YATI - Yet Another Type Indicator**

I recently had the opportunity to attend an MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) session in my company. A woman with a Harvard MBA and a perpetual, albeit annoying, smile spent three hours explaining to me how I go about living my life and doing my work. Ironic, isn't it?
If you google (in the verb form) for Type Indicator, most of the top search results point to MBTI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator), which for me is a clear indication that this must be a really popular and accepted way for employers to to assess their employees' personality types. I found MBTI extremely convoluted and complicated.
However, spurred by MBTI's success, I have decided to come up with my own type Indicator (Carl Gustav Jung might just have stirred in his grave and chuckled at this cockiness) but I have a very good reason, or two. Firstly, if this works, I would show up in the first page of a google search for type indicators. Secondly, I would have simplified type indication to the extent that you will not need a Harvard MBA degree holder to come and spend three hours and 300 busy powerpoint slides to explain your own personality type to you. Hey, I can even make a facebook app and have some cool pics of Hollywood hunks and babes to go with the personality types.If the app becomes popular, I can add cool verdicts like - 'Hey, you are totally unfit to be hired even by MacDonalds, and your lucky mascot is Paris Hilton', or 'You cannot survive 4 hours in any job, and your role model is Lindsay Lohan'.

 For the MBTI assessment, I had to take a humongous 140 questions long psychometric questionnaire, the answers of which were used to determine my "type". By the way, are these questionnaires designed to find what level of psycho you are? Do they really have a metric for the degree of psycho-ness? Can they look at my answers, shake their head and say, 'You are a psycho with a metric of 9, you should be in a loony-bin.' Another thing that worries me about these questionnaires is their fixation with the number 4. Every question has four choices. If they could only think of three, they add d) None of the above, or d) Other. If they could only think of two, they add c) All of the above and d) None of the above. Why is four the magic number? Do people find choosing one out of four tougher and/or more confusing than choosing one out of three, or five? Is that the idea here? And believe me, answering these questions is hard. A typical psychometric question can have the following choices:
    a. Rarely
    b. Frequently
    c. All of the above
    d. None of the above
Look at the odds of giving the correct answer here. Rare and frequent are two highly subjective terms, and I, the person taking the questionnaire, am allowed to decide what is rare and frequent to me. To a software developer, 'the code rarely breaks' might mean 40-60% of the time. To his boss, 'the code frequently breaks' might mean 0.0001% of the time.

I turned out to be an ISTP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISTP_(personality_type)), which is one of the 16 possible types using the four dichotomies of MBTI (Extraversion/Intraversion, Sensing/iNtuiting, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving).

Well, cutting to the chase, here is my theory about personality types. There are only two things about an employee that an employer need to know.
1. Are they clean(C) or dirty(D)? and 2. Are they lazy(L) or industrious(I)?
If a person is clean, their work will also reflect that cleanliness - clean clothes, clean desk, clean code, clean documentation. If a person is industrious, their work will reflect that - they will work extra hours to get things done, they will go the extra yard to finish tasks at hand. So we can have 4 personality types now, instead of 16. You can be one of CL, CI, DL, or DI.

And that's it. The employer must hire a CI type and should not hire a DL type. A DI type can be hired if the emphasis is on getting the job done without much focus on quality, and a CL type can be hired if there is little to do, but the job should be done in a clean, methodical fashion. I am sure that if you are a CL, you are perfectly suited for being the chairman of the budget-making committee in California.

And then here is my sample questionnaire (so as to not annoy Mr. Meyer and Mr. Briggs). But there are only 10 questions. If am convinced that we do not need 140 questions to determine whether a person is lazy or not. In fact, if they are, and they get a 140 questions booklet, they will never get to the end of it.

So, here it is, the ultimate questionnaire for the greatest Type Indicator ever:
1. Do you shower daily?
a. yes
b. no

2. Do you brush your teeth at least once a day?
a. yes
b. no

3. Do you eat home-cooked meal at least once a day?
a. yes
b. no

4. Do you do the dishes before you go to bed every night?
a. yes
b. no

5. Do you like to host a party?
a. yes
b. no

6. Do you get your car washed at least once a fortnight?
a. yes
b. no

7. Do you hire someone to clean your house?
a. yes
b. no

8. How many times do you wear your ______* before you wash it?
a. <=2
b. >2

* Employer can put in which item of clothing they fancy.

9. Do you prefer a condo/apartment to a house with an yard?
a. Yes
b. No

10. Do you unpack your suitcases as soon as you get back from a trip?
a. yes
b. No

If you take the questionnaire, please do send me the answers and I will tell you what personality type you are, and who your lucky mascot/role model is.

** If the employer so desires, they can administer this exercise with a polygraph hooked to the employee, because like all tests, this one also allows all forms of cheating.

Are life events worth celebrating?

Life is a continuous series of 'Let's celebrate this.' events, and 'Let's celebrate that.' events.
I want to pose the questions, 'Why celebrate this?' and 'Why celebrate that?'

