Despite my
post from earlier this week, I do actually have a resolution for 2014: blog more. I recently ran across an
article from Huffington Post that characterized the top 16 traits of a Type A Personality. Depending on how well you know me, the following results may or may not be shocking.
Here are 16 signs that you're a little (or a lot) Type A:
1.)Waiting in long lines kills you a little bit inside.
KILLS me. If I am anticipating a possible line, I make it a point to leave a minimum of 20 minutes early. Make me late and therefore cause me to leave 19 minutes early, and I might murder you.
2.)You've been described as a perfectionist, overachiever, workaholic or all of the above.
I literally used to turn down dates that I was actually interested in by saying, "I'm married to my job. If you're okay having a relationship with my voicemail, we can have dinner." People didn't think I was serious and then would get upset when I dumped them for being too clingy. I mean, did they really expect me to make more than an hour a week to see them? I had work to do.
3.)You bite your nails or grind your teeth.
While not a nail biter, my dentist told my mom when I was seven that I had already rubbed off 75% of the enamel on my teeth because I was constantly grinding them. Sometimes I do this without noticing it, and other times it is my coping mechanism so I don't have to murder you.
4.)You have a serious phobia of wasting time.
Few things in life take my rage-odometer from nice to raging maniac faster than wasting my time. When in a meeting, I believe that we are there to work, not to chit chat. And whatever you do, do NOT be even one minute late. I live and die by the motto 'if you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late.' And I HATE tardiness. So much so that if I am ever arrested for murder, it's probably because someone didn't respect my time.
5.)You're highly conscientious.
I stress over EVERYTHING. If the house isn't clean, I go into a tailspin. If the centerpieces for an event are even slightly imperfect, my face gets red and my breathing becomes uncontrollably fast. If you forget, break, or otherwise ruin any part of the plan I have been anxious about for however many weeks leading up to this moment, I might seriously consider murdering you.
6.)You've always been a bit of a catastrophist.
In connection with basically every other bullet point in this post, I don't subscribe to the idea of rating every problem on a scale of 'inconvient to Titanic level disaster'. If anything goes wrong, it is a full blown iceberg situation. I've crumpled into a sobbing mess when the wind blew over some tablecloths at an outdoor event I was putting on because it meant the whole day was 'ruined'. I've refused to speak to my husband for days at a time because he missed emptying a garbage can on his trash rounds and threw off the trash cycle 'forever'.
*No husbands were hurt in the writing of this blog, and no, there's NOT trouble in paradise.
7.)You frequently talk over and interrupt people.
Here's the one item on this list that I cannot and will not accept as a truth. Interrupting me has always been in my top 3 pet peeves, if not #1. From the time I was old enough to talk, if someone interrupted me, I'd start my entire story over. Even with insistance from my audience that they remembered where I was in my tale, I would immediately start from the beginning. Now I just pout and refuse to finish my point, because I'm silently plotting how I will murder you.
8.)You have a hard time falling asleep at night.
I'd add to this one, 'or staying asleep' because on the nights that I do fall asleep quickly, I'm almost certainly up in the middle of the night for several minutes or hours thinking about any variety of things running through my mind. Sometimes I have to get up to make sure that we turned the oven off, and then start tidying up. Or sometimes I just lay there staring into the darkness making a mental to-do list for the upcoming day. I've had a boss e-mail me at 2am to say, 'Go to sleep Heidi' because I'd woken him up with my 4th e-mail to him in an hour regarding policies I wanted to revise.
9.)People can't keep up with you -- in conversation or on the sidewalk.
My extremely short legs make keeping up with me on the sidewalk quite easy, but I bet I could take down just about anyone in conversation. No matter the topic, I have lots of ideas and antecdotes to share. When it is my rightful turn in the discussion, of course.
10.)You put more energy into your career than your relationships.
See bullet point #2. The one and only time I was ever dumped was when I received a text message from someone I thought I'd broken up with six weeks earlier saying, "I know you're very important in your field of work, but I'm important in this relationship. If you ever find time for me in your schedule, give me a call." I seriously had no idea we were still even dating!
11.)Relaxing can be hard work for you.
This one is a biggy. I struggle with it every single vacation. I'm cranky and spend days before our departure thinking up ways to get out of going. The thought of being away when something might happen at work and having no way to help/fix it/be there gives me anxiety. Every single vacation day I take, I have to make it a conscious choice to only 'check in' once a day. And I still find myself glancing at my phone several more times a day just in case someone from the office needs me. If it weren't for my husband asking me on a particular vacation if I planned on spending any time with him during our trip (while I was using the hotel paper & pencil to jot down some thoughts for when I returned to the office) that I realized my brain NEVER actually goes on vacation with me. This one is still a work in progress, but it will probably always be on the list. And yes, I realize that it makes my vacation mates want to murder ME.
12.)You have a low tolerance for incompetence.
I don't even want to tell you how many times I've wanted to murder someone for this. At one point, I actually had to write on a post-it that I kept in my top drawer where I could see it often: "It is illegal to stab someone for being stupid." And I've been told by several supervisors that 1.) I don't have the authority to fire anyone, and 2.) Even if I did, "Being an idiot" is not an HR-approved reason to terminate someone. I stand by my statement that it should be.
13.)You'd be lost without your to-do list.
If anyone ever wanted to ruin me, this would be the way to do it. Not having a list is my kryptonite. At work, at the grocery store, while packing for a vacation where I'm not going to relax, lists are my lifeline. And when I occasionally do complete a task/buy an item/pack something that was not originally on the list, I can't do anything else until I write it on the list and check it off. It's a sickness. A really helpful, organized sickness. And Heaven forbid someone do something to my list, I'm not sure I could go through with murdering that person without retrieving said list and adding 'kill list thief' to my tasks.
14.)At work, everything is urgent.
EVERYTHING. People are amazed at the lightning quick speed with which I send responses/edits/help/whatever they need. And they become significantly less impressed when they realize I expect the same from them.
15.)You're sensitive to stress.
This one is so true that I begged the man who is now my husband to elope because I was stressed out just
thinking about the stress that planning a wedding would cause. I know myself very well, and I know that I was a monster to deal with for those four months of wedding planning. In my defense, having 212 people RSVP and 315 people show up that day would send Ghandi into a meltdown. Now every single time we go to a wedding, we both look at each other and say in unison, "Glad it's them!"
16.)You make it happen.
Damn right I do! I don't even feel bad for saying that. Unless my mom is reading this.
