hotelambush Questionnaire
Please save your answers offline so you do not accidentally lose them!Instructions: -
Tell me about yourself I'm 22, a guy, and absolutely hate these vague and open-ended questions with no discernible goal. I am also not going to make a video because I don't believe in physiognomic methods for typology, period. So, Sol, much appreciated, but don't bother.
What do you study or do for a living? How did you come to do that? What do you like or dislike about it? I'm in IT and Cybersecurity. I have always loved solving puzzles and wanted the opportunity to make an impact. I felt that IT was simply a good fit given my interests. I do not enjoy the nuts and bolts grunt work, which frequently bores me to death. Give me a complex problem or some strategic initiative, let the incapable do the grunt work. Another aspect that I absolutely hate is the bureaucracy. Every decision requires miles of red tape which prevents action, slows progress, and makes even the simple things more difficult than they are worth. I am personally far more inclined to subvert the system and build a new one when the current system simply doesn't work.
What are your values, and why? Impact, power, recognition, freedom, and happiness. I need to make some sort of impact, to accomplish something, to do something that other people are incapable of. I don't know why, but I've always needed to. I crave power, and I love playing games to gain that power by any means necessary. I've been like that since I was really young, like 5 or 6. I would orchestrate everything I could to get what I wanted.
As a more detailed example: Since I got my current job 6 months ago, I've been playing the role of intriguer, sowing discord between all the members of my team against our incompetent, scatterbrained, passive-aggressive owner while making him accept anything and everything I say as truth. He hates the team, the team hates him, but both sides love working with me. I've created a position now such that I make all the major decisions (including hiring and firing) and am slowly choking the owner out of his own company. In the next six months, either he will make me partner, or he will go bankrupt when I take the whole team and leave.
What else do you do on a daily basis? What are your interests and hobbies? Why do you do them? Study, work, scheme, and execute. I study something every day without fail, usually in an effort to deepen my understanding of some topic. To keep my little house of cards from collapsing under its own weight, I'm currently working 80 hours a week, and I'm always plotting my next few moves.
I'm interested in anything that helps me accomplish my goals, and I partake because they help me accomplish my goals.
What do you look for in friends? In romantic relationships? Expressive people who don't split hairs over ethical issues and make a big fuss out of nothing. I am strictly amoral (acting without referencing any sort of moral compass), and I tend to get either really frustrated or really confused when people try to say that I acted in an unethical or immoral fashion. In friends, pair expressiveness and lack of ethical concern with being intelligent and funny.
What conflicts have you encountered recently with other people? Why did they happen? Which kinds seem to happen on a regular basis? Ethical conflicts. My boss used to really have a hard time with the fact that I don't actually care about our clients, lie freely to keep spirits high, and put on a nice facade to make people feel welcome enough. I don't want to say that I don't care at all, but rather that I'm just not concerned about it. He thinks that communication without a relationship is fake and wrong -- I say that communication without an established, genuine relationship is easier and less strained.
Otherwise, I struggle mightily with stupid and incompetent people. The people who know me well say that I'm great at explaining concepts, but there are still plenty of people who I simply can't communicate with because they can't grasp the information I'm handing out.
How would your friends describe you? Tough-minded, dramatic, tenacious, ambitious, pragmatic, competent, and (most importantly) right. My family would also describe me as ruthless and arrogant.
What are your weaknesses? What criticism do you often face from others? What do you dislike about yourself? I spent 20 minutes on this trying to figure out what weaknesses I have that I actually consider to be weaknesses. I'll be honest and say that I am too arrogant to really believe that I have crippling weaknesses, since I've managed to do alright despite the problems I do have.
That said, I am frequently criticized for acting in an "unethical" fashion, not taking the human element into account when making decisions. I don't see this as a problem, since humans are often just another obstacle, but apparently other people do. In reality, I do often put on a nice face to get people on my side long enough that I can get into a position where I no longer need to play dress-up like a preschool girl.
In what areas of life can you manage well on your own? In what areas of your life would you like help? I'm pretty good at most things in life. I only really need help if I want to improve my ability to act ethically, which I don't see as a reasonable venture. My biggest thing is that I would rather hand off all the manual, nitty-gritty labor to other people so I don't have to do it. I'd much rather lead from the front OR determine the solution, then delegate the implementation to someone else. Unless, that is, I retain a deep interest in the implementation.
