I remember there being a similar thread, but for the life of me I can't find it.

So, post little stories, quotes, or anecdotes involving deltas, particularly if you think they typify the type or quadra. Yes, this can be a place to say, "That's not delta, because a, b, and/or c" or to delve into how a behavior or expression could be, say, a combination of factors.

But I request resisting the urge to devolve into impractical, cyclical other-bashing. Thx, xo.




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Here's a long anecdote from this weekend:

I have a friend who volunteers for a nearby wilderness rescue group. He recently did some intensive emergency medicine training, so I asked him about it when I saw him.

Now, mind you, I easily get queasy and sometimes faint around blood and violence and bodily fluids/functions, etc. So I specifically ask him to skip the gory details. But I was really interested in the general idea because sometimes I wonder how I'd do in emergency situations, and how people make decisions.

Even with my request, though, a few minutes in I decided I needed to sit down because he hadn't quite figured out my particular queasy tolerance level. It was actually interesting stuff, I just wish I wasn't so queasy. He told me if I fainted to avoid the rolls, lol.

We talked a bit about various particularly memorable learning moments, and he told me how the "final" for their course was a mock rescue, where three of the class members (I think there were 11-12 people total) became "injured" patients and the rest of them had to save them. The staging area was some woods behind where the classes were, a bit of a distance away.

Before the exercise, the teacher asked them to decide who they wanted to be as a leader. Apparently much of the group thought my friend would do well, but he was initially hesitant. He definitely did not *want* to be the leader (I think he didn't feel competent enough). But then he thought through the options.

There were 3-4 people in the group that he would be ok taking orders from (as in, he thought *they* were competent enough). 2-3 of those were probably going to be tapped by the teacher to be the "patients," which turned out to be an accurate guess (likely because they were good enough that the teacher didn't feel a need to test them further). And the other one really did not want to lead. So that meant either he take the role as leader or follow someone he didn't want to take orders from.

(From my growing experience with him, apparently this type of very logical approach is normal for him - the thinking through the various options when in the midst of the situation. When in a situation, I'm usually more gut-level decision-making.)

From how he described it, I get the feeling he did mostly ok at the role. I expect he was overwhelmed in terms of intuition. There was some time-critical stuff, plus the weight of "lives" resting in his hands. Lots of stuff happening all at once, lots of data in and data out to manage. One stressful point he mentioned, which made me internally knowingly smile, was that the teacher, who was playing the role of some point person at a base camp or the like, would keep radioing in asking for updates. It was an external time pressure, which threw him off.

He also made some interesting calculated decisions in terms of controlling his own behavior. Like he purposefully did not put gloves on, which would force him to not personally help with the patients as much as he was tempted to at times (because the others were not fast or correct enough). This is because as someone who is playing point person in that type of situation, he could handle up to about 7 people, managing them, etc. As the situation gets more hectic, that number goes down. But as soon as a point person starts doing hands on stuff, their ability to manage others drops to like 1 or 2 people, or maybe none.

I asked him if, after he learned from from that test scenario, if he would do anything different. One thing he said is he'd be more assertive at the start in assigning workers to patients, instead of letting them assign themselves. Because different people had different skills and he had a better idea of where to best utilize them.

He went into a *lot* of detail, and I more or less encouraged it. It is interesting imagining what I'd do in emergency situations, and all the details helped. A couple times it did get a little too much, but I knew that was a risk so it didn't bother me.

After telling me the main story, he went and got his cell phone to show me a video of a rescue that happened 8 years ago where a helicopter crashed. While he was getting it, another friend came up to get more food (my friend and I were sitting near the food) and started talking with me. My friend got back and showed him the video, too. But shortly after that my friend just sort of oddly disappeared. And didn't really talk to me much the rest of the evening.

As he was leaving later, he made some passing comment about being sorry about boring me with our conversation, but I was semi-across the room and in the middle of another conversation, so I didn't have a chance to address that...


Oh, also at one point, he used his feet to sort of drag my chair (with me in it) forward a little because the person behind me kept bumping the back of my chair with theirs. He didn't even really ask, just quietly did it. As for myself, it had barely even reached my consciousness that the bumping was even happening, ha.


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Betcha can't guess what type I think he is...