Numbered Days & Personality Tests

Spent the last few days of the hols catching up with the people whom I wont be meeting for another year!

Had lunch with the cf people at holland v on monday afternoon. Said goodbye to daniel. It's quite sad parting with people whom you've just gotten to know well, and whom you've done many things together, and you're just beginning to relate with. A mere year after knowing them. Guess this is part of growing up... People in your adult life come and go really frequently, and it is indeed the guys you went to secondary school with who will remain your best buddies. Managed to meet with my sec sch scouts friend that evening.

Tsang, varun and shamir... Part of the 99-mil plc. Just realised that night that it's been ten years already, since the time when we were blur scouts recruits! What happened between then and now seemed a gaping void! I can map a word onto each of those 10 years -

1997: SAS sec1; 1998: SAS sec2; 1999: SAS sec3; 2000: SAS sec4; 2001: SAJC J1; 2002: SAJC J2; 2003: NS; 2004: NS; 2005: NS; 2006: Uni year1; 2007.

But those words just do not seem to account for ten years of life!

Had quite varied conversation topics that dragged 5 hours til 3 am that morning. A good part of the time, we were talking about people - those we came across along the way, like in army, as well as people we know from our scouting days. The conversation meandered into a discussion of personality traits, with Tsang and Shamir discussing personality tests like MBTI, etc... I was reminded of a personality test I had taken back in 2003 as part of the dsta selection process, and went up to my room to dig the report up.

Three years on, I had found the personality test a really accurate assessment of my character, and have realised that the problems I had faced had sometimes been a direct consequence of my personality and the situation.


DISC
Found the report so accurate that I'm going to type out parts of the report onto this entry.

Dominance 2 10 -8
Influence 3 7 -4
Steadiness 7 2 5
Conformity 7 2 5

And the subsequent descriptions and suggestions were really insightful and helpful.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

• Sets both himself and others extremely high standards.
• A perfectionist with an innate need to get things right.
• Can tie up the loose ends and see an assignment through to conclusion.
• Likes to be part of a specialist/technical/administrative team.
• Prefers the security of a structured working environment where the work parameters are clearly defined.
• Non-aggressive, dislikes conflict, trouble, hassle or having to make harsh or unpopular decisions.
• Works in an organised and systematic manner in order to reach the 'perfect' solution to problems and assignments.
• Prepared to follow systems, rules and procedures.
• Needs time to adjust to change; prefers the status quo.
• Can appear reserved and serious; builds relationships slowly on trust.
• Can become defensive if become threatened or criticised.

APPROPRIATE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Developing skills in a specialist/technical/administrative area of competence and expertise.
• Providing a service to others.
• Working persistently in order to complete assignments.
• Absorming detail and gathering facts and information befor taking action.
• Following direction and operating under controlled circumstances.
• Assessing situation logically.
• Analysing and researching specialist/technical information.

In italics are the lines that struck me as very accurate. Had previously thought that these kind of personality tests were simply restating the very things you told them in the tests, but realised the an insight is a statement of the obvious which one does not take much notice of. And this report has proven very insightful.