Nuqjatlh?*

This morning I brought a bunch of yummy leftover Clementines into work. I’d taken them to class last night for snacks. (There were no leftover potato chips. Funny how that works.) I put one on my boss’s desk and my neighbor Sue’s. My boss, QB, arrived at 9:15. “What is THAT.” Uh, a Clementine. “I won’t eat it.” QB said, and she gave it to Sue.

“I thought you like orange food.” I said. Every morning for breakfast QB has cheese puffs and Coke. She used to get the big thing of Cheetoes, but she wanted to be healthier, so she now has the little individual-sized 100 calorie packs. Which she eats, like, ten of (packs, I mean), and drinks about ten Cokes a day. I don’t mean to imply I have anything against Cheetoes and Coke. I love them, actually. I consider them PMS food. Not breakfast. But that is where we are different, QB and I. I like fruit. She snacks as though she was a glass-eater in the circus curiosities tent in a past life. Lucky for us, my company honors personality differences, reveres them, in fact.

This morning there was an e-mail in my in-box from HR saying that they’re overdue (by a year) in giving me a team-building exercise to determine my personality type. First there is the exam that goes something like this:

Rate one of the following as “Most Like” and one as “Least Like” and the rate the rest somewhere in between Most and Least Like:

1. Patient and detail oriented
2. Aggressive and organized
3. Quiet, contemplative and rarely has an opinion
4. Prefers to lead, opinionated
5. Contemplative and addicted to caffeine
6. Secretly envies those who speak Klingon*
7. Would install a hammock in her cube if she thought she could get away with it
8. Has given up on fulfilling, meaningful employment
9. Voted for Ross Perot
10. Spends staff meetings fanaticizing about slow dancing to “I can’t fight this feeling anymore” with the hot guy in Finance

They’re all some obscure combination of traits that don't go together, or aren't relevant, or are broad generalizations. Maybe I’m contemplative and like to be a leader but I’m NOT always extroverted and I like organization in some things, but I’m also creative and sometimes quiet but always have an opinion? What then?

Repeat this question about 194573249 times, slightly re-wording and re-arranging the same exact questions in different combinations, all of which oversimplify and do not describe anyone. The results are compiled by some online wizard robot thing, enabling our sweet and perky but scandalously overworked HR Gal to have a big Personality Meeting with us, where she give employees a bunch of Legos (no shit) with words printed on them like, “Be bright, be brief, be gone!” and “Make me feel involved.” Employees are to build the Legos up in the way that most describes us (at the top) to the least (at the bottom) and place them in our cube so our co-workers can get a feel for our personalities, and, I presume, change how they interact with us.

I know how my cube-mates personalities are. When I hear QB scream “What the HELL are you bothering me about NOW? Stop asking me questions you dumbshit!” (which happens 80394933 times a day), I know that perhaps she’s “Be bright, be brief, be gone” kind of girl. When I put my headphones on to block her out, we can all see that my personality type prefers to tune out obnoxiousness (she’s never talking to moi like that) and is quietly seething because my company is investing money in LEGOS instead of sound proof walls.

Okay, fine. I admit here that I actually like my job, and even my cube. It’s as homey as a cube will get—I have up three paintings I made, photographs of friends, postcards, a lovely red lamp (lighting is everything) and a few plants. The actual work—I like the writing/design part. I do not like the documentation-for-the-government part. But that’s another post. Other than QB’s Army Sergeant voice, fueled hourly by 12 ouches of aspartame, phosphoric acid, phenalanine and a cubic buttload of sugar, which I totally ignore, I’m rarely bugged. I get to come in, grab my iPod, do my thing, and leave. Eh, it’s an office. Only with Legos.