How Do You Know When You Are Doing The Wrong Kind of Work?

Today I had a prime example of watching a person who was forced to do the wrong kind of work.

And it was me.

I normally love the work I do, but for the last few days I have been doing book keeping and accounting in an effort get ready for our tax prep guy.

After a few hours of typing numbers into Quicken / QuickBooks and struggling to balance accounts and get all the expenses correctly categorized, I was a wreck. I was repeatedly cursing the software. 

I was grouchy and cranky (more so than usual) and my dog had even run to the other end of the house.

I was pessimistic and the whole world looked bleak. 

So when I took a break to chill a bit, I realized that this is what it is like when a person is forced to do work that they are not well suited to.

I've taken our Career Interest Test and our new Personality Test several times and they both say that I should avoid repetitive, highly detailed work, like accounting and book keeping.

The Personality Test says I am an "INTJ," and if you want to destroy an INTJ at work, keep them away from creative work for several days.  Force them to do repetitive, detailed work. 

Wow. I knew I hated the book keeping, but I always associated it with taxes and nobody likes taxes.  Now I know better.  Its the very type of work I was born to avoid and it is driving me up the wall.  Plus it's driving my dog to hide in the guest bedroom.

So I wonder what it must be like for someone who has a job where they have to do a lot of work that they are not well suited to?

Comments

[Dan]

I'm an ENTJ and I can attest... Repetition kills me. There are a few other pet peaves like inefficiency and premedonnas. I guess I'm a classic. It's hard to find the right career path as an ENTJ since the right path is in the CEO seat or higher leadership roles.

[Michael Robinson]

Yes, there are some statistics that say a large percentage of CEOs are ENTJ.

The iNtuitive (N) preference gives them the strategic / future orientation to lead their people. A (S) Sensing type can be CEO and will be very good at the daily details of running a company but will need some iNtuitives around to focus on the future.

The Thinking (T) preference gives them ability for logic and objective thinking instead of making emotional decisions. An (F) Feeling would be too emotional for the CEO role. They would make more subjective decisions.

The Judging (J) preference makes them decisive and directing rather than process oriented and going with the flow. A (P)Perceiving type would be too slow to make critical decisions and would be too easy going as a CEO.

The Extroversion (E) preference keeps them talking, communicating and selling themselves and the company all the time. An Introverted (I)type could do the CEO job but might be uncomfortable having to talk so much and having to be selling all the time. They would need to surround themselves with some very outgoing Extroverted types from the Sales and Marketing part of the company.

But if you don't want to be a CEO, you can still provide leadership at a level you are comfortable with. If you are intuitive you can provide a vision for the future. Being Extroverted you can be selling yourself and your team.