I dont "GET IT"

[Creepy-Fry.]

The point is precisely to understand where they come from and try to react to that accordingly. That, unfortunately, may include doing the smile and small-talk thing - if you call that "reach out", then we agree.

We agree and yet come from different places to get there. The point I was trying to make is that managing a work, personal, intimate relationship, or other is the act of managing the relationship as an entity in unto itself. It doesn't matter what the buttons are, it only matters that you only push the ones you mean to push. Manipulative? Yes. Effective? Yes. Requires you to have enough self and other awareness that you don't push the wrong button in yourself or others? Yes.

Why is it unfotunate to smile? It's a social nicety we all enjoy when we get to look at someone else's smile.

hey ENTp M

you have said something very true. I can't articulate my thought, and express my idea. But I can certainly make it a reality.

Anyways, the company "let me go". so there is no choice but look for another job.

I dont know about u, but i can't force myself to do soemthing i dont like to do such as being a different person, and say hi to everyone when i feel like to hide in the a wardro.

I probably will find some more engineering driven job. Those people arround me aren't real engineers. They socialize more than work. those who talk and chit chat are the fake people, and they get to stay at work. what has the world come to?

[Kirana]

whimper whimper. It's no one's job or duty to understand you. Most of the people on this site have gone to the trouble of trying to understand their internal psychology and that's dandy. If you're having trouble with other types, then maybe there is some personal responsibility for you to reach out to others.....or.....is knowing your own personality type an excuse not to change, grow, or do the same old crap. That is a mindset that says, "I am what I am, and limited by that definition.". Why not this....try to spend a lot of time working on the psychology of relationships. You know that space between two people trying to relate, that has it's own rules that is only influenced by your internal psychology. There's a book I picked up a couple of months ago called "Boundary Issues" that might help you to figure out how to manage that space. Is it hardcore science, no. Is the book even all factual, no. Does it lay out a basic theory on interpersonal relationships, yes. It beats the hell out of the old transational analysis models.

I love y'all, but being blunt is so many fewer key strokes.

so, i have to understand everyone, but others don't need to even try to see where i'm coming from? that sort of capitulation was what reduced the engineering department to being enslaved by the sales department in the first place, and only now are they trying to recover their authority over engineering issues at a global level downwards.

it's not unfortunate to smile. it's unfortunate that you are penalised if you don't smile as often as others. how often is often? beats me. i don't know how to measure acceptable smile frequency. half the time when i'm thinking i'm not aware much of my surroundings anyway, let alone notice if i'm smiling or frowning.

sure, by all means learn to make a mask. it comes in handy. learn skills to make up for weaknesses. that's the point of my learning personality theories in the first place. but no one tells me what to be. i won't trade genuine principles for superficial skills. to have them both, ok, why not, depending on whether i can be bothered, or if i can afford not to, or what it is that i expect to gain from expending the effort. but the former will always be far more important to me than the latter.


so anyway, i do think that if doing the job you're paid to do is important to you, and you seem to be the only one who thinks in this way, definitely should go look for a place where when they ask you to accomplish something, they mean it, and are rooting for you to succeed. makes more sense to me.

[FDG]

I probably will find some more engineering driven job. Those people arround me aren't real engineers. They socialize more than work. those who talk and chit chat are the fake people, and they get to stay at work. what has the world come to?

To a company that in a couple of years will not break even.

[Expat]

By the way, from what I have observed IRL and read here, it seems that many ISTps have the same problem with not smiling and "reaching out" to people, in terms of perception, as INTjs.

However, they seem to deal with it better.

[Creepy-ENTp M]

Some things like work culture are bigger than any one person. Finding another culture that is a better fit is always a better idea than "toughing it out" for money or job security. Corporate america today is really a "dog eat rat" kind of place. (Thank you Jack Welsh.) The guys at the top, (me included), do have to manage in such a way that the group as a whole is productive. This means you don't have people wasting time in personality conflicts. Bullys aren't tolerated and neither are victims. You need a workforce that can look past all the crap to achieve the goals that are desired in the business plan, balanced scorecard, whatever the driving force is going to be for management. When everyone is commited to the organizational goals and driven to achieve, it doesn't matter what the personality types are. Now everyone understands that a high performing team is composed of workgroups of players that have complimentary traits, so a good mix of people is always desired because the strengths of different types will all be applied to vision development, problem identification, solution development, and implemenation of effective action. No one personality type owns all the "good space" in any of these tasks, but every personality types has something significant to contribute in each. Now the trick to make all that work out is going to be maturity and respect. Any personality type can be either mature, immature, or somewhere inbetween. (And guess what, we're not all mature all the time.) I guess my definition of maturity in this case is gong to be someone who can to a large degree look past what's best for them and do what's best for the company. This means moving from being self-centered into being corporate centered. It's a tough transition for some people to make because they wade so deeply into who they are and what they need, that they become permanently focused on themselves, or if not permanently for such a prolonged amount of time that the people around them start wasting too much time their time to or around around some individual tying to meet their individual needs. Being that omni-potent person at the top who is managing to an income statement and balance sheet (and ultimately investors), this is not good.

Now all that good stuff I've stated above would be an ideal that I for one, have tried to create. It's one way to lead, and it's difficult because it takes painfully long to achieve in any size workforce and maintaining is a chore. Another productive way to put together a workgroup that will at least get you C+ to B- results is to put together what I call the "like me good, not like me bad workforce". That way everyone can be damn near psychic about what sells internally to the group and what doesn't. That workforce is just what I said, it's a bunch of people who have nearly identical personality types with others thrown in for either comic relief (a bad hire) or as a temporary bridge to meet a missing technical resource requirement. This is what you are going to find in probably 90% of the "good" companies you find out there. If you fall into the "like me" category, you're going to make it until retirement, or the person defining the "like me" leaves. If you're not part of the like me crowd, recognize you're only there until your purpose is fulfilled or another personality that can do what you do is found. (Look out dog and there's a real big rat eyeballing you.)

So the choices of where to stick around seem pretty clear to me. Understand what kind of company you work for and why they hired you, beyond your resume experience or trade skills.