secrets and personalities

So I got fingerprinted yesterday at work.  Good?  Bad?  Depends on how you look at it.  I’ve currently got “secret” clearance at work – pretty much everyone does.  We deal with somewhat sensitive national security information, etc.  anyway, I asked for clearance to “top secret” stuff at work.  Figured that if I ever decided to leave the government for another job, then it would be worth some extra $$$ to have TS clearance.  Plus, there’s stuff at work that I could help out in if I had ts clearance.  So anyway, now I’ve got to go through a whole background check over again (had a basic one for my secret clearance back in 2002).  Places I’ve lived, people I’ve known, jobs I’ve worked, where I’ve gone to school, etc, for the last 10 years.  Supposed to take 6-9 months to do the background check.  Blah.  They even ask you – several times – if you’ve ever tried to overthrow the government, been a member of a group that’s plotted to overthrow the government, or ever contributed to a group that’s tried to overthrow the government.  Wow.  With TS clearance also comes the extra joy of random drug testing, so I guess no more using the drugs that I never used in the first place…

So today we had an “offsite” for work.  We get off the base for the day and talk about the organization, do team building exercises, etc.  anyway, a major component of the day was a Meyers-briggs test.  I think the last time I took this was back as an undergrad at Tech, and I’m pretty sure back then my result was ISTJ.  That’s pretty much the standard result for engineers.  Introverts who process data and come to logical conclusions and make decisions.  Not sure how strong I was in the categories – that was a while ago.  anyway, with this go around I scored kind of down the middle, but slanted to INFP.  Kinda weird, but things do change, and wow, since the last time I took the test I was 18 and a freshman at tech – well, there’s been a couple changes.  Mainly the time in Europe, philly and various ups and downs of working for the govt…  anyway, maybe I’ll take the test again soon just to see if I can validate the results.

But a snippet from infp:

“INFPs are open-minded, idealistic, insightful, and flexible individuals who want their work to contribute to something that matters.  They enjoy working by themselves or in small groups where they can be creative.”