Let's consider the most common 'celebrate-able' events:
1. You got a promotion or a salary hike.
2. You had a baby or got married.
3. You bought a house or rented a house on the beach in LA.

All celebrate-able events can be classified into three categories, each identified by the biggest debilitation inflicted by that event on the 'celebrator'.
Category 1. 'Just Lost My Freedom'.
Events in this category: getting married, having a baby, becoming the President, getting married again, having another baby, being re-elected as President.

Events in this category don't deserve even a mention, let alone a celebration. If you do perform one or more of these events, at least don't tell anyone. Wear black and mourn in private.
For example, getting married or having a baby literally makes it impossible for you to do things that you like, like not wanting to have anything to do with toilet seats or diapers or drapes or non-microwaveable foods or clean, non-tattered clothes or .... the list can go on and on.
Getting elected to public office in America is even worse. You are supposedly among the most powerful people on earth now but you cannot even perform the most basic functions of life e.g.,
- indulge in activities that you had considered your birthright growing up (ask Bill Clinton or Antonio Villaraigosa) ;
- speak your mind without mincing words or getting bleeped (ask Joe Biden);
- pursue your hobbies (ask Dick Cheney) ;
- just be yourself (ask George Bush).

Category 2. 'There Goes My Money' events.
Events in this category: Buying a house, renting a house on the beach in Los Angeles, donating to charity, getting invited to a fund-raising dinner by the Republican party candidate, your kid gets into Stanford.

If you really think that these events warrant a celebration, you might as well celebrate being robbed and being a victim of credit-card scam or getting your new Bentley stolen.
For example, buying a house is akin to donating your entire pay-check for the next 30 years and living off the green stuff that grows in your yard when it rains.
Your kid getting into Stanford is just an euphemism for 'a giggly, pimply 16-year old just swindled you out of 50 grand from your retirement fund'. Now when you retire, you have no choice but to live the green stuff that grows in your yard when it rains, now that you have given away 30 years worth of salary and an extra 50 grand multiplied by n (n = number of times you were dumb enough to perform a particular event from the first category).

Category 3. 'Here Comes More Work' events.
Events in this category: Getting promoted at work, graduating from a educational institution, getting elected to public office, getting married, having a baby

Think about it - Why did God give us brains? So that we won't have to slog like ants, or scavenge like vultures. So that we can invent a bunch of amenities that would allow us to do what we we born to do - be lazy and slack off. Laziness is the best by-product of intelligence, and hence is God's gift to mankind. If you ask me, it is really weird if you want to celebrate the possibility of more work.
For example, graduating from high school with flying colors simply means that now you have to slog for the next 10 years of your life to justify it.
Being promoted at work, ideally with a pay-raise, means you now have to work 10 extra hours a week to justify it, hours that you could have spent on the beach in Malibu ogling at 'ogle-worthy' things.

In conclusion, I think that there are only two things in life worth celebrating - failure and serendipity. The luckiest man is one who never gets promoted, no woman can live with him, who cannot pass an exam even if you gave him the solution sheet, who gets lucky every other night and consistently hits jackpots at casinos. Now there is a man whose epitaph will read ,'Here lies a man who deserved to celebrate.'

Express Carwash: Pure Horror, Dude

So this weekend, I finally decided to get an automated carwash at a 76 gas station, after my car dealer told me for the umpteenth time that they have no employees to wash cars on Saturdays, which is very smart, given the fact that their service department is busiest on Saturdays and they so generously promise a FREE car-wash along with servicing which costs only about 400$.

I have paid for car wash only two times in the 5 and a 1/2 years I have owned a car - once because my in-laws were coming over for the first time, and once because the washers were young, aptly dressed, insistent....and extremely HOT. Each time, it had cost me in excess of 15$, plus tips, an alien and very confusing concept for a stingy cheap Indian guy. The gas station had three choices: Express - 3.99, Delux - 4.99 and Premium - 5.99. I went for Premium, that was a no-brainer. This was cheap, even by my measly standards. I asked this Hispanic dude with a really thick Hispanic accent behind the counter for directions to the carwash entrance, and what to do when I get there to and got back this crazy look which says, 'You ignorant illegal immigrant!!!'.

So I went to the car-wash entrance armed with my 5-digit code. The set-up looked innocent enough - a super-sized garage open on both ends with red mopper-like things hanging on two walls facing each other in the center. I also made an intelligent guess that there would be hoses sparaying cleaning liqiuds and water once we got started. The instructions were simple enough - enter the code at the gate and drive in. You will know what to do next. What should have made me a little suspicious were the traffic lights at the exit end of this setup blinking red. Why? Would a dish-antenna on the head of a grass-eating cow make you suspicious? What were traffic lights doing in a setup to clean cars?

