Mass Market

[Presto]

Marti,

Have you considered marketing your book on a much wider scale?

Let me explain: I found out about your book by accident, really. Last November shortly after my birthday, I found myself re-evaluating my "happiness", contentment, or whatever with my life. I came to conclusion that I hate my job and what it has made of me and I want to change jobs before I go postal. I researched afew options to get me started and found out about a service that found the correlation between personality type and career choices. This comes in the form of a career report, which basically takes your MBT and matches it with careers where your personality would be better suited. I just happen to hit a hyperlink for sspamested reading and your book appeared like a lightning bolt.

I don't know how everyone in the forum discovered IA. But I couldn't help to wonder if we here are a very small minority who just so happen to stumble across your book. There are many of us out there swimming in the abyss of life with enough insecurities. Not being grounded in the simple understanding of how one gets from point A to point B psychologically, I imagine, can feel like living in a purgatory.

If you have already thought about or done this, then please disregard this. But I was thinking that you could be interviewed by a major publication. Something other than Psychology Today and more mainstream like The Washington Post or New York Times. Something like that could go a LONG way towards introducing the issue of introversion into most people's minds and disspelling the negative connotations most of us innies face daily.

Just a thought,
Presto

[Robert]

I don't want us to become exposed. I like being secret and invisible. It used to be the secret was that their was something wrong with us. Now we know there isn't anything wrong, we're normal introverts but that wont carry any weight with the outies. We're still just as different and can't join them and don't want too. At least I don't. As far as notifying other innies, will the book really change anything in anybody's life. We were all naturally selecting livestyles that suited our temperament and 90% of what we do is thru an unconscious process. By the way there is a post here someplace that mentions Marti had been on TV so there was some marketing.

[Presto]

Thanks for bringing Marti's marketing to my attention. I obviously forgot that.

Now my response: I like being enigmatic as much as the next person. It gives you room to develop independently of others, observe phenomena around you and draw our own conclusions, etc. But I also see the flip side of the argument. We are a small minority. Marti says the ratio is 3:1 outies to innies. I don't know about you but that sounds like a tactical disadvantage that potentially opens the door to abuses. Its because of that dark side I'm sspamesting a more visible presence. Not loud. Just quietly visible. Enough for an outie to instantly recognize one of us and know how to deal with us to foster better relations, i.e. wearing a T-shirt that spells out the introverted perspective on common activities.

All I'm asking for is a balance between maintaining our temperament while simultaneously educating outies about our abilities. I don't know about the rest of you but I'm sick and tired of having to take 10 steps back to achieve a better understanding between myself and those around me. I almost feel as though I should have something to prove in order for an outie for take me seriously. Just think how much time you could save and how many hurtful feelings could have been thwarted if more people were aware of us, not simply dismissing us. Just think about how you could have enriched your life and the lifes of the people who know or know of you simply because of better communication and understanding.

My sspamestion of going to newspapers was based on the high degree of likelihood that those who read newspapers are also in the position and of the disposition to spread the word about us much more effectively than (I hope I'm not just speaking for myself here) any of us could ever do.

I'm not advocating for a parade or block party or a march on Washington. Just a more widespread outlet for outies to better understand us. Let's be honest. They don't exactly have the longest attention spans. The book alone is an innie solution to an innie problem. I would like to see an innie solution to an outie problem, because as I said before they outnumbers us.

I realize I'm now possibly coming off as a militant , so I'll shut up now.

[Presto]

Robert, I suppose I came off strongly about this issue. If that's the case its because I feel partly victimized by the misunderstandings between innies and outies. If you don't know already, I'm an INTJ. I focus on the big picture and I see alot of waste and alot of potential in this world. That's where I'm coming from.  To give you insight into one of the abuses I was writing about, I'll divulge some personal information I feel is necessary to get the point across. Please don't take it lightly.

I used to work as a programmer for a small GIS (geographic information systems) company in the DC area, arguably a very educated region of the country. By the way, GIS is not a big or noticable industry, so jumping jobs on a whim is not an option. Within afew days of working there, I discovered that all of my former co-workers are VERY extroverted (at slightly) and I was the ONLY innie.  Space was limited, so I had to share an office with two other people. One turned his radio on whenever he felt like it. The other loved phone chitchat. One manager loved to popped into the room for what seemed like every five minutes and talk and laugh so loud, the room felt like a concert hall. And then there was the we-should-all-have-lunch-together and the we-should-all-spend-our-weekends-together attitude.  The one day I decided to eat lunch one-on-one with a college buddy who worked afew blocks from me, I suddenly became a problem  and received a cool reception for the rest of the day. Imagine writing hundreds of lines of code in that mess. I brought up my difficulties with the president of the company and got the same tired response: "Lighten up." To make a long story short, my performance graduately suffered and I was fired within 14 months of my hiring.

In retrospect, I suppose I should have known enough during the interview to know I wouldn't fit in with the rest of the company. But have you ever had an interview that answered all of your questions on the spot? Had IA been released 4 years ago I could have avoided alot of the personality conflicts I encountered or could have been better prepared to resolve those conflicts. I've already faced discrimination on at least two different fronts (not including being gay) in my brief 26 years of existance. I simply don't want another one of us (innies) to go thru what I went thru. My inclination is also motivated by something I read in the Washington Post some months ago about some HR departments (mostly private sector) considering instituting personality tests to weed out potential hirees. If this is true and becomes common practice, just who do you think employers are going to hire?