I do need a little help with really long-ranging vision. I generally know the direction I want to go, but I often find that the direction is meaningless by the time I get there. I'd love to have someone nearby who can help me really grasp the meaning of life.
What things do you find to be a chore? What things do you enjoy more than others? I do not enjoy dealing with idiots. Once I've explained something twice in simple language, you should be able to grasp my meaning. If not, you are free to take my explanation and jam it up where the sun doesn't shine. I also don't like combing through copious amounts of data or doing detailed work. I do enjoy producing results that lead in a general direction and picking the direction to move toward.
What goals, aspirations, or plans do you have for the future? How did you come to have them? I want to gain real, tangible, meaningful power over large amounts of people and other resources. I want to graduate from the petty power plays I am running now into the big leagues, where what I do really matters. I don't care where, though politics would be the eventual choice. I want to become a world-renowned Cybersecurity expert who acts as a private consultant, picking up graduate degrees in business and cyber on my way down that path. I want to always be right so that people have no choice but to bow to the truest form of power - expert power - the kind of power which could cause emperors to kneel to paupers. I want at least one of my degrees to come from a top institution to grant legitimacy to my claims and expertise, since people don't value competency without regalia.
Understand, I think regalia is great, but demonstrated competence beats regalia any day.
If you had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life without working, what would you do with your time? I would ignore salary but I would carve a path into management so I could do what I am interested in and stave off boredom. I'm not sure if politics is a smart road for me to take, but if I never had to worry about money, I would certainly try. As I've said, I compulsively need to have an impact and solve puzzles. Anything beyond that is a bonus.
What traits do you find endearing that others might dislike? What traits are considered positive/neutral by others but tend to annoy you? My mind is honestly pretty blank here. I typically enjoy being around expressive and funny people (one of my few friends regularly acts like Peter Quill from Guardians of the Galaxy) and can't stand people who are emotionally comparable to a brick wall. I am frequently annoyed by people who constantly make random jumps in ideation (people who jump from idea to idea or thing to thing with no centralized focus).
What kinds of things do you do to manage and/or beautify your environment (your room, your house, etc.)? What do you think of daily chores? I don't do much to beautify things, but I do try to keep things clean enough to be presentable. I hate daily chores.
How do you behave around strangers? Polite and composed. I have to tone down my antics and appear more reserved to maintain appearances. Around strangers or professional contacts, I am often criticized for not being expressive enough because I simply shut off my communication except for the bare minimums. I would prefer to act without restraint, but that isn't really possible in environments where reputation dictates the influence you wield over everyone else.
How do you react to conflict? What do you do if somebody insults or attacks you? Depends on the environment and the manner of attack. If I expected the attack (probably because I provoked you), I've got a plan in place and will keep playing the game my way. If I didn't expect the attack, it depends on the environment. If I'm in a professional environment, I'll usually remain calm but push your buttons to make you even angrier. This often causes people to lash out more, further reducing the public's opinion of you while making me look like a benevolent and graceful victim of circumstance. This aslo has the added benefit of giving me a lot of entertainment -- watching people self-immolate is always fun.
Sometimes, if I've just had enough, I'll return blow for blow with a slightly escalated level of force to dissuade further action.
What is one common misconception that people have? Explain why it is wrong. That life is fair. Life is not fair, there is no overarching powerful entity or force, like God or karma, which balances out the good and the bad. Plenty of good people die young and plenty of vile people live into their golden years, plenty of good people deal with shit and plenty of bad people live good lives. Misery and happiness are not related to doing good things, but rather to doing what it is that you want and accomplishing all that which you desire. Now, I'm not saying that there is no God, as I cannot rule it out entirely, but I do not believe that anyone manages the scales of justice at some cosmic level.
What did you do last Friday? Well, two Fridays ago. Convinced my boss to go to a leadership conference with people he holds in high esteem, but managed to let several of my coworkers drag him into a controversial intra-office problem immediately before he was supposed to leave. As a result, he forgot his critical notes and left his laptop at the office, giving me another chance to save the day and produce the information he so desperately needed. He looked incompetent, but I gained favor in a group of 10 reasonably powerful people by producing all the necessary information over the phone during the meeting.