So I punched in the code, the lights turned green to say 'Welcome car-wash virgin. The first time is the best; you never forget'. By this time there is another car behind me, and this car was ALREADY CLEAN. So I figured out that the driver dude is a regular. So I begin to act all cool, you know like, Indian dude cool - throw your head back, hum a tune from some Bollywood song, open the first few buttons of your shirt to show off some body hair, roll down the driver window and have the 'one hand on window sill, one hand on steering wheel' pose.

I saunter into the carwash setup and get hit by a blast of cold water. I was rapidly closing my window when the car hit something like a 4 feet speed breaker. I had the car floored, but all I heard was the engine complain and saw no forward motion. I began to freak out already. My car doesn't move. The view in front is also beginning to get spooky. Sprays of who knows what are beginning to shoot up at all crazy angles like tiny explosions, and the whole setup is beginning to appear hazy and misty and blurred. And the lights are blinking green meaning I have more ground to cover, and now there is a beeping sounds which says, 'I cannot believe it takes you 17 minutes to travel 7 feet - dumbass'.

So I get out of the car to see what is obstructing me, and see this TINY 3 inch high metal hump which marks the beginning of the car-wash contraption. The dude behind me is having trouble keeping a straight face by now. He is talking into his cellphone and sniggering. So I get back in, thoroughly pissed at the Honda Civic I just spent 400$ on, and try again. With a 23 second pause and a groan that reminded me of a dying grandmother in a bad Bollywood movie, my car finally made it over the hump and into the car-wash gadget. The lights turned red to indicate that I needed to stop now.

Suddenly it became eerily quiet and dark. The air smelled different, musty and oily. And then with a jolt - the walls started moving back and forth, and blasts of liquids in various states of turbulent motion came screaming at me from all directions . I had just done my crouching and flinching and cursing when the car began to shake and vibrate crazily. I fastened my seat-belt and grabbed the steering-wheel tightly. By this time I was pretty sure that the next act would be to eject me through the roof. Then, as abruptly as everything had started, everything stopped, all at once. No shaking, no blasts, all still and eerily quiet.

And then after this pregnant pause, just like those horror movies on TV, all hell broke loose. Moppers, which had looked so innocuous a few minutes ago, were now menacing and mean. They had changed into weird aliens with a million red limbs and exuding strange fluids and were attacking my car from both sides, trying to pry it open and get to me, and I had no idea why. I am sitting there thinking, I am just this software guy. I am not like this doctor who has a PhD in alien diseases, or this scientist who has an invention that can fix the vocal chords of aliens so that they can talk normally and even sing. So I closed my eyes, and began to pray.

I made a promise that if I get through this ordeal alive in one piece, I will never wash my car again. And lo and behold, everything stops, things brighten up for a moment, I start to hum a tune again. Just when I was going to start my engine back up, an immense red thing with million limbs comes thudding down onto my windscreen. It stops a feet from the glass, and shoots slimy greenish fluid towards me - looks like alien vomit. And I now notice that all my windows are slowly getting covered with this fluid, one drop at a time. I lock my doors, and sit still. I don't want to turn my head back, because all alien attacks usually come from there - Alien warfare strategy has a simple rule: Ass-attack is the best kind of attack.

I cant see a thing. And then my car starts getting violently hit from all sides again. I see these flashes of red and green and hear violent thuds that are tossing my car around as if it were a boat caught in a tsunami. And this part goes on forever. I cover my ears and sit in a fetal position and begin thinking about my wife and kid and parents and good friends. I start thinking about all the unfinished projects at work, and how I should have documented my code and written some wikis and checked-in code to the repository when I still had time. My laptop is also in the car ( I was on call) . Maybe that will survive this attack, and become crime scene evidence for some super investigator named J and dressed in black.

Sometime during the time when my brain was busy with these crazy thoughts, the aliens decided to let up. Maybe their time was up and they had failed to split my car open, which was their mission on earth. Everything was bright and rosy again; clear colorless water sprayed at my car, and was getting rid of the green gooey mess. I could see the skies; the tune came back again. The red light turned green again. I started to drive out very slowly and carefully, because I was not sure how well my car had been able to withstand all this pounding and shaking and ass-kicking.

All sci-fi and supernatural movies worth their salt have a 30 second piece in the end that leaves room for a sequel to kick-in - an evil eye, a hand shooting out of the grave, a baby alien crouching under the sofa, a pet cat with the ghost's eyes. The same happened here too. Just when I thought I was out of this nightmare, the car hit something like a 4 feet speed-breaker and stopped. Lots of crazy alarms started blaring all around me, and I was hit by hot winds with the strength of a gale. My car started tossing again, and a huge timer infront of me started counting down from 30. Was this the end? Was I going to explode once the timer hits 0?

The timer winded its way down. I started counting my last seconds. I closed my eyes at 2 and kept them closed. When everything fell silent again, I opened my eyes and ogled to make sure I see so people with wings or in white robes, or no caves with cauldrons of hot oil where humans were being fried. Hallelujah!!!! I was safe. There was just this flashing sign that was saying, 'Move out dumb-ass. That's all the entertainment you get for 6$'.