The Pros And Cons Of Me

I had to take part in a leadership seminar last Friday and Saturday. A portion of the class was devoted to taking a personality profile to determine what kind of person/leader we were. Here are my results, unabridged, beginning with a word index of terms that apply to my personality type according to the answers I provided:

daring
domineering
demanding
forceful
risk-taker
adventuresome
decisive
observing
discriminating
reflective
factual
logical
controlled
retiring
fidgety
impetuous
restless
change-oriented
fault-finding
spontaneous
frustrated by status quo
fact-finder
diplomatic
systematic
conventional
courteous
careful
restrained

Creative Type Profile Pattern:
Emotions: accepts aggression; restrains expression
Goal: dominance; unique accomplishments
Judges others by: personal standards; progressive ideas for accomplishing tasks
Influences others by: ability to pace development of systems and innovative approaches
Value to the organization: initiates or designs changes
Overuses: bluntness; critical or condescending attitude
Under pressure: becomes bored with routine work; sulks when restrained; acts independently
Fears: lack of influence; failure to achieve their standards
Would increase effectiveness through: warmth; tactful communication; effective team cooperation; recognition of existing sanctions

Summary:
Persons with a Creative Pattern display opposing forces in their behavior. Their desire for tangible results is counterbalanced by an equally strong drive for perfection, and their aggressiveness is tempered by sensitivity. Although they think and react quickly, they are restrained by the wish to explore all possible solutions before making a decision.

Creative persons exhibit foresight when focusing on projects, and they bring about change. Since individuals with a Creative Pattern have a drive for perfection and demonstrate considerable planning ability, the changes they make are likely to be sound, but the method they choose may lack attention to interpersonal relationships.

Creative persons want freedom to explore, and they want the authority to examine and retest findings. They can make daily decisions quickly but may be extremely cautious when making bigger decisions: "Should I accept the promotion?" "Should I move to another location?" In their drive for results and perfection, Creative persons may not be concerned about social poise. As a result, they may be cool, aloof, or blunt.


Well, I've got to admit that the whole thing seems to hit the proverbial nail on the frikkin' head. I was really shocked by how accurate this whole assessment was; the good and the bad. I mean the process was pretty simple; you simply looked at 28 groups of four words and chose which one in each group descibes you the most and least. And VOILÀ! It's you in a nutshell.

Why can't they give college kids this kind of an assessment? I could have skipped over that whole period that I thought I was a hippie. Or that period I thought I was a roughneck dock worker. Or that....never mind.

If you know me and feel like it, leave me a comment about how close you think this assessment came to the bullseye. You won't hurt my feelings. Remember, I'm aloof.

Sleeping With Women Other Than My Wife

Well it came around a lot sooner than I had thought it would; I'm going back to Station 2. When all is said and done I will have spent only ten months at Station 6. I had commented earlier in a post that "I shall return" but I never suspected it would be this soon.

I didn't actively pursue a transfer back to Station 2 because I had been sent to the south side of the county, to a station that had experienced quite a bit of trouble, to make things right. I didn't have specifics on the goings-on, but the department was full of rumors. The fact that I was sent for a reason had always made me feel like I would be sent back when I was done. That's why I was so surprised when I was approached by the same man that had sent me, asking me if I wanted to go back to Station 2. I don't feel like I really accomplished anything but he says I've done an excellent job.

But then, maybe I did do what they wanted me to: the station is handling the county's business as it should. My hesitance in declaring my job done is based in the fact that I don't consider the station a "station." The men and women answer the calls and do a good job but they aren't a close-knit group like I have experienced before at other stations.

And that, I don't know how to accomplish. You see, Station 6 is not like most of the other stations in the county. Literally, the building is different. It was built in the last ten years and changes have come about; changes to accomodate the growing number of women in our department.

You see, the old stations have bedrooms with minimal privacy (if any.) You sleep with someone about five feet to your left and right. Everyone from the rookie to the officer sleeps in the same room. It used to be that the bedroom was full of men, but now you are just as likely to have one or two women in there with you.