I mean, this was more of an inter-day scheme, but I started it on a Friday.
Please save your answers offline so you do not accidentally lose them!Part 2 -
What is your biggest accomplishment? Well, my scheme to gain a stake in the business and choke the boss out from his own company takes the cake. I also finished University in about 3 years, getting 3 degrees, 3 academic certiticates, and about 8 professional certificates along the way by playing the weak spots of my school's process.
What is something you regret? I have no regrets that would cause me to want to change my past. Ever forward.
Who do you admire, and why? Most great conquerors/warlords (Napoleon, Alexander, Julius Caesar, etc) and most Roman Emperors make the list. The things they accomplished and how artfully they played the game was masterful and brilliant.
If I had to add fictional characters, I'd probably pick Frank Underwood and Sherlock Holmes. Underwood for many of the same reasons as above, Holmes because he was just that right kind of zany to be really interesting.
What's been on your mind? Has anything been worrying or concerning you? What problems have you encountered lately? Not too much, just planning ahead and preparing myself. To get to where I desire to go, I have to hone my skills like a blacksmith would a blade.
What are your religious or spiritual beliefs and why do you hold them? I am an agnostic. I don't know whether there is a God, but I know there is some power higher than myself which has some say in the way things unfold. Perhaps it is just natural law, perhaps it is a personified entity, but there is definitely something. I hold these beliefs because I have never met any religious person intelligent enough to logically explain the link between reality and God, plus I've never seen any proof that some diety actually exists. However, I have seen and can logically prove that there are powers which man does not control that shape our reality.
What are your political beliefs, and why? To what extent do you care about politics? I'm a radical centrist, of sorts. I don't ascribe to any particular ideology until it suits me, and that ideology is only consistent when consistency suits me. My views are rather strong and always average around some sort of pseudo-libertarian centrist, but my views can be sidelined as necessary.
Would you ever be interested in starting a business? Why or why not? What role would you play in it? What kind of business would it be? I would be interested in starting a business. At minimum, it would act as resume fodder to improve my appearance when applying for new jobs. At best, I could actually leverage it into something greater. I would end up acting as the CEO and a high-level consultant for interesting issues. Probably would be in cybersecurity, since that's my area of expertise.
What kind of work environment do you prefer? What do you look for in a job? Fairly open and unstructured. I don't need an overbearing manager who doesn't give me room to breathe. I look for a job that will provide me a constant challenge, lots of free space when challenges aren't present, good pay, and room for advancement.
What is or was your favorite school subject and why? I enjoyed most of them, but psychology and technology classes enthralled me the most. Not entirely sure why.
How do you approach responsibility? What do you tend to expect of others? If the responsibility is something I truly, honestly, sincerely loathe, I'll do everything in my power to delegate it to someone else. If it interests me, I'm game and am happy to get involved. Like everything else, I take responsibility when it suits me and shirk it when it suits me. I will not blindly take responsibilities just so I have something to do, because I am often far more productive when deciding my own path than when it is dictated to me.
Where did you go on your most recent vacation? What did you do there? How did you like it and why? I don't really take vacations. Even when I take a break from work, I'm always working on something. It's been a long-standing joke in my family that I don't understand the meaning of the word "rest."
What were you like as a kid? How have you changed since you were a child? In childhood, I was very reserved, somewhat warm, contemplative, and cunning. I've not changed very much, though I realize now that I only act warm at times despite actually being quite cold.
What was your high school experience like? Good, not great. I don't really care to get into it.
Talk about a significant event from your life. Another really, really open-ended question. What is it that you want to know about? What happened? What it meant? How it made me feel?
My grandfather (who was also my mentor) kicked the bucket a year and a half ago. There was no meaning, he just died from chronic illnesses. I was sort of blindsided by the emotions, but I got over it pretty quickly.
Do you like kids? Why or why not? No. Kids are just a pain in my ass and their behavior is genuinely grating to me. Too needy, requiring far too much effort to keep them happy and comfortable.
hotelambush Questionnaire (JosephBell)
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