Is there such a thing as an INTP that enjoys his/her job?

[Dansk]

I didn't realize until I found this forum just how stereotypical an INTP I am. I floated through high school and university, graduated with a degree in history and philosophy after changing my major a half dozen times, and have held an absurd variety of jobs since then. I've worked in an ice cream factory, as a gardener at Rideau Hall, a caretaker of a disused tobacco farm, a camera store salesman, and currently I'm an English teacher in Busan, South Korea.

My curse has been potential. I was the kid who was told he could be anything, and the people saying it meant it. I could easily get myself a PhD in any subject of my choosing if I just had the ability to focus on one thing for that long. The problem is I'm fascinated by every single goddamn thing on the planet. I'll spend one day as an aspiring astronomer, and then the next I'm a linguist, or a carpenter, or an audio engineer. I've been accepted into more post-secondary programs than I can count, and I've dropped out of all of them before they even started because I was caught up on the latest crazy idea.

This time my fickleness has taken me to Asia. It was exciting for three months, and then it got boring like everything else. Once I understood the system--everything has a system to be manipulated and mastered--it was exactly the same as living in North America. Teaching was a little more difficult to get the hang of than my other jobs, but it got boring no less quickly. Now I'm stuck here for another eight months when all I really want to do is move on to the next thing that catches my fancy.

At the moment I'm planning on taking on an MA in linguistics when I return, but I'm doing so more out of the knowledge that, first, I have an unusual talent for languages, and second, I need an MA to get international jobs that pay better than subsistence.

Spending two years in the same place focussed on one area of study will be torture, but I'm reaching the age where I have to show some sort of dedication or I'm going to be bypassed by life.

I'm guessing this is nothing that hasn't been heard here before, so I'm curious to know if anyone else has actually managed to find a job that they can tolerate for more than a month at a time. Does it exist, or are we simply modern day Don Quixotes?

 

[DesertSmeagle]

Im goin in college now and plan to makor in psychology...although i think itd be awesome to ba a camera man...or maybe even a cop haha..like an awesome cop that beats the shit outa people.....but ya im just like you. i could do anything, its just that im interested in everything and cant do anything for too long...I did a report on ben franklin..he was probably an intp...he was a writer/printer/scientist/oceanographer/inventor/musician/politician...too bad you need a degree to do these things now.

 

[Dansk]

That's exactly it. If I'd lived a few hundred years ago I'd be set, I would have been a Franklin/DaVinci and been quite happy. Now we want "specialists". (I say that word loaded with all the derision and scorn it's possible to stuff into a single expression.)

 

[DesertSmeagle]

haha...and most the time, people get a degree, and get a job that has nothing to do with their degree, so its like they wasted years of their lives..

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I've started writing for the Internet recently and it's a pretty sweet deal; no fixed schedule, no dress code, and no boss (well I have editors, but they're not bad). It's much better than any other job I've had.

 

[DesertSmeagle]

cool. what do you write about? how much you gettin paid? sounds like a cool job.

 

[avanover]

Gah!! I know exactly what you're talking about. The world wants "specialists" now but how can I sell my life for one particular thing when everything is interesting? I even made a facebook group about this frustration. It's entitled "Grand Organization Of Something Extraordinary (GOOSE)". Basically, the group is for people with potential that's going nowhere but feel that it will eventually. Right now: I'm looking into various interdisciplinary studies like liberal arts, international relations, and biomedical engineering.

 

[Dansk]

I've started writing for the Internet recently and it's a pretty sweet deal; no fixed schedule, no dress code, and no boss (well I have editors, but they're not bad). It's much better than any other job I've had.

There's one of the few careers I've come across that's had some long term appeal for me. I write for my own website at the moment, but I've never been paid to write. I've been told I'm good at it, but I don't have the slightest idea of how to make it pay.

 

[Firehazard159]

Heh, I feel the same way, so much potential, but I'm wasting away really.

I joined the military, it's an interesting course of action, not at all like I expected it to be though, and not nearly as bad as everyone fears. I'm hoping the travel will be great, but ironically I'm not set to deploy hardly at all, and my first assignment wasn't overseas as I'd hoped. That, and I didn't get the job I desired due to having depression in high school, woo. (I knew I was taking a chance at not getting it, tried to get in around it, a bit dishonestly :P I'm honestly lucky I wasn't discharged.)

In a way I've given up hope of reaching that potential of being anything, because the reality for me is, I want to be everything.

Sigh. Unpleasant remembrances

 

[Beat Mango]

Nah I don't think so dude. All jobs are soul destroying. But you know what, at the end of the day it's just a job.

 

[ohrtonz]

Yes i believe it is possible. If your interest is useful or you discover interesting things on the job and try to maximize your abilities and knowledge of it.

