eurochild
20 Jul 2005, 01:27 AM
Morning all,
My first visit here. I did one of those online MBTI things many years ago at uni but the other day we had a training session at work that discussed them, and this has rekindled my interest.
It looks like you get career threads here every so often. Is it time to start a new one?
My concern is that while having INTP tendencies is all well and good, it can be fairly destructive in terms of working for a living (not a new concern on this forum I know). I realise that for some of you, changing careers every few years may be a great idea, but I'd rather not, if I can help it.
I also started in IT but by my late 20s got sick of it and did a couple of years of economics. In fact my story looks a little like Darren's on this thread...
http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=2478&pp=200
Like him, I was a quite disillusioned with academic economics, but am still interested in some sort of policy analysis role, perhaps not in economics per se.
So my main question is, is there anyone out there in policy type roles and how does it pan out in practice for INTPs? (And yes, I guess I know it's "political"). The attraction is, of course, the systems-think and language focus without having one's view of the world locked into a cubicle, as well as the chance to be involved in the "big picture", to involve the "social scientist" tendencies on your personality. Could this work as a sustainable job?
(I might add that it this point that I'm not desirous of controlling or changing the world, merely of being a spectator in a more interesting, and larger, stadium).
The other career approach is one that I've accidentally stumbled into now, and that is postal worker. Well actually not postal worker, but the same idea. In a previous thread someone talked about how it can be an idea to have a mindless job that has small sprinklings of minor interest, human contact etc, so that it doesn't consume any more cycles than it needs to. So instead of riding the job obsession/career reset path you can work 9-5, try to stave off boredom with human contact and little details, and save other stuff (i.e. your crazy INTP fleeting interests and eccentricities) for free time and hobbies. In my case I'm currently working in a bank. As for whether the theory is working, it's still up in the air.
And for those of you who were previously debating the pros and cons of IT work, here are my data points; reasons I left IT, a purely subjective view.
(i) for me the fun part was writing algorithms etc. This is a small part of the job, and a love of writing interesting and complex algorithms can be counterproductive. The best programmers are Js as far as I'm concerned. And as someone else has put it, working as a programmer destroyed a perfectly good hobby (refer the postal worker theory).
(ii) as time goes on you have to spend more and more time learning toolkits, APIs etc. This becomes a bit of a drag, as that stuff isn't that interesting. The best programmers aren't so N that they consider learning new tools beneath them...
(iii) a lot of the people in IT think that expertise in the area makes them superior and important people, and do not have very broad interests. Thus working with them becomes less pleasant. For those youngsters amongst you, you may find that you outgrow this phase. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who have gone on being "IT nerds" for many a year, good on them, don't know how they do it. The related problem is that as IT people are mostly younger, you enjoy the work environment less as you grow older.
(iv) theoretically, IT work is becoming more commoditised, although I don't see that stopping anyone I know from earning a decent living in it. And I like working with Russians :-)
(v) you may enjoy the job, be completely engaged, be working on a project that actually keeps you up at night thinking about better ways to solve a problem. Then at some point you may come up for air and realise that the significance of what you're doing and your involvement in the community doesn't extend much further than your computer screen. You may wish to live a little outside this wonderful fairyland.
I won't mention the pros as they're obvious to most of you.
btw I'm not really interested in debating the points above, as I said, that is only my experience. I'm not passing moral judgement, and for those of you that are happy in IT, that's terriffic, I wish I was earning my IT wages still. I still may end up back there, in which case I would try to fake a bit of "J" and stick to QA & project mgmt.
Having said that, if any of you wish to interpret my comments above in terms of MBTI theory, I'd be interested.
Righto then, best from the South Pacific.
Craig.
My first visit here. I did one of those online MBTI things many years ago at uni but the other day we had a training session at work that discussed them, and this has rekindled my interest.
It looks like you get career threads here every so often. Is it time to start a new one?
My concern is that while having INTP tendencies is all well and good, it can be fairly destructive in terms of working for a living (not a new concern on this forum I know). I realise that for some of you, changing careers every few years may be a great idea, but I'd rather not, if I can help it.
I also started in IT but by my late 20s got sick of it and did a couple of years of economics. In fact my story looks a little like Darren's on this thread...
http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=2478&pp=200
Like him, I was a quite disillusioned with academic economics, but am still interested in some sort of policy analysis role, perhaps not in economics per se.
So my main question is, is there anyone out there in policy type roles and how does it pan out in practice for INTPs? (And yes, I guess I know it's "political"). The attraction is, of course, the systems-think and language focus without having one's view of the world locked into a cubicle, as well as the chance to be involved in the "big picture", to involve the "social scientist" tendencies on your personality. Could this work as a sustainable job?
(I might add that it this point that I'm not desirous of controlling or changing the world, merely of being a spectator in a more interesting, and larger, stadium).
The other career approach is one that I've accidentally stumbled into now, and that is postal worker. Well actually not postal worker, but the same idea. In a previous thread someone talked about how it can be an idea to have a mindless job that has small sprinklings of minor interest, human contact etc, so that it doesn't consume any more cycles than it needs to. So instead of riding the job obsession/career reset path you can work 9-5, try to stave off boredom with human contact and little details, and save other stuff (i.e. your crazy INTP fleeting interests and eccentricities) for free time and hobbies. In my case I'm currently working in a bank. As for whether the theory is working, it's still up in the air.
And for those of you who were previously debating the pros and cons of IT work, here are my data points; reasons I left IT, a purely subjective view.
(i) for me the fun part was writing algorithms etc. This is a small part of the job, and a love of writing interesting and complex algorithms can be counterproductive. The best programmers are Js as far as I'm concerned. And as someone else has put it, working as a programmer destroyed a perfectly good hobby (refer the postal worker theory).
(ii) as time goes on you have to spend more and more time learning toolkits, APIs etc. This becomes a bit of a drag, as that stuff isn't that interesting. The best programmers aren't so N that they consider learning new tools beneath them...
(iii) a lot of the people in IT think that expertise in the area makes them superior and important people, and do not have very broad interests. Thus working with them becomes less pleasant. For those youngsters amongst you, you may find that you outgrow this phase. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who have gone on being "IT nerds" for many a year, good on them, don't know how they do it. The related problem is that as IT people are mostly younger, you enjoy the work environment less as you grow older.
(iv) theoretically, IT work is becoming more commoditised, although I don't see that stopping anyone I know from earning a decent living in it. And I like working with Russians :-)
(v) you may enjoy the job, be completely engaged, be working on a project that actually keeps you up at night thinking about better ways to solve a problem. Then at some point you may come up for air and realise that the significance of what you're doing and your involvement in the community doesn't extend much further than your computer screen. You may wish to live a little outside this wonderful fairyland.
I won't mention the pros as they're obvious to most of you.
btw I'm not really interested in debating the points above, as I said, that is only my experience. I'm not passing moral judgement, and for those of you that are happy in IT, that's terriffic, I wish I was earning my IT wages still. I still may end up back there, in which case I would try to fake a bit of "J" and stick to QA & project mgmt.
Having said that, if any of you wish to interpret my comments above in terms of MBTI theory, I'd be interested.
Righto then, best from the South Pacific.
Craig.