(Sigh) Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Presto

[Robert]

Hi Presto, I appreciate your words but it's different for me. I'm older and retired and just want to maintain the status quo. I wonder if perhaps you have not noticed the other thread entitled Innie Convention. There you might find like souls who want to make changes. In one post they're actually recruiting help.

[Kray]

Wow presto, sounds like my work environment; the laughing, the chit chat, the lunches.  Only I'm the one playing the music because I'm trying to drown it all out.  The first year of my position I worked completely alone, I thought it was the perfect job for an innie and it was.  But then the project grew and my boss hired an extravert and place her in a 12 X 14 office with me.  She spends her week chit chatting on the phone w/ boyfriend of the week, planning her weekend get togethers  and the other office people are always up there in our tiny little office laughing and chit chatting with her. 

Now here is the dilemma - as an extravert SHE is advancing in her career simply because people like her. (certainly not because she's doing more work than I am)  I, on the other hand, am looking like the idiot, getting less work done now because she keeps interupting me all day.  I certainly will not get ahead any time soon on my winning personality.  So, her personality is jeopardizing my career.   Also, I can relate in a small way to your double whammy of being introverted and gay.   I am a female INTP, so not only am I an introvert in a world full of extraverts, I am a logical, thinking, unemotional female in a world full of feeling females. 

However, I wouldn't recommend choosing a career based on what you learn during the interview.  First off, environments change, second, you may miss opportunities and there's no way for you to know that.  I've taken it upon myself to educate all the extraverts in my lab about innies.  Now it's common language where I work and people are slowly beginning to understand why I am the way I am.   However, I'm still strspamling with ways to describe what an introvert is without either using negativities that make us look bad, or positives that make the extravert angry with what I am saying.  For example, if I say "introverts tend to be easily distracted by the external environment"  she will fluff up like a peac**k and say something like, "not me, bring it on, nothing distracts me"  as if being easily distracted somehow makes me incompetent.  If I say, "no, it's because we tend to always be always in our heads thinking about something."  She will say "oh yeah I think all the time too" again, making me look like she can do anything I can do, but I somehow lack the competencies and social skills that she has. 

 Anyway, has anyone come up with a good few sentence description of what being introverted means, for the purpose of describing it to others?  One that doesn't make us look incompetent or sound demeaning?

[Celeste]

How about - innies like to be efficient with words -- giving and receiving.  We like our exchanges to express the most information with the fewest words.  When it comes to words, quality over quantity, please.  Substance over fluff.  We are thinking carefully about what we want to express, because we value the precious power of the spoken word, and the energy involved in expressing it effectively.

Outies wish Innies could be more outie-ish.... and Innies wish Outies would be more Innie-ish.  It will always be this way.

On the topic of office politics, there is much more depth to that topic than innies vs. outies.  Don't even get me started.  Not all innies are the same or are treated the same -- nor are all outies treated the same.   There is much more to political gains than this... although personality type is one very important aspect. 

In terms of having to share an office with loud people... I always find a way to ask "workplace" questions like that up front in the interview - in a positive way of course.  I turned down a great job last spring because there was zero privacy and the boss, while a wonderful intelligent fascinating person, was an outie who was eventually going to exhaust me.  I specifically turned down that fabulous offer *because* the environment was set up for an outie, and the work required the skills of both innie and outies.  I was more than qualified but kept visualizing myself in that workplace with a totally scattered brain, working late nights in order to do my innie-type work.  The boss kept insisting there was no major OT involved, but he had NO idea how much quiet I need to concentrate on the kind of work he needed done.  It was clear he did not understand ANYTHING about innies... and I was behaving in such an outie manner in the interview, he thought I was perfect for the job.  I had to convince him that I wasn't.  Had I said the work environment was going to make me fail, he would have thought I was a WHINER.  So I declined the offer.  My SANITY is most important.  OT in the evenings is NOT worth it -- just because I *think* like an innie.

Get the heck out of any job that drives you that nuts with the outies.  Its a recipe for major stress. 

Mass Market

[Goat Rancher]

Introverts are thoughtful, and reflective. They dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Introverts think just fine, they just think differently, uniquely. Extroverts think fast, and introverts think thoroughly.

Introverts think fast, introverts, think it through

[scout64]

Don't get me started about work!!!!

My two previous bosses were innies but my most recent boss is an outie and he drove me into depression due to his constant demands, first thing in the morning to last thing at night. Understandibly, I needed to do a lot of OT to catch up. Once, I got home on a cold winters night and sat down on the couch with my coat on and fell asleep for a few hours. I was totally exhausted.

I could have handled the workload and the promotion with by first two bosses but this one is and was a nightmare. Subsequently, I remain on sick leave which is just over a year now. I don't think I could go back to that environment after working there 12 years, with this boss who would drive me insane. And I can't go back working in any office either. So I'm going to re-educate myself for a happier life in the Conservation/Animal Management Industry. I love watching and being with animals, it's just a joy.

Funnily enough, there are a few members of staff within the company who are depressed. I did not know this until I had to communicate with the HR manager. It goes to show you that good managers who understand their staff are few and far between. My boss, who is the Finance Director of the company needs to learn some management skills big time. Also, he thrives on office politics and manoevres slighly. Just two things I can not bear.

By the way, if The IA were marketed on Oprah, the book would be a best seller worldwide. I'm in the UK and couldn't find it in any of the bookshops so I'm going to have to order it over the internet.

[twittlebug]

yes, I would like it if the differences between introverts and extroverts was explained on a well-known talk show or in a newspaper.  There's less of us but we need to get the word out.  I don't want the extroverts being puzzled by me and others forever.  I try to educate them but I can't reach all of them.