I worked at Target always keeping items lined up and neat and stuff. If you're OCD you will sorta love it. Although when you're force to get it done it takes forever but yea. I used to line up items and pull them forward when I was a kid anyways. When I worked in electronics dept I liked helping people with buying the right connectors, etc because I knew what I was talking about. Even unpacking boxes I found fun sometimes. Ripped boxes open like mad with technique. I stuck too it and tried to be fast, while everyone else socialized and lazied around. I enjoyed it because I tried to make myself good at it even if it sounds like a horrible boring job.

I have passion with web programming I taught myself. I have a job in it now and I like consulting web projects and stuff. I tried computers career simply because I build my own but actually I hate fixing computers.

 

[Lostwitheal]

That's exactly it. If I'd lived a few hundred years ago I'd be set, I would have been a Franklin/DaVinci and been quite happy. Now we want "specialists". (I say that word loaded with all the derision and scorn it's possible to stuff into a single expression.)

An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less. I share your feelings.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less. I share your feelings.

It's the price we (humans) pay for our ever increasing amounts of knowledge. It just gets to be way too much for a single person to be knowledgable enough in multiple areas. Perhaps evolution is phasing our type out.

We would have thrived in the age of enlightenment as there was so much more to discover and so much less to learn before being able to discover that which was out there ready to be discovered. Long rambling sentences would have been more apreciated too .

 

[lafmeche]

I'm similar, really. I haven't held a lot of jobs, but there were only a couple that I really have fond memories of. They were summer jobs, where I didn't have enough time to get completely bored.

In school, I was fairly focused. I knew I wanted to be an engineer. The school I went to encouraged us to branch out, so I also took courses in philosophy, computer science, a history course, etc. Between those and my personal hobbies, I was more-or-less okay sticking with engineering.

Anyway, this job stuff is something I've thought about a lot. I'm still relatively early in my career and haven't figured out where I want to settle down. I suspect I'll be happiest at a company that is small enough to still need diverse engineering talents without having the money or workload to keep an entire department. Bonus points if it's also still small enough to not yet get caught up in the buerocratic paperwork nonsense.

I'm not sure how that would translate to a non-engineer job, but I'll let you know if/when I figure something out.

 

[Jennywocky]

Aside from my personal humanist streak (where I get more out of dealing with psychology and therapeutic interactions with people), I'm currently in the best tech job I've ever had my whole life:

I'm a software requirements analyst, which means I'm one of the "first people on the ground" to design software. I collect user input, use my intuition to figure out what the software needs to do ("what the rules are" and the goals), and then sit around and hash out project flows with the rest of my teams in brainstorm sessions. We specify the software boundaries with use cases, process flows, and other constraints; and then we hand it off to a development staff to implement based on our descriptions of those boundaries and objectives, so we avoid having to do all the nasty detail work.

That's it. We don't even have to do validation, the other group of analysts handles that.

Sooo..... it's a perfect meld of Ti+Ne, we just derive the essential principles of the system we're design; the pace is kind of slow because I work for the government; and I get to spend time at my desk, with a daily hour meeting to touch base. Ya hoo!

... plus... I get paid more money to do this than I ever had in my life, with scheduled raises on a yearly basis + cost of living raises + bonuses + benefits.

 

[lafmeche]

Aside from my personal humanist streak (where I get more out of dealing with psychology and therapeutic interactions with people), I'm currently in the best tech job I've ever had my whole life:

I'm a software requirements analyst, which means I'm one of the "first people on the ground" to design software. I collect user input, use my intuition to figure out what the software needs to do ("what the rules are" and the goals), and then sit around and hash out project flows with the rest of my teams in brainstorm sessions. We specify the software boundaries with use cases, process flows, and other constraints; and then we hand it off to a development staff to implement based on our descriptions of those boundaries and objectives, so we avoid having to do all the nasty detail work.

That's it. We don't even have to do validation, the other group of analysts handles that.

Sooo..... it's a perfect meld of Ti+Ne, we just derive the essential principles of the system we're design; the pace is kind of slow because I work for the government; and I get to spend time at my desk, with a daily hour meeting to touch base. Ya hoo!

... plus... I get paid more money to do this than I ever had in my life, with scheduled raises on a yearly basis + cost of living raises + bonuses + benefits.

Are you hiring by any chance?

 

[aracaris]

I think that the issue this thread brings up is pretty valid. We (I mean INTPs in general) tend to have a thirst to learn LOTS of things, and do lots of things (or at least think about them and fantasize about them). This can make us a jack of all trades but master of none.

While I can definitely relate to this, certain interests never fade away for me, such as being a musician/composer, and computer nerd stuff, and creating art.

