 Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a fascinating seminar in which a large group of people were all placed in the same room and then asked to fill out a rather, shall we say, vague questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 24 “pick which one you are the most and which one you are the least” items such as:
I am:
A) Confronting, challenging
B) Adjustable, able to change
C) Unruffled, indifferent, casual
D) Cheerful, unworried, playful
Now, during the process of actually having to live through this seminar, I came to the conclusion that these questions could have been more directly asked if they had been written as follows:
I am:
A) a dick head, egocentric freak job.
B) a sappy, sad, ass kissing weasel.
C) a dominating, self-important, man-hating bitch.
D) the most perfect, generous, psychologically healthy and unconditionally loving human being ever to grace the planet with my presence.
Now then, multiply this charming collective by 24 and you’ve got yourself a seminar.
Brilliant.
Well, it just so happens that I had been stuck in traffic on my way to this seminar and was not only running late but, in a very ill devised plan to multi-task my morning drudgery, I had engaged in a typical and rousing conversation with my mother in which she reminded me that, being gay, a single mother and communicating with my relatives about my being gay are just a few of the various ways that I am a complete and total disappointment to her and probably the rest of the human race. I wasn’t sure of her final point though, the sound of her foot being rammed into teeth on its way into her mouth time and time again became a little distracting. So, needless to say, I was in top form to answer questions about how I view myself and the human race as a whole…tip top. So, after ramming my head into the table repeatedly, I believe that my answers tallied me into the category of the sappiest of all the sap-tards that this questionnaire could have possibly labeled me as being.
The results themselves were tallied using a system of counting punctuation. Seriously. I am not lying. There are stars and exclamation points and question marks…these are your personality symbols. Exclamation points are challenging and forceful and stars are emotional and perky and question marks are analytical and complex and for some unknown reason there is a plus and a minus and it has something to do with doing one thing at a time. Wow. Punctuation segregation at it finest and guess which one I had the most of…yes, that’s right, sap-tard stars.
Somehow, I ended up being labeled as an outgoing, sappy, people person. Seriously, stop laughing, it’s true. I also was labeled as someone who doesn’t like making unpopular decisions…do these people know my mother? I mean, my entire life is one, huge unpopular decision.
Also, apparently, I like to express my feelings…..…..(insert uncomfortable silence here).
Um, no.
AND, just to rub it in, my cohort in crime and publisher, Scott (Sparky) Semegran, well he was labeled as the guy who could buy and sell me three times over and then feed me the details with a spoon. While this last statement may be true (see the ass kissing here) I am going to make my point now in the following Carolesque rant…
How is it that legitimate corporations and agencies buy into this kind of psycho-babble hoo ha? This is a set of 24 basic multiple choice questions that are completely mood dependent and could vary widely depending on anything as simple as how many shots of espresso I had in my morning latte. I have, after all, been known to have a quad and who in their right mind could concentrate on anything for 15 whole minutes on that much caffeine.
I also must not forget the fact that the test was being administered by a woman who reminded me of a cross between Mary Poppins and Hillary Clinton with a heaping side of butt stick-itis and a pinch of prejudice thrown in. I felt as if I was back in the fifties and my teacher had just told me that brown eyed people were smarter than me. It became the battle of who is better than whom and people actually paid for it!
I couldn’t believe the racket this was and that I was labeled as the village idiot running around begging for attention and spouting my feelings. Seriously, my business partner has the disposition of Bill Gates and I am running around like some big, purple lesbo Barney?
Listen, human behavior is more complex than asking people 24 times if they are an explosive sociopath or a groveling shrew, especially when it is punctuated by stars. To believe that this is some sort of insightful formula into the human psyche and communication is absurd and about as reliable as the NSA being able to locate WMDs. I know that sometimes I am hard to figure out, I don’t listen and I have been known to babble incoherently, but, aside from my mother, my girlfriend and the occasional insightful observations of my therapist, the only person who really knows me…
is me.
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