Perhaps one of the most telling aspects of one's personality is the way he/she deals with stress. There are those of us who seem to be constantly in a "stressed out" state; running around with wild hair, disheveled clothing, a stack of disorganized papers and a wild look in the eyes. Then there are those who usually have things under control, moving through life almost flawlessly. These are the people who are annoyingly punctual, who always come prepared like the proverbial boy scout and who, aside from a few personality quirks, always seem to have it "sooo together." There is a third category of people who never become stressed and they, obviously, have prescription medication and while I might envy them, I'm not here to write about them. It is the other two categories I'm interested in.
Now Category A, the perpetually stressed, has seemed to me to be the category to put the whiners and complainers in. It is my perception (and boy don't I know it's just my perception) that these are people who just generally cannot deal with problems. They lack foresight and run into hurdles constantly. These people fail to complete a grocery list, relying instead upon their amazing mind powers of remembrance envisioning themselves walking briskly in and out of the grocery store deftly placing all necessary items into their cart as they glide through the aisle. What really happens is that, once in the grocery store, the sensory overload makes them forget everything but the most mundane item on their mental list. This will create a need to return to the grocery store two more times, the final time will be successful only because our mental prodigy has now decided to write out a list. This does, however, place them an hour behind schedule as whatever they were creating was remembered at the last moment due to a failure to have written the date down on a calendar. Our Category A person will be late to their event, their culinary masterpiece will have failed due to repeated stopping and starting and they will need to stop and buy something at the nearest bakery. Not only will their eyes be wild but their children will be raving lunatics due to having been carted to the same grocery store three times and denied a candy bar all three times. Yes, I am saying that Category A creates their own stress.
Now Category B, these people are planners. They may not have elaborate weekly calendars, but they are writing things down. These people create grocery lists in their spare time; written neatly on a napkin while they eat their lunch. When something goes wrong, the Category B individual will take a moment to consider the best course of action. Instead of returning to the store two more times for forgotten items, our Category B person would have quickly calculated the time wasted on additional grocery trips and made a mental note to stop by the bakery after they are done preparing for their event. They will even arrive annoyingly early due to having set aside too much time for running to the bakery. The most annoying part of being a Category B person is waiting for all those Category A people. While our Category B person is sitting and waiting for Category A to show up, they are calmly running through upcoming events, reminding themselves of important dates and most likely balancing their checkbook.
Yes, I would put myself in Category B. My gripe of the moment is that I seem to work with a massive amount of people who belong to Category A. This leads to meetings where we discuss what we should have done to prepare for the meeting. We will then set up an additional meeting to discuss what should have been discussed in the original meeting but couldn't be due to no one being prepared. When we meet the second time, only half of them will have remembered to prepare so the meeting will only be semi-productive. This frustrates me to no end. The reason they give you a meeting agenda a couple of days before the meeting is so that you can prepare.
I'm also quite certain it is the Category A people who sit and chit chat about mundane things during the planned meeting time, pushing back the meeting start time about fifteen minutes. This not only frustrates me, but puts me behind schedule. The Category A people would realize it puts them behind schedule as well if they were keeping a schedule. And I guarantee, at some point during the meeting, not only will Category A say "Oh, I hate meetings, they take up so much of my time and nothing ever gets done." but they will also complain about never having enough time. You do it to yourself people.
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