Those things I've been hooked on for a long period of time, and have never really stopped pursuing being an expert at them. So for me with those things it's not a matter of getting bored and moving on to something else, it's a problem of having so many things I want to be an expert at, and only so much time. So the result is really about the same, I'm just not quite an expert at anything, and that doesn't help in this economy as far as getting a good job goes.

I do suffer from the problem of getting bored with your job, and I haven't stayed at one for more than a few years. I've just had so little luck finding a job that really deals with something I'm interested in. I'm hoping this changes soon though.

 

[Jennywocky]

Are you hiring by any chance?

The federal government's always hiring. But it took me about six months of applying through the usajobs.gov (?) site in order to finally get a phone interview.

 

[Geminii]

I've had jobs which I liked, sometimes quite a lot. Nothing I'd necessarily want to do forever, though.

 

[ohrtonz]

The thing about sticking with jobs... my job I was the only person doing web stuff, so after being there 2 years by myself I feel I have a lot to take care of that I know about or have created. I feel they need me. I know its usually bad to not leave a job for something better because you feel obligated to stay at current one, but I guess it helps me stick at it instead of bouncing from one job to another of various interests. So if your lucky enough to be "that guy" to turn to at your job even if you wish something better, it may help you stick around and get better at it.

 

[lafmeche]

The federal government's always hiring. But it took me about six months of applying through the usajobs.gov (?) site in order to finally get a phone interview.

Yeah, I've got friends and family who work for the government. They're all overpaid and have too few responsibilities

Myself, I'm a mechanical engineer turned QA engineer in the private sector and my company is afraid to buy fancy toilet paper, much less give decent raises. I'm thinking about a change, but six months of that sounds like an awful lot of work

 

[pjoa09]

It's the price we (humans) pay for our ever increasing amounts of knowledge. It just gets to be way too much for a single person to be knowledgable enough in multiple areas. Perhaps evolution is phasing our type out.

We would have thrived in the age of enlightenment as there was so much more to discover and so much less to learn before being able to discover that which was out there ready to be discovered. Long rambling sentences would have been more apreciated too .

HA! I think the total opposite, fuck I'd be disposed of by now. My attention span isn't short its fucking volatile. First day : Awesome! Second day : Pretty damn good ! Second Quarter: Report card.

I just wished I would obsess over one thing for a long time. I've noticed I tend to stick around things that I can experiment with. I am always with the What If?

But back the point. To survive on Earth and not on the otherside of the Black Hole you need to be Sensory and Judgemental. A fucking plan and the ability to follow through with that plan for the rest of your life. That's how you live. What I am doing is extremism on the total other side.

The way some tribes stick to their land and heritage saying without this they are nothing makes me sad. I realize, I want to be nothing.

That is the whole problem. I'd think and end up getting eaten by a tiger with the Neanderthals. We were supposed to be doomed. Ideocracy got that bit wrong. Einstein would've been fucked by natural selection. It goes against us. Natural Selection doesn't promote distant future thinking.

And with more than probably 80% of us having thought of committing suicide, I don't think that is a very good evolutionary trait.

 

[crackedWise]

We would have thrived in the age of enlightenment as there was so much more to discover and so much less to learn before being able to discover that which was out there ready to be discovered. Long rambling sentences would have been more apreciated too .

Don't think that! I used to think that. It's terrifying. Think this instead:

Throughout his history, man has been certain of his supremacy. Think of the arrogance of the Romans in terming every non-Roman a barbarian, but then, why shouldn't they? A quarter of the world's population lived under their rule, rivers in the sky stretched through the mountains to bring water to their cities, animals were brought from across the globe to die for their entertainment, their buildings reached into the heavens in defiance of Jupiter himself, their toilets flushed (more or less). Yet all this they achieved without engines, electricity or industrialization (mostly). A yet starker example; think of the Egyptians. Think of the god-like dominion they must have felt when looking out onto the horizon, they saw, rising out of the desert, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and tho only one which still stands to this day. It was built by a people who did not have the benefit of the wheel.

Today, we look back on such achievements and wonder by what miracles they were made. But at the time, no one thought such things miracles. We know this because such structures were built at all. Someone, in many cases a great many someones, must have thought it possible, probable, even. They thought this because man's age is always a modern age (the Dark Ages don't count). Man's tools, whether they be bronze chisels or atomic supercolliders, are always cutting-edge, and useful only to those few who have studied their whole lives in their chosen field.

It is easy now to look back at Newton's formation of the Laws of Motion or Franklin's "discovery" of electricity and say, "Well, duh", but at the time these men and those like them were overturning centuries of superstitious belief and ambiguity. Let us remember also, that what was known on a subject was hard to come by. Knowledge was at a premium, lest we forget it took the brilliance of the aforementioned Franklin to found the first public lending library in the Americas. Not only was knowledge rare, it was also often times wrong (i.e. Aristotle's Five Elements), making the task of new discovery doubly difficult in that it not only involved learning something new, but also rooting out and unlearning that which was wrong. This is an obstacle still faced today; I often wonder what we now know (just as the Greeks knew the earth was flat, and 17th century scientists knew flies were spontaneously generated from rotting meat) that generations after us will be laughing at us for a thousand years from now.

