I was talking last week with someone who told me that consultants must deal extremely well with ambiguity. They test for this skill set when hiring.
I guess I won’t ever become a consultant. (One of my colleagues thinks I’d be a great consultant because I am really good at drafting plans and telling other people the way they should do things. She’s kidding and I’m not going anywhere. But I do draft a mean plan and I’m often right about most things. ;))
Why is consulting not in my future? Well the suits for one, but the real reason is because I dislike ambiguity.
I like the fact that there’s a meeting every week at the same time and in the same place. I like the fact that I bring a chart to the meeting. Then, I like taking the chart back to my office and updating it so it’s current. This way everyone knows what’s going on. It’s all there on my colour-coded chart.
I don’t need to schedule every moment of a holiday — I book in ample free time on another one of my colour-coded charts 😉 — but I do like to research and plan the key places to visit and make at least one restaurant reservation in advance. I also like to research hotels more than most people. (I am actually a delightful travel companion — really.)
I plan what I am going to wear the next day the night before. Okay, not on weekends, but virtually every work day. I hate going to sleep with any doubt about the pants I want to wear being clean.
I could go on. I have many more examples, but I am not liking where this post is going. I am sounding very rigid. Set in my ways. Boring, even.
In fact, some people would say that I am actually very spontaneous and fun-loving. And yeah, I love to have a good time and to do things sometimes on the spur of the moment. But spur of the moment is not my default state. However, fun is — so that seems to make up for my — ahem — tendencies.