Who Am I?

Kris had to take a personality test for work.  It was fun reading his results, the majority of what it said was right on.  I told him I wanted to take the test also.  Then I changed my mind.  Did I really want to know that much about myself?  But then I changed my mind again.  Why not?

The test was geared towards those who work outside the home.  I decided to answer questions based on how I would have answered while teaching.  The first mistake I made was taking the test while the kids were awake.  I had them settled in front of the television (props to me, super mom).....so I thought. I finished the first portion of the test while yelling into another room to answer questions and respond to comments like - hey mom, where's Cinderella?  Momma, Harrison going up the stairs!  Hey, Harrison got the remote in his mouth!  Etc., etc., etc.  Just like I'm doing right now as I attempt to write this.

The second half of the test required seven minutes of my time.  That's asking a lot.  I waited until Harrison was in bed for a little nap before starting it.  Sadie can easily watch seven minutes of tv without getting distracted.  ha ha ha ha ha ha.  I laugh.  I began the test which was full of mathematical questions and questions I really needed to focus on.  I was about two minutes in when Sadie decided to join me.  She was crawling on me, talking to me, and doing things that required me to stop and say - Sadie, are you crazy?  Don't do that!  No wonder my session expired before I finished.  aaahhhhh!!!

I got the results a couple of days later.  There were some comments made that were very true and some that were very wrong.  Let's explore the depths of my personality, shall we?

- You tend to be comfortable making decisions

Uhm, that's a negative.  I have to get opinions/suggestions from Kris, mom, friends, and sometimes even strangers before making many decisions.  I buy stuff, I return it.  I don't buy stuff, yet go back more than once trying to decide if I really want or need it.  I make or don't make decisions based on how others might react and feel.  If it will hurt someone's feelings, it makes decision making that much worse.

- you tend to be more direct with your communications 
Just ask Kris how wrong this is.

- You tend to be more comfortable than most people with confrontational situations
- Your higher than average comfort level with confrontation may cause you to be more direct with others than they are comfortable with.
Could anything be more wrong?  I avoid confrontation at all costs.  Example:  My housekeeper.  I haven't been happy with her for a while.  We can't communicate because of a language barrier.  But I am able to translate things online.  However, I shy away from translating things that are confrontational.  Even if it is to tell her that I need her to clean something differently/better.  The thing is, she's a nice lady, never missed a day, always on time.  I have psyched myself up two weeks in a row now to tell her that we won't be needing her starting in September.  I chickened out last week.  And again this week.  I was prepared.  Until she walked in, picked up Harrison, hugged him, gave him a kiss, and said - I like him!  She would have been crushed if I broke the news to her.  What am I to do?!

There are more things that I do not agree with, but now let me see if I can find anything in the results that I DO agree with.....

- Tends to be friendly and sociable, but also able to work alone when necessary

I try to be friendly and sociable, but I do prefer working alone.

- Work environments that are highly team oriented and require Traci to continually collaborate with others in order to accomplish tasks will be less motivating

Yeah, I'm not good with team/group work.  I NEVER liked group work in school - I'd much rather do it myself.  And team planning at school was a killer for me.

- Tends to be distractible and easy going when it comes to details and plans
Yep.  Details?  Who needs 'em?
- Traci prefers an environment where they can simply react to what's going on versus planning ahead

Yep again.  My best lessons at school were the ones that just came to me in the middle of teaching that I was able to expand on.

So, based on this test, I'm not a very nice person at times - confrontational, doesn't work well with others, blah blah blah.  Perhaps I should retake the test when I'm not refereeing two kids, because I was totally confrontational with them during the test taking time!  So, the question still remains....who am I?  The world may never know.

I have no idea what happened to the formatting of this....this page and the preview page look totally different, and I'm not smart enough (nor do I really care - you know, details....who needs 'em?) to play  with it for fear of really making a mess of it.