The path to innovation is always insurmountable. Man, recognizing this, is quick to claim, "That's it. We're done. We know all there is to know (or we're pretty damn close anyway)." History has shown, however, time and time again, that he is wrong. In parting, I pose to you this: which is more likely? That we, in our infinite wisdom (think war, world hunger, and global warming), have finally succeeded where all others have failed, and are right in claiming (for the ten-thousandth time) that we are getting near to knowing all there is to know? Or. That we, like generations of achievers and dreamers before us, have yet to scratch the surface of all that is, and that it simply takes a man of true greatness to make the impression infinitesimally deeper.

-----------------------------------------

Also, this is my first post. I realize this is no way to make an introduction, but...oh well.

To slightly make up for my massive derail, I'd like to say that we do live in an age of hyper-specialization, but this seems to create more opportunities than it prevents. As specialists become more involved in their single field, they lose sight of the benefits the implementation of other disciplines might have to their ultimate goal. This creates the need for multi-discipline proficients (but not experts) to look at problems from angles specialists would never have thought of. I don't know if you have anything like an engineering bent, but Mechatronics illustrates my point rather well.

 

[zink2040]

I like my job because we have a bunch of stuff to figure out, once I figure it out, its time to move on. My job is an engineering job, but I didnt like it at first and wanted out, but once I realized that there were a few huge puzzles to solve, I was in.

 

[Coolydudey60]

I tend to keep interests for a long time, but what I can't do is focus my brain for more than 2-3 hours, cause i just get bored and tired. Does anyone else find that?
Unless it's something that really interests me

 

[ayla_aus]

I'm a regional clinical nurse specialist in wound management. I travel around the country side in a car helping staff with wounds that won't heal.

I enjoy the time alone in the car (about 1/4 to 1/2 of my job) thinking, contemplating, listening to podcasts and the radio and looking out at the country.

I find the science behind wound healing fascinating, lots of new advances to keep me intellectually stimulated. Being a specialist, I make graphs of wound areas, and its SO exciting to come accross a leg ulcer that's been there for 5 years, creatively analyse what might be stopping it healing, design a plan and then watch it heal over the next three or four months.

I'm pretty close to an INFP, so I also feel satisfied that I'm doing a job that's 'doing some good' in the world, rather than just making money etc.

Some parts of being a nurse, on the way to becoming a wound specialist were fairly traumatic, as I would encounter SFJ and STJ people who value 'practicality' and not innovation.

In my job now, I get to be imaginative and innovate all the time.

But who would have thought there'd be a place in nursing for an INTP. It was the freedom of nursing that originally attracted me.... freedom to work part time and where ever in the country, or the world you want to.

 

[jzono1]

I don't want to do anything with my life. They told me I couldn't, back in elementary school. They told me I was a loser who wouldn't get anywhere.

Then school got mildly challenging. They suddenly told me that I could do whatever the fuck I want to do, with my talents, my potential, and my mind.

I tried it for a while. After a few years of pointless academia I've come to realize that all I want is a "get out of jail free"-card from society. I want silence, and a cave to call my own. Not a job. Not a "life" as they say. Society treated me badly in my first dozen years, and I've gained enough knowledge to hate the system, and I must admit the fact that I alone can't make a difference.

So here I am. I'll hopefully be a driver's educator in a couple of years. It was the shortest specific education path I could find, without any opportunities for me to fuck up and end up taking unrelated classes leading to nowhere (on a road paved with knowledge, but still resulting in nothing.)

There's no profession I could do for ages and enjoy it. So now I'm aiming for enough income to build my bunker, my salvation, my cave.

 

[Juno]

I just landed a maintenance electrician gig. Buckets of money, no stress, basically any time off that I want, the ideal job. It just helped pay off my last bit of debt too. Fuck Yeah!

In fact, I still can't believe that I got the job. It's just that hard to accept.

Sooo now I can fund the things that I want to do (travel, learn new languages, get in spartan shape, rebuilt a jeep that I have, find a new place to live....get a girlfriend..?)

 

[blogdogcop]

I'm guessing this is nothing that hasn't been heard here before, so I'm curious to know if anyone else has actually managed to find a job that they can tolerate for more than a month at a time. Does it exist, or are we simply modern day Don Quixotes?

I feel your grievances.
But i think the problem is not you, but the jobs that you are taking.
They all seem to be clerical. And mind you, clerical jobs are like bottomless pits. It's a hell hole of boringness and uninteresting cycle of tasks made by people who are in the position of where you should be.

