

[Minde]

I watched the video...

Yeah... it's not the best video for typing. Probably kinda boring. And it's not mine. But it's all I got

He seems to have a vague Patrick Swayze "look"

Hmmm, interesting....

I like the guy, I could identify with him here and there - esp against the TED bullshit, though...

That is really, really, really and totally not ILE (descriptions anyone?). In fact that's in a way anti-ILE... And so is his strong confidence, that he's doing "the proper job", that things will go flawlessly & so on. I think Fe-Base, ESE or EIE, is closer or the real answer (I could see him IEI too, though it's very hard to see him Irrational).

Edit: his appearance reminds me of an EIE art director I worked with, though based on the description I'm considering ESE >. Is he sometimes slightly pressing people, for instance, when someone is close to go home, to remind him of different other tasks, like he does not acknowledge that person was supposed to go home? Or tends he to push things always "higher"? Does he appear sometimes as believing that people think more about work and have a more interest in the company than their lives? - that work plays a major part in the life of the employees, I mean... Does he appear to wish that, even if he doesn't make allusions?

No, I'd say he's almost the opposite, but that wouldn't be true, either. He does care about the work. It's more like... whether or not people are focusing on the right or wrong things (work vs. personal life) is a non-issue for him. He seems to assume that people will do what needs to be done to get the work completed and completed well. He's not a micromanager and he's flexible about when people choose to work.

From my perspective, he has a very practical, almost ideal approach to managing employees/contractors. He acts like he trusts everyone to just do what needs to be done. There are check-in points, but not so much to "check up on people" as to touch bases and coordinate next moves. And his employees/contractors will more often than not do the initiating of those check-ins. There's no schedule in the office; people come and go as they please, essentially. Apparently mistakes are acceptable so long the effort is to do the best job possible and correct when needed.

And when there are deadlines, it's not approached like "This is a Deadline; respect it for its own sake!" It's more like it's a practical thing, "this needs to happen by then for this to happen, but if the other thing changes then this can change, too."

When people head out for the day--as early as 3:30pm--he'll occasionally ask where they're at in the work, but other than that it's usually just, "See you tomorrow!" Actually, the habit for almost everybody when they leave is to announce they're leaving and then ask if anybody needs anything from them before they go.

I'm not sure how well this would work with a larger company, but for a handful of people (on average there are 4-5 people in the one-room office) it appears to be working very well.

[Kim]

His management approach seems very IEE to me.

[Minde]

Yeah, at the least it's not foreign or uncomfortable for my Delta soul. Not yet anyway. So I think I might rule out Beta.




More notes from today:

- Works with his shoes off sometimes. Yeah, I know, probably not very type related.


- "We're informal but professional" This after deciding it was ok to add me as a member of a project workspace that involved client-facing stuff. The initial hesitation had been that it would require an email address and he usually has people get one with his own company's domain name. Apparently a question had come up before with a contractor using a Gmail address with a dubious username; it didn't give the right impression. But since I have my own relatively professional-sounding domain name for my email, he decided that the hassle of setting me up with theirs wasn't worth it, especially considering the need to get me into the system right away. But I noticed he did reiterate his desire for a professional attitude toward clients.


- Is one of the only people in the (small, one-room) office who makes vocalizations over his work. Again, perhaps not type related, but there you go.



- A sudden outburst after receiving an email: "There are times I feel I'm too critical, but when I read some of the stuff that comes from the [client] people... How the f--- do they put on pants every day?

"She's coming from a good place. She means well. But I want to giver her crayons and put her in a kindergarten.

"...I am too critical."



- Him: "So... who wants to do [tedious task]? 'Cause it needs to be done... and I don't really want to do it, haha."

*moment of silence* The conscientious co-owner quietly volunteers: "I'll do it. I'll also [do extra helpful bit that no one had thought of]."

Him: "Thanks!"

Me: "Thanks [for extra thing], too!"

Him, to another worker, "[other coworker], did you like that 'not it'?"

That anecdote aside, he actually is willing to do hard work. He'll take on a lot of the more complicated infrastructure configurations, for example. But he's also upfront about what he thinks and feels about something, including whether or not he wants to do it.


- I think the co-owner is IJ or IP. I'm leaning toward IJ, though. They both own the company but he doesn't take on much of a leadership role, if any.

[ashlesha]

i'm starting to prefer ILE over ESE.