A lot of non-firefighters, when they hear of or see this arrangement, ask how it's possible to sleep like that. Well, I'll tell you that I slept a hell of a lot better than I do at the new station. The new station has individual bedrooms for everyone. The officers get whole rooms to themselves with doors and all of the other crew each get a room with a curtain for a door off of a main hallway.

On paper this sounds like a good idea. The only problem is that privacy based in a departmental fear of anything that might be claimed to be harassment doesn't necessarily serve the needs of the people we serve.

For one thing, in an old station, if someone sleeps through a bell everyone else in the bedroom sees that you're not getting up and can kick your bed or maybe even roll you out of bed. But in the new stations, you have to go bedroom to bedroom waking people up. That takes time. Sometimes that's valuable time you're wasting.

The other problem with the new bedrooms is that they are very contradictory to socializing. Everyone disappears into their bedrooms to watch their own televisions or talk on the phone. No one hangs out in the dayroom (television room) and gets to know one another. We don't have to decide as a group what we are going to watch on the one television. There isn't any talking about problems with the kids, things you did this weekend, or discussion of that movie you saw that no one else should waste their money on. No, the only time you see anyone else is when there's work to be done.

That may sound trivial but in terms of getting a station to work well, it's paramount. And here's the thing about privacy; I don't have anything that anyone else hasn't seen. As a matter of fact, I probably have less. And it's not like anyone sleeps in the nude or sexy undies. When you're woken up at 2:53 in the morning from a dead sleep after a hard day of work, you aren't really looking around the room to sneak a peek at someone with less than their uniform on. On the contrary, I have a hard time finding my shoes much less some errant patch of skin. No, picture what the person you sleep next to looks like in the morning after a hard night and multiply that by ten. Nothing titillating about it at all.

And you know what? The new stations that are built to insure privacy do just that. As a mater of fact, there's so much privacy that have felt the need to expose themselves to others in private! And that was part of the trouble from last year that we heard so many ruors about! So, it's really ironic that the...well, you get it.

Whatever. The point is the new stations are designed to fail. So maybe I did as much as I could for Station 6. Maybe I wasn't ever going to get the station to relate on the level that I'm used to in people who spend 24 hours at a time together.

Regardless, I've made my choice and all I'm waiting for now is a piece of paper that show me going home. So, if you're in the Brookhaven area sometime after Halloween, come by and say "hi."

And I'm sorry about the horribly punny and deceptive title to this post.

Photo Caption Contest

Well it's been some time since we did one of these, but good pictures are hard to come by. This one speaks volumes. Yes, that's beer, some soda, a thing of mustard, and some paper towels.

This assignment is reference based: Imagine this picture is in an encyclopedia or a dictionary. For those of you with Brittanica on the brain write a caption worthy of an encyclopedia for it. For those of you who pine for Daniel Webster the picture is an adjunct to an entry; you provide the definition.

Or you can just write whatever.

Also click on the "Photo Caption Contest" label at the bottom of this post to revisit some of the previous contests. You guys are pretty funny.

Everything Only

Help me out here. There's a trash can in the City of Stone Mountain with the little trash can push door on top and on its' side are the words "Trash Only."

I have thought and thought about this one and I can't figure out what that means. Every morning that I drive home from work I have to pass this can. I keep meaning to bring my camera along. What could someone possibly put in the trash that wasn't trash other than maybe some living thing? You may as well have written "Everything Only" on the side. Even if the can used to sit beside a can that said "Recyclables Only" why would you specify "Trash Only." Everything that isn't recyclable must be trash. Right?

I don't know why this bothers me so much. Maybe it's because I can't put my head around it. I mean I can't even chalk it up to laziness. It took more effort to stencil and spray paint the extra line. So there must be meaning in the act, right? Am I the only one to notice? Or does this not bother anyone else? Is this a test? I feel kind of isolated right now.

This might be my par can falling from the sky. When did you know, Truman?