I think the best job is to be a bum. LOL
But really, it would give us all the free time we need to do whatever we feel like doing. Only problem is the finances .

That's why i've come up with an ingenious solution to our problem.
Get rich!
Just bear with the pain of being in a cage of boringness because when you get rich you'll finally be free!

OR....

Just be a traveller. If you're old enough (i think you are), you can live your life whatever way you want. Of course doing this alone is the best option. It's possible, belive it or not.

 

[Thoughtful]

You could take up big rig trucking, and just drive from state to state while listening to stuff, kinda like ayla_aus does. It's something I've seriously considered, and I understand a lot of trucking companys pay for the training.

I really enjoyed working at summer camp as a dishwasher. Demanding job, but plenty of things to do in your off time, and the other people working there were great. lack of internet was the only complaint.

 

[PossumOfTheGrotto]

Christ on a cross...I feel just like that little bee girl from the Blind Melon video. In the best way possible. I literally got a bit emotional when I stumbled across this thread, which is hard to admit but just goes to show how isolated and denigrated I've felt by having this mindset. (A majority of people seem to find this threatening somehow.)

I am the only INTP I know in my circle of friends (I seem to be surrounded by Idealists); I am also one of a handful of Rationals in my social circle. My two best friends are, obviously, Rationals...and I get along well with Idealists (less so with Artisans)...but the world seems sadly to be overrun with Guardians, whom I do not relate to at all.

(My thoughts on Guardians? If they have to be there at all, best they should be seen and not heard. I am having hella problems with Guardians at present, who seem divinely inspired as a majority to create the most amount of tedium and insipid orthodoxy possible wherever they go.)

I have felt like this forever and have been told repeatedly over the years that I just need to buckle down and pick one thing to focus on...that once I discover a "calling" I will discover my life's purpose...the thing is, seeking knowledge and experiences IS my life's purpose. Everything I do is in pursuit of that goal.

I have no idea why it is that other types can't understand how I feel and how I see things...or why there doesn't seem to be a lot of places for this kind of mindset in society...

What do other people do? How do we live?

 

[Cavallier]

I shelve books now on the graveyard shift. Best thing that has ever happened to me. Sure, I'm sleep deprived but I don't have to deal with...well...anybody really and I get to listen to my music the entire time. It's several kinds of awesome.

 

[PossumOfTheGrotto]

That sounds like a gazillion kinds of awesome.

 

[Melkor]

I think the problem with modern society is that enjoying ones work is considered be unspeakably sad and unheard of.
Work is a horrid, nasty thing that the system drops onto us, and will force us into until we snap from the pressure or die from the loadout, getting pleasure from it is just diabolical, we're only in it for the money.
In my own workplace, it seems to be the 'in' thing to complain, people bond while doing it, it's a universal topic of discussion, most of the time people introduce themselves to me with 'Isn't this shit?', and I've finally started to pick up on it, while beneath all that, unsaid, I get the feeling that most of us are in fact rather glad to be here.

 

[Bird]

I think the problem with modern society is that enjoying ones work is considered be unspeakably sad and unheard of.
Work is a horrid, nasty thing that the system drops onto us, and will force us into until we snap from the pressure or die from the loadout, getting pleasure from it is just diabolical, we're only in it for the money.
In my own workplace, it seems to be the 'in' thing to complain, people bond while doing it, it's a universal topic of discussion, most of the time people introduce themselves to me with 'Isn't this shit?', and I've finally started to pick up on it, while beneath all that, unsaid, I get the feeling that most of us are in fact rather glad to be here.

I beg to differ, Melky.
We are not only in it for the money.
We are in it in order to further squash
animalistic tendencies and conform
to the ideal of civilization that society
and those who want control and order
want from us as a species.



Work is nice.
I like dedicating myself to something fully.
Not having enough time to spend on being
selfish.

 

[DaDaMan]

I'm not particularly enthused by my job.

I think the problem with modern society is that enjoying ones work is considered be unspeakably sad and unheard of.
Work is a horrid, nasty thing that the system drops onto us, and will force us into until we snap from the pressure or die from the loadout, getting pleasure from it is just diabolical, we're only in it for the money.
In my own workplace, it seems to be the 'in' thing to complain, people bond while doing it, it's a universal topic of discussion, most of the time people introduce themselves to me with 'Isn't this shit?', and I've finally started to pick up on it, while beneath all that, unsaid, I get the feeling that most of us are in fact rather glad to be here.

This thread reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a few years back when we had just entered the working world. I was getting bored with the monotony of my job at the time, we talked about our jobs, for her(ESTP), the job was just a job, something separate from her life and just a means to an end, I couldn't understand how she was able to so easily separate her life from her job, considering that a person spends their most productive time of the day and their lives in their jobs, there is no way that your job can't be a significant life changing part of your life.

