Quasi-Identical Relations: Stories and Experiences

[Soupman]

Soupman, this is just so spot on that i dont even know where to begin.
Firstly i'd like to comment that perhaps a quasi-relation between friends may play out differently than between a mentor-mentee. However, not unlike how you described your relationship with your quasi-friend, I do realize that this EIE mentor was trying his best to be a good mentor, and i appreciated it a lot. Its just that i'm under a lot of time pressure, and didn't have much more time to waste in trying to get us to understand each other which ultimately led to my decision to call it quits with him and pick someone else to mentor me.



I'm serious this is just a PERFECT description of how things went for me. Amazing, it's almost like you were there with me!. Let me give some examples. To give some context, he is a professor of science and i joined his lab to work with him for a bit to learn from him by doing projects together and perhaps writing one (or more) up into a publishable article. So basically his style is as such -- he comes up with an idea and sits down and writes a "dream paper" right off the bat. Now this "dream paper" thing was such a foreign, strange concept to me. Basically what it is--he writes what he envisions the article will be once we do all the experiments and get the results, etc. From my standpoint, that is such a useless exercise because starting out with an idea, you never know how it will work out. My style is more like come up with a cool idea, do experiments, see where the experiments take you, if it's something interesting, THEN sit down look over everything and write the article. Writing the "dream paper" almost feels like making up stuff, to me. Though I did recognize that he was just trying to put something in front of him (and me) as something to aim for (it really did nothing for me, i totally ignored it and figured i would start from scratch when i have something publishable).

Along similar, but unrelated, lines-- when I was verbalizing my dissatisfaction with the direction things were going (shortly before I called it quits with him), he sent me an email listing some of the vague topics i had told him i'd rather be working on in a spreadsheet, his "assignment" for me being to list deadlines by which I would finish the data collection, write up the paper, and submit the paper to a journal for each of these topics. Mind you we'd BARELY talked about these topics, much less discussed what would be involved in projects coming off of those topics. How can I possibly know when i can finish collecting the data, when we dont even know if data can be collected, how it will go, etc??? much less about writing up the paper or submitting it to a journal! It just confirmed my decision that I needed a different kind of mentoring, and it was actually in response to that email that I sent him my resignation (even though I'd already sort of decided to leave even beforehand). After I sent the resignation, he explained that he was just trying to get me to see that i'm so close to having a publication (yeah right...confirmed my decision even more). But what you described there basically explains this crazy stuff -- EIEs just need that endpoint to be able to work towards it, even if they end up changing the "deadlines" 1000 times. On the other hand, I found it freaking STIFLING and just totally pointless. I saw it as him putting pressure on me, and in a way it had a paralyzing effect on me.

but yes, the general dynamic tended to be him constantly coming up with new ideas like a maniac never letting me finish the previous ideas, and that left me feeling increasingly lost, and that he had no regard for the time that i had available to do this work. I like to bring things to completion and it just couldn't happen with that sort of a dynamic.

Its important to understand that rationals requests are not cast in stone, even though they feel like that for us irrationals, so it would be best to take them as general advice rather than a must. Its hard to believe this or accept it but that is the case. When rationals say something think of it as advice rather than a request cast in stone. A bit of respect goes a long way and when they feel like you don't listen to their advice fully (well since not all of it will be good hence the tweaking), explain your weird rhythm and they will realize that your method is very unorthodox but it works since you are sincere about it and that is what you are used too.

You can tell him about your rationality rhythm difference by giving him this article!
http://translate.google.com/translat...aver_boss.html

Though since the machine translation is not great, you need to rewrite the English so he can read it; advise you to send it to him, since its very helpful to realize that we all functions a bit differently. When people experience these problems they appreciate this, he might even get into Socionics. It would be good for you to explain it to him it will just show him that you had no bad intentions even though the way you parted made it seem like that. It not impossible to work with EIE. just don't adopt their rhythm, it just causes stress on you and actually they feel the same when trying your rhythm, its the weird truth.

[Suz]

Its important to understand that rationals requests are not cast in stone, even though they feel like that for us irrationals, so it would be best to take them as general advice rather than a must. Its hard to believe this or accept it but that is the case. When rationals say something think of it as advice rather than a request cast in stone. A bit of respect goes a long way and when they feel like you don't listen to their advice fully (well since not all of it will be good hence the tweaking), explain your weird rhythm and they will realize that your method is very unorthodox but it works since you are sincere about it and that is what you are used too.

You can tell him about your rationality rhythm difference by giving him this article!
http://translate.google.com/translat...aver_boss.html

Though since the machine translation is not great, you need to rewrite the English so he can read it; advise you to send it to him, since its very helpful to realize that we all functions a bit differently. When people experience these problems they appreciate this, he might even get into Socionics. It would be good for you to explain it to him it will just show him that you had no bad intentions even though the way you parted made it seem like that. It not impossible to work with EIE. just don't adopt their rhythm, it just causes stress on you and actually they feel the same when trying your rhythm, its the weird truth.

That's all right, it's a lost cause. Thanks anyway....i am of the philosophy that I can't change anyone, especially not someone elderly like him who is set in his ways. People will be what they are. I was getting bored of what i was doing with him anyway -- the work wasn't utilizing my strengths well and was leading to nowhere. I'm working with a probable EII now, and a lot happier.

I will read the article you linked though.. for my own edification!

[Soupman]

That's all right, it's a lost cause. Thanks anyway....i am of the philosophy that I can't change anyone, especially not someone elderly like him who is set in his ways. People will be what they are. I was getting bored of what i was doing with him anyway -- the work wasn't utilizing my strengths well and was leading to nowhere. I'm working with a probable EII now, and a lot happier.

I will read the article you linked though.. for my own edification!

You can't change anyone but you can help people to understand that others are different and think differently, the key to these relations is understanding your differences and being comfortable with it. Yet I do understand your point that some people are irritatingly set in their ways, I understand that and feel the pain.

Anyway its cool I understand that the bridge may be burnt at this point, its no worries that is just life

[Soupman]

Its important to understand that rationals requests are not cast in stone, even though they feel like that for us irrationals, so it would be best to take them as general advice rather than a must. Its hard to believe this or accept it but that is the case. When rationals say something think of it as advice rather than a request cast in stone. A bit of respect goes a long way and when they feel like you don't listen to their advice fully (well since not all of it will be good hence the tweaking), explain your weird rhythm and they will realize that your method is very unorthodox but it works since you are sincere about it and that is what you are used too.

You can tell him about your rationality rhythm difference by giving him this article!
http://translate.google.com/translat...aver_boss.html

Though since the machine translation is not great, you need to rewrite the English so he can read it; advise you to send it to him, since its very helpful to realize that we all functions a bit differently. When people experience these problems they appreciate this, he might even get into Socionics. It would be good for you to explain it to him it will just show him that you had no bad intentions even though the way you parted made it seem like that. It not impossible to work with EIE. just don't adopt their rhythm, it just causes stress on you and actually they feel the same when trying your rhythm, its the weird truth.

Wow I had no idea, I actually wrote this