Throughout my life I've hated it when people try to give me unsolicited help or advice. I'm an independent type and I prefer to solve my own problems and rely on my own reasoning and ingenuity whenever possible. It's not that I'm afraid to ask for help, I will when I've done what I could do on my own and truly am stuck. But when someone starts to give me unsolicited help or advice, I feel that I'm being intruded upon or even that my own competence is being questioned or that I'm being prevented from exercising my logic and ingenuity, which is a main source of self-esteem for me. Do other INTjs feel this way? Any other types prone to this mindset?
I find this happening at work on occasion. I'm a librarian and oftentimes there are two of us working at the reference desk. A patron will come up and ask me a question, and the other librarian will start taking over for me, even when I didn't ask her to. I'm a newer employee and I may not be as experienced as some of my colleagues but I would appreciate it if they would show more confidence in me and let me handle it myself. Maybe it takes me more time than my colleagues to look up the answer to a patron's question due to less experience, but I'd like to be given more opportunity to tackle it, and yes, struggle somewhat through it. It's really satisfying for me, when I've successfully helped a patron with a difficult question, without having to seek assistance.
The only time I would want a colleague to intervene would be if I was telling a patron incorrect or incomplete information or if the patron was rushed and needed the information RIGHT NOW. This happened just after I started my job on various policy related things because I didn't know everything I needed to know yet. But my colleagues were yelling NO! That's wrong! when they could have said it in a more tactful manner.
Any ideas on how I could approach my colleagues about this without offending them?