Its only once you start working, especially if you have worked for a few years and specialized in a particular niche, you realize how significant and defining your choice of career\job has been and will be to your life. You have to be carefull though, if you show any passion of interest towards your work that exceeds what is considered as normal, you may just end up being labelled as unbalanced, because you were not successfully able to compartmentalise your job and your life like all "normal" people should.

 

[echoplex]

I would be happy to simply have a job. Bring me boring repetitive tedium!

Seriously, hearing people complain about their job makes me angry. Not at them, but just in general. Actually, a little bit of both. If it's so bad then let me have it.

 

[MunkySpanker]

Yes i believe it is possible. If your interest is useful or you discover interesting things on the job and try to maximize your abilities and knowledge of it.

I worked at Target always keeping items lined up and neat and stuff. If you're OCD you will sorta love it. Although when you're force to get it done it takes forever but yea. I used to line up items and pull them forward when I was a kid anyways. When I worked in electronics dept I liked helping people with buying the right connectors, etc because I knew what I was talking about. Even unpacking boxes I found fun sometimes. Ripped boxes open like mad with technique. I stuck too it and tried to be fast, while everyone else socialized and lazied around. I enjoyed it because I tried to make myself good at it even if it sounds like a horrible boring job.

I have passion with web programming I taught myself. I have a job in it now and I like consulting web projects and stuff. I tried computers career simply because I build my own but actually I hate fixing computers.

"ripped boxes open like mad with technique."

funniest shit in the world you guys.

 

[MunkySpanker]

I would be happy to simply have a job. Bring me boring repetitive tedium!

Seriously, hearing people complain about their job makes me angry. Not at them, but just in general. Actually, a little bit of both. If it's so bad then let me have it.

yes, just another means to drag out the eventual death.

 

[MunkySpanker]

I didn't realize until I found this forum just how stereotypical an INTP I am. I floated through high school and university, graduated with a degree in history and philosophy after changing my major a half dozen times, and have held an absurd variety of jobs since then. I've worked in an ice cream factory, as a gardener at Rideau Hall, a caretaker of a disused tobacco farm, a camera store salesman, and currently I'm an English teacher in Busan, South Korea.

My curse has been potential. I was the kid who was told he could be anything, and the people saying it meant it. I could easily get myself a PhD in any subject of my choosing if I just had the ability to focus on one thing for that long. The problem is I'm fascinated by every single goddamn thing on the planet. I'll spend one day as an aspiring astronomer, and then the next I'm a linguist, or a carpenter, or an audio engineer. I've been accepted into more post-secondary programs than I can count, and I've dropped out of all of them before they even started because I was caught up on the latest crazy idea.

This time my fickleness has taken me to Asia. It was exciting for three months, and then it got boring like everything else. Once I understood the system--everything has a system to be manipulated and mastered--it was exactly the same as living in North America. Teaching was a little more difficult to get the hang of than my other jobs, but it got boring no less quickly. Now I'm stuck here for another eight months when all I really want to do is move on to the next thing that catches my fancy.

At the moment I'm planning on taking on an MA in linguistics when I return, but I'm doing so more out of the knowledge that, first, I have an unusual talent for languages, and second, I need an MA to get international jobs that pay better than subsistence.

Spending two years in the same place focussed on one area of study will be torture, but I'm reaching the age where I have to show some sort of dedication or I'm going to be bypassed by life.

I'm guessing this is nothing that hasn't been heard here before, so I'm curious to know if anyone else has actually managed to find a job that they can tolerate for more than a month at a time. Does it exist, or are we simply modern day Don Quixotes?

Dansk -- it's quite refreshing to read your post... I'm a few years behind you (27) -- but at least I know that if you're somewhat more lost than I am now... then I'm not doing all that bad... hahaha.

Personally -- I keep going back to poker. I played in college, and left it at that. I hadn't played a hand in 5 years, but then all of a sudden, it took hold of me again. The fact that it's totally not a game of luck (some luck involved) -- it's a game of skill, logic, and EMOTION (go figure)...

Okay I promise I'm not just totally talking about myself -- but poker provided me a challenge that I never had before: I believe I have the raw potential to be great, and when I'm losing, I feel like it's because the other guy is smarter than me.

Now I want to devote my time & effort to poker. I have a passion for it now. Before, in college, I didn't have the passion for it. I was just above average without trying too hard -- like many things in life for us.

I think when you find the intersection of 1)you being good at something and 2)you having the ability to be the BEST at doing that... oh and also 3)it actually being able to generate $$$...

...that will be your calling. Until then, enjoy the vagabond lifestyle, I'm right behind you!

