Transition, or I'm Not Anything

I had an interesting occurrence at the old offices of TheCompanyIWorkFor yesterday.

Now, of course, TheCompanyIWorkFor is a Very Big Company Indeed, and as a VBCI, they tend to like to appear to be on the cutting edge of all things Big Company-like. And apparently one of the biggest things nowadays in the world of the Very Big Company Indeed "We Care About Our Workers As They Slave Away For Us And How Can We Get Them Slaving More Efficiently" is the Cheese Test.

Okay. It's not really called the Cheese Test. It's called something else which I'm afraid to use the actual name of, but it shares a name with a kind of cheese, so we'll call it the Cheese Test and leave it at that. I don't want the Cheese Test people coming after me with knives and lead pipes, because frankly, they've upset me enough already.

The boss was so excited to have her workers taking the Cheese Test. She was so excited she paid an, I'm sure, extortionate amount of money to have us do so. She just couldn't wait to see our results and find out "what we are."

See, that's what the Cheese Test does. It tells you what you are. There are several different groups of workers, you have your thinkers, dreamers, builders, explainers, researchers, innovators, and on and on, only they're not called those particular things, they have interesting and fun names, and each name has a different color attached to it, so to where when the graphs print out at the end of your test in the results, it looks amazingly like the order form you order Girl Scout cookies off of. Therefore, your thinker is the parallel to a Thin Mint, a dreamer is a Trefoil, a researcher is a Tag-along, and a builder is one of those awful lemon cookies no one ever buys.

Oddly enough, the Cheese Test does not have a group (of any color) called the loafer, the time-waster, or the person who hates his job. And that may be exactly where my problem lied. Laid? Whatever the past tense of lie is. Lay, I guess.

The Cheese Test, which, to be honest, I had not much interest nor faith in, was a very neat and tidy little thing wherein one was asked a series of questions about various job situations, with the taker keeping in mind a general theme of, "If I were free to be myself." Yes, I know this sounds very early 70s Marlo Thomas, but I swear that's how it went. For each situation one had a series of choices, and had to choose his/her very own "most likely" and "least likely" answers.

That was it. A page of questions, if I were free, fiddle dee dee, what would I do, what wouldn't I do, then bang-zoom, what Girl Scout cookie am I?

A-haaaaaa. You knew it wasn't going to be that easy, didn't you?

At the end of my test, I pushed the "results" button and saw something quite interesting. I wasn't much of a Tag-Along, I was OK as a Trefoil, and I was kind of tied in the Thin Mint - Awful Lemon Cookie department. But - and it was apparently a large but indeed - I was also two big squares of whatever the purple Girl Scout cookie is, not on the graph, but down at the bottom in a separate area.

This is because, Ms Cheese told me, I was "in transition."

Now, right off the bat, I kind of liked what the Cheese Test said. It said, in big bold letters, "You have terrific talent!" I'm trying to believe that the Cheese people actually meant that, but they also told me that because I seem to be "in transition," that I may not be letting my true talents shine through.

And this is where things start to get weird.

I am, according to all things Cheese, in a 10% minority of workers who are attempting to work in ways that are unnatural to them. Also, according to the Cheesists, I am under a great deal of stress. No, you don't understand. A great deal of stress.

Because the next five pages of my results were all about what incredible stress I seem to be under.

Now, I know this is true. You know it's true, too, because I seem to be mentioning it in my blog, over and over, until you're all sick of hearing about it. But how did the Cheese people know this? How did they know this, just from my answering a series of dumb, "What would I do" questions? I mean, none of my choices for any situation was "kill myself," "kill my boss," "kill a TheCompanyIWorkFor weasel," or "go to the post office with a machine gun." And furthermore, never once was mentioned making six-hour trips up 8 mountains and having to pee the entire time. And yet, they knew!

They told me, those Cheese folks, that my stress could be work-related or life-related, but that I was one stressed-out individual indeed, and I needed to do something about it, pronto. In fact, they said that I shouldn't even look at the Girl Scout cookie graph, because those results meant nothing when a person like me, who was on the verge of a straightjacketed visit to the rubber room, was taking the "free to be myself" test. Because apparently I was not free to be myself at this time.

The Cheeses did tell me, however, not to worry, that my true self was somewhere inside me screaming to get out, and that I needed to find a "self discovery process" (I'm reading "therapy") to provide myself "the freedom to accomplish tasks through your own methods." (I'm reading "loafing all day.") Then the test ended with - and yes, this is true, I would not lie to you, dear readers - a "worksheet" with some probing questions that are supposed to help me figure out just why I'm under so damn much stress and what the hell I'm going to do about it.