Miss South Carolina vs. Your Answer Here

It was all the rage not too long ago. A fetching young woman representing South Carolina in the MIss Teen USA pageant didn't say, "World Peace" and payed dearly for it. The video of her response has over 16,500,000 million viewings on YouTube alone. As though she were on auto-pilot for this portion of the competition, she rambled an amalgam of answers to other questions; questions she had obviously prepared for.

The comments that YouTube users are leaving are particularly harsh. And for what? The fact that a eighteen year old found herself at a loss for words in front of millions of people? I wonder how well so many of those typing horrible comments as they hide behind their monitors would have done in the same situation. Hell, some of the people we elect to lead the country have done worse in similar situations.

Of course, the laughter is already beginning to fade, and soon no one will really remember the bit. (Does anyone even know her name at this point?) But she's going to be stuck with it for a really long time. It might be something that she doesn't ever get past. And all because she was dancing around the truth of the question: Why can't a fifth of Americans locate the United States on a world map?

What did we expect her to say? "I blame the teachers." Or maybe, "The United States is once again moving toward becoming an isolationist society, as it did at the turn of the last century, partly in response to threats of terrorism, outsourcing, illegal immigration, and our dubious hold on the title of 'Superpower' in light of the tremendous economic expansion in Asia, specifically China. This isolationist tendency coupled with an overinflated concentration on teaching children only what they need to know to pass tests has left our schools and teachers powerless to shape the young minds that this nation will have to rely on to carry it into this new century to think globally." My honest response to the question probably would have been, "Holy crap! You've got to be sh**ing me! One fifth?!"

Anyway, I think we had better lay off this poor girl and maybe turn some of that energy that's been wasted taking pot shots to educating that fifth of us. What else don't they know?

Well, there's the lawsuit filed on behalf of the guy that claims he didn't know his aftershave would still be flammable (as long as it was wet) after he put it on. As reported by 620 WTMJ:

A man from Milwaukee who suffered extensive burns during a Wisconsin Dells camping trip after an accident with his aftershave is filing a lawsuit. Charles Lewitzke was cleaning himself up when he put on some aftershave made by Brut. When he went to start a fire at the campsite Charles, who's 81, struck a match and he started on fire. The fire resulted in second and third degree burns on 30% of his body. He's put a lawsuit into federal court, claiming negligence by the makers of Brut, along with Wal-Mart, the store he bought it from. Lewitzke's attorney says Brut has warning labels that say people shouldn't use it when they're smoking or near flames, but the attorney says he wasn't doing either when he went on fire.

Apparently Charles thought it was only flammable in the bottle. And I like the fact that Wal-Mart is, in Mr. Lewitzke's attorney's opinion, liable as well. But why stop there Charles? Surely the match manufacturer should have some kind of warning on the matches that they may cause fire.

Hey, speaking of camping and the great outdoors, our ignorance doesn't start or stop with Brut. As reported by the CDC, 177 people died in 2006 of West Nile Virus. Let's see...300,000,000 people in the United States...divided by 177 deaths...yep...equals EPIDEMIC!

West Nile Virus is not really quite an epidemic as the nightly news might lead us to believe. But one fifth of the country can't find the country?! That's an epidemic. Let's have that on the news every night. No instead, we get a general panic in the population with people dialing 911 because they "were bitten by a mosquito and have West Nile Virus." (If you ask them what their symptoms are they simply reply, "West Nile." They don't know what it is but they're sure they've got it.)

I'm rambling and it's late. Sorry. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I had one wish for humanity it would be that everyone was genuinely concerned with how their actions affected everything else. Think about how the comments make Miss South Carolina feel. Think about the court's time that you are wasting, Mr. Lewitzke. Think about the fear you put in people by yelling "Epidemic!" Think about the ambulance and fire truck that aren't available for someone who really needs them because you were bitten by a mosquito.

Think about what you might do to change the world. You never know when you might get the chance.

Okami Sushi

Beware of sushi from Brentwood, Illinois. It cost over five dollars for six pieces at Publix. (I know, I know, I took a chance.) It was so bad, I only ate two of the pieces.