 

[Architect]

Yes I'm quite happy with what I do - software programmer/engineer/architect/developer/code monkey. I think this is probably the best choice for an INTP, my encouraging my son (who is also an INTP) to look at the field (he's a daddy's boy so wants to work with me regardless)

Basically the job consists of pure thinking. Solve problems and write them down. Since computers can do anything a person can (except eat and have sex) you can be a jack of all trades. Work in finance one day, graphics or music another, or science (measurement) a third. Software types have a reputation, so you get left alone by management. Plus it pays really well.

I'm not walking around in a state of eternal bliss - that would be bad - I still always want something more and better. But this is probably as good as it gets.

 

[nexion]

I didn't realize until I found this forum just how stereotypical an INTP I am. I floated through high school and university, graduated with a degree in history and philosophy after changing my major a half dozen times, and have held an absurd variety of jobs since then. I've worked in an ice cream factory, as a gardener at Rideau Hall, a caretaker of a disused tobacco farm, a camera store salesman, and currently I'm an English teacher in Busan, South Korea.

My curse has been potential. I was the kid who was told he could be anything, and the people saying it meant it. I could easily get myself a PhD in any subject of my choosing if I just had the ability to focus on one thing for that long. The problem is I'm fascinated by every single goddamn thing on the planet. I'll spend one day as an aspiring astronomer, and then the next I'm a linguist, or a carpenter, or an audio engineer. I've been accepted into more post-secondary programs than I can count, and I've dropped out of all of them before they even started because I was caught up on the latest crazy idea.

This time my fickleness has taken me to Asia. It was exciting for three months, and then it got boring like everything else. Once I understood the system--everything has a system to be manipulated and mastered--it was exactly the same as living in North America. Teaching was a little more difficult to get the hang of than my other jobs, but it got boring no less quickly. Now I'm stuck here for another eight months when all I really want to do is move on to the next thing that catches my fancy.

At the moment I'm planning on taking on an MA in linguistics when I return, but I'm doing so more out of the knowledge that, first, I have an unusual talent for languages, and second, I need an MA to get international jobs that pay better than subsistence.

Spending two years in the same place focussed on one area of study will be torture, but I'm reaching the age where I have to show some sort of dedication or I'm going to be bypassed by life.

I'm guessing this is nothing that hasn't been heard here before, so I'm curious to know if anyone else has actually managed to find a job that they can tolerate for more than a month at a time. Does it exist, or are we simply modern day Don Quixotes?

Dear God.

I look at my college years with wonder and the years after it with disdain (I am currently a senior in high school). Mostly, I plan on learning all of the math and science I can in college, with a concentration in a specific science (not sure yet). Anything I don't learn in college classrooms, I plan on learning in all of my spare time, from books, internet... (I am hoping that I will be motivated if I tell myself long enough that I am going to do that) God, but the prospect of getting a job and being productive in society... disturbs me greatly.

...

 

[yoopernation]

Just joined ... greetings from the U.P. of Michigan

I've enjoyed jobs as long as I could build capabilities, etc. Once development stops, and day to day grind kicks in, I gotta leave. Used to be an environmental chemist for consulting firms, now I buy and sell stuff ... buy at auctions, book sales, etc. and sell mostly online. I need a little extra money though ... any suggestions for side jobs?

 

[EditorOne]

Zinc and Ayla kind of dialed in on something I think a lot of INTPs can relate to: They have jobs that involve new challenges all the time. We are prone to be non-specialists because we get bored or sluggish once we've achieved a certain level of competency in a given area. We then like to learn something new, or use the old stuff in new ways. In a way, any job that has an element of what we could call "troubleshooting" in it is probably a better than average match for a full-blown INTP. It implies changing problems requiring new thinking.

Footnote: Any over-reliance on specialists without some generalist in on the deal can produce problems. Try going to a medical doctor, a chiropractor, a psychologist and a psychiatrist for migraine treatments and you'll get four sets of possible solutions, with small overlaps here and there. It's like if the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails. We've got hammers (around here somewhere) but also other tools and know how to use them in combinations, to the point where even if we can't find the hammer under the pile of abandoned projects and odd tools, we can get things fastened together. (Just an analogy, although it has been a while since I've seen my hammer.)

A long, long time ago, when I was a teenager, I read a science fiction book in which a young person in a highly ordered society felt out of place because he was never allowed to develop a specialty, and was therefore scorned by his peers. As you've guessed, he was a lot like many of us, and he was being groomed to be IN CHARGE of various combinations of specialists working on projects in which their specialized knowledge and skills were limiting their perspective. This may have been before anyone put a name to what we call INTP or Myers Briggs (yeah, I'm almost as old as AlisaD), but that story always made a lot of sense to me.

 

[FusionKnight]

The problem is I'm fascinated by every single goddamn thing on the planet.