Then - it was time to take Part 2 of the Cheese Test! Because yes, there are two parts of this little fondue of information.

Part 2 of the test was the same as Part 1, another series of "most likely" and "least likely" answers, only this time the general theme the taker was to keep in mind was, "My job consists of." No "free to be," this was all about "have to be." This part was where I was supposed to learn what jobs I'd be most successful with, and where TheCompanyIWorkFor should have me toiling away the most, I guess.

When the results came up after all those choices were made, I seemed to be a Tag-along or a Trefoil, I was tied again, but also again, nothing was very plain.

And this is because instead of two purple blocks at the bottom of my Cookie graph, I had a red number with an underline. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, think again, my friends. For a red number with an underline means I'm "in contradiction."

I've often thought of myself as a walking contradiction. Thanks, Cheese people. You've confirmed it for me.

The very first paragraph of my results was telling me I was all contradicted because I'm trying to be all things to all people. And I'm just - get ready for it - creating all manners of stress for myself. (By the way, and maybe I've been at TheCompanyIWorkFor too long, I thought that having a job was all about trying to be all things to all people. Then again, maybe that's why I'm a helping of spinach shy of a healthy lunch, emotionally speaking.)

And in fact, all those jobs I was to be ideally suited for? Well, they didn't exist, not in this edition of the test, anyway, because I'm evidently so damn screwed up they don't know where in the hell to put my ass. Or any other part of me.

However, the Cheeses did stress that when I grow up and get my act together (they gave me three months) that I should come and visit their site again and see if I'm worthy to work at TheCompanyIWorkFor, or anywhere else, for that matter.

And that was yesterday. I laughed, even though it wasn't a hearty belly laugh, it was more of a sickly chuckle. And I wondered more than once how my answering those very innocuous questions could produce such volatile results. And then I went home and scrubbed every non-carpeted floor in my house, which, while stressful, also got my mind off the whole Cheese issue.

Cut to this morning.

I was working along, minding my own, when the phone rang and a lady at the other end asked for the boss. I asked if I could tell the boss who was calling, as I do, and the lady at the other end of the phone identified herself as - I kid you not, dear readers - Ms Cheese. Ms Cheese herself, whose last name was the name of the test, was calling my boss. And so of course I earwigged in on the conversation.

It seems Ms Cheese, we'll call her Velveeta for the purposes of trying to make at least one person giggle, was calling my boss - well, I thought it was maybe to ask how I was doing and to see if I had in fact offed myself sometime during the night, but it was actually to tell her that the complimentary CD that test-takers get telling them about who they are and what they're good at after they've tested, well, I wouldn't be getting mine. Because apparently they don't know who I am and I'm not really much good at anything.

This is the first thing I heard my boss say, over the phone, right into Velveeta's ear. "I know! She's not anything!"

Now.

I'm sure I've heard this statement said in my general direction enough times throughout my life. It was still disconcerting. It was disconcerting, mainly because of the sheer number of times I heard "she's not anything" uttered in regards to my person. "I didn't know that could happen on a test - she's not anything!" "I thought she'd be a Thin Mint, but she's not anything!" Okay, Okay - I get it.

But here's the funny part. My boss went on to actually try and explain to Velveeta, this woman who barely knows my name and yet knows all about me, why I could possibly "not be anything." And all that stress I seem to be under. "Life-changing situations? Well, yes, in the past couple of years she's had major surgery and has undergone a complete changing process," blah-de-blah-de-blah blah blah. Thanks, boss. Velveeta maybe already knew that, from the way I answered Question 7, part 2, Cheese Test.

Well, it was funny to me. The boss never even bothered to mention, because it never entered her mind, that since around September my work situation has been hell on earth, and that I am convinced that my job will kill me and I will die right there, at my desk, phone in one hand, pencil in the other.

Bosses never seem to think about those things.

Anyway, I just wrote, in pencil, "I'm not anything" at the top of my printed test results and left them there in plain view on my desk for anyone walking past to see.

Like they didn't already know. I mean, hell, if Velveeta knew....

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. Small turnout this week, but a new player, so that rocks. Now, Tell me about that guy. You know, him.
- Honorable Mention goes to Kellie, with her "Wonderful! Handmade? I'm Absolutely Green." Oh, I'm sure you are, Kel.
- Runner-up goes to LilyG, with her "Whoa! He's all in green." Noooooo!
- And this week's winner is our newbie, Marla B, with her "When He Inhales Alcohol, Go!" I think that is very sound advice indeed.
- Thanks to all who played! Then again, what do I know? I'm not anything!