- A sudden outburst after receiving an email: "There are times I feel I'm too critical, but when I read some of the stuff that comes from the [client] people... How the f--- do they put on pants every day?

lol. reminds me of the sort of stuff my old SLE boss used to say.

actually a lot of what you're describing is vibing kind of similarly which is what is making me lean in the ILE direction over ESE. i think i might have been too influenced by the protective thing you mentioned in the first post because i get that a lot from ESEs. also other little things like the willingness to put himself at the end of a joke and the awkwardness in conversation seem to point away from ESE and more towards ILE.

[The Ineffable]

Hmm I misunderstood that, then. Ej is apparently not the case at all, they have the annoying habit to regularly ask questions containing "when" . SLE sounds the most sensible to me so far. I find hard to believe ILE > SLE for cheesy complimenting, perhaps too balanced attention towards people, keeping only the goal in mind and being oblivious to any kind of failure (if I understand correctly).

[Lobo]

- Works with his shoes off sometimes. Yeah, I know, probably not very type related.

What size are they? This is crucial information!

Do you have a good idea of what his type is already? I'm curious.

[Suz]

His management approach seems very IEE to me.

Yeah from the last few posts, I'm increasingly thinking IEE too...

[woofwoofl]

Is SEE too far out of the question? I've been leaning pretty hard towards Extratim, Ethical, and Democratic, and this below part was really striking - sounds absolutely like something I'd do:

Has a protective streak. One time I told him about a volunteer project where some of the people were being slightly less than... nice, I guess. Longish story, but anyway he leaned over me and said something to the effect of, "[Minde], that's f---'n b---s---. You know that, right? You're too good [at what you do] to be treated like that." (Strong language, but the sentiment gave me warm fuzzies.)

[UDP]

He seems to be someone who can take a generalized philosophy for how to deal with things and apply it en mass. "Sometimes the hardest part of teaching in the classroom is knowing when to get out of the way". He seems to want everyone to be independent, and thinks his situation applies to others very much.

He seems..........

like an extratim. Perhaps irrational. Perhaps some sort of an issue with and also . I say issue because I'm not sure if he's using it in a strong or weak way, yet.

He seems to have classic versions of enneagram type 7 influence, and perhaps type 8 also. He's far away from Minde's 9 and 1-ness, so I'm sure that can cause some sort of tension.

He seems goofy in a way I can't describe. Maybe it's techy or nerdiness.
I don't see him as an SEE right now. They seem a lot smoother, even the males. @video
His speech actually sounds Si/Ne valuing, and maybe some sort of a T type. It's an interesting mixture of things.


I suppose tentatively, I'll say an extratim S type.
Perhaps he's your dual.
He doesn't seem to be reacting to your inherent Fi dominance and reservedness in a negative way. He could perhaps be a good natured SLE, too.

[UDP]

Minde: read this post (and the previous, too, I suppose ) and see if you more agree or more disagree with certain things. What i'm going to is present a series of speculations, and different groups of specullations will beformed with a general hypothesis or type in mind (or more accurately, a way of thinking). If you can identify with one or disagree with one, that might give clues
---

1 I'm actually going to say that Se is not valued by him, at this time.
He seems to be ok with Ne, to a point of excessiveness, actually. I wonder if that points him towards being intuitive in the ego.

2 He seems to focus so much on possibilities and 'infinite ways' of things and independence, it seems almost lacking in an actual definitive structure, which is something I'd associate with ST types. I see he's a programmer and has ideas about 'how to do things', be he seems to focus more on presenting options and possibilities than saying "this is an effective way to get a result". That seems particularly not a beta rataional element of Se+Ti ('this is the way to do it') or ('here is the most powerful way to do things, the other ways are crap and not strong').

3 He almost seems to advocate personally not drawing attention to oneself or a certain 'pride' related to that. Almost defensively so? That seems somewhat alpha or delta.


The problem is that I can't tell which of the things I'm seeing are a part of his inherent makeup or him being in 'teacher mode" or even "boss mode".

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

he looks like :

and that guy from lost who wouldn't let people push the button

[UDP]

I don't think Patrick Stewart and the OP guy look alike at all, other than being bald white males. Definitely not the same nature.

[Suz]

he looks like :

and that guy from lost who wouldn't let people push the button

Hopefully this is not just wrt to the oh so striking shiny bald head that all 3 men possess. (I had to really try and block that out... HARD VERY HARD TO DO!!). I do agree though that this guy does have other features that seem similar to the guy from Lost!!