I'm guessing we can all relate to that. The thing that terrifies me about going back to college for another degree is that when you start heading down the rabbit-hole of specialization, you can't see the horizon anymore.

 

[nexion]

Zinc and Ayla kind of dialed in on something I think a lot of INTPs can relate to: They have jobs that involve new challenges all the time. We are prone to be non-specialists because we get bored or sluggish once we've achieved a certain level of competency in a given area. We then like to learn something new, or use the old stuff in new ways. In a way, any job that has an element of what we could call "troubleshooting" in it is probably a better than average match for a full-blown INTP. It implies changing problems requiring new thinking.

My specific problem is that I want to become an expert in ALL of the fields I enjoy.

But yes, I can still relate to becoming bored with a certain subject and cycling. My interests are wide and varied, and it would be nice to have a job that is the same way, or where I can actively pull in information from other fields to be of benefit to my current one (I think a relationship such as this exists within all sciences). Understanding the world through its many different facets rather than just one. That is what I want.

 

[Cogwulf]

The longest I've ever had a job for was a 9 month industrial placement before I started at university. I enjoyed it very much, but that was probably more due to the novelty of leaving school and my parents. 9 months was no time at all, if the job was permanant, I would have probably started stagnating and began looking for more interesting places to spend my days.

I'm studying for a degree in materials science, I'm currently in the second year and at the moment it's very generalised and diverse, but at the end of this year I have to choose a specialisation to finish the degree with, and I'm not looking forward to that. I see little benifit to specialisation in this area anyway, We're expected to specialise to something like metallurgy or polymer science, but modern engineering projects are increasingly using combinations of many materials, and then there are many new forms of composites appearing too.
Specialisation is only beneficial to those who choose to go into research, but the researchers are the people deciding what degrees should include.
In industry, it is often more important for an engineer to have a wide range of knowledge to be able to carry out a wide range of tasks for his employer

 

[Solitaire U.]

I'd call this more stereotypically human than INTP.

I wouldn't say I love my job (towing, over-described elsewhere on this forum), but I've reached an acceptable comfort level with it. Owning/operating a coffee-house in Mexico was a lot more fun.

 

[Hammond]

I didn't realize until I found this forum just how stereotypical an INTP I am. I floated through high school and university, graduated with a degree in history and philosophy after changing my major a half dozen times, and have held an absurd variety of jobs since then. I've worked in an ice cream factory, as a gardener at Rideau Hall, a caretaker of a disused tobacco farm, a camera store salesman, and currently I'm an English teacher in Busan, South Korea.

My curse has been potential. I was the kid who was told he could be anything, and the people saying it meant it. I could easily get myself a PhD in any subject of my choosing if I just had the ability to focus on one thing for that long. The problem is I'm fascinated by every single goddamn thing on the planet. I'll spend one day as an aspiring astronomer, and then the next I'm a linguist, or a carpenter, or an audio engineer. I've been accepted into more post-secondary programs than I can count, and I've dropped out of all of them before they even started because I was caught up on the latest crazy idea.

This time my fickleness has taken me to Asia. It was exciting for three months, and then it got boring like everything else. Once I understood the system--everything has a system to be manipulated and mastered--it was exactly the same as living in North America. Teaching was a little more difficult to get the hang of than my other jobs, but it got boring no less quickly. Now I'm stuck here for another eight months when all I really want to do is move on to the next thing that catches my fancy.

At the moment I'm planning on taking on an MA in linguistics when I return, but I'm doing so more out of the knowledge that, first, I have an unusual talent for languages, and second, I need an MA to get international jobs that pay better than subsistence.

Spending two years in the same place focussed on one area of study will be torture, but I'm reaching the age where I have to show some sort of dedication or I'm going to be bypassed by life.

I'm guessing this is nothing that hasn't been heard here before, so I'm curious to know if anyone else has actually managed to find a job that they can tolerate for more than a month at a time. Does it exist, or are we simply modern day Don Quixotes?

To prevent myself from getting bored, I differentiate what I live for and what I live from. I live for philosophy, working out, puzzles, and miscellaneous crafts. I live from working in a warehouse and someday from the computer science field. It's easier, and it makes me feel my work is more authentic.

 

[kinetickyle]

I really enjoy my job as a whole, but there are a lot of aspects of it that annoy the hell out of me. I work as a medical anthropologist/research coordinator. I love the first part of the job - I help doctors communicate more effectively with patients, interview the patients about their feelings concerning their treatments, and design and carry out the social aspects of research.

The coordinating bit of the job gets annoying. It's mostly administrative crap, a lot of which I think is just paycheck justification for some of the purely admin people. Anyway, I see paperwork as being mostly a huge waste of time and there is a lot of it. Of course, I'm not the most organized person in the world, so that makes it worse.