[MBTI General] Extroverts managing Introverts (long-skip if you must)

[Immaculate Cloud]

Anyone ever read the book "Managing Einstein" by - forgot who.

Recently, an extroverted friend ( ENFP ) asked me for a big favor. In short, to do the grunt work for her and then IF it works, I shall get paid a share.

I did not say a flat out no but wanted to show her how to do it herself but she refused citing the fact that she was very busy and had more interesting things to do and I could do it more efficiently, etc, etc.

The long and short of it was that "I" "did not understand", that "I" "could earn some extra money this way, that she has already made a deal with her company if I were to do it freelance, they'd pay me, etc.

So after much thinking, I am finding without much shock that though I enjoy the company of this extrovert as a buddy/friend, doing business with that person may/ will change the dynamics too much and introduce more of a employer-employee or big boss-worker dynamic. And I don't think that I can handle that. In my experience, family and/or friends do not mix well with business.

My solution in those cases often is to show them how to do something and let them run with it. I teach them freely and then it is up to them what they do or don't do with it. But here, I met with a flat refusal to even want to learn..."I am not interested but you can do it more efficiently", etc. I am perplexed and rather disappointed. And yea, I am a bit hurt too that the things that I do well are met with such disdain. ( Useful but not fun. Got more interesting things to do. )

The nagging questions are:

Why are the extroverts in my life always telling me what to do?
I need a few stock phrases to be able to say no without ruffling their feathers.
I don't want to get to the point where I need to door-slam to make them understand that though I am willing to help, I will not be treated as a convenient friend.
Do they (be honest, extroverts!) consider us as convenient?

 

[Kasper]

Why are the extroverts in my life always telling me what to do?

Why do you feel that the extroverts in your life are always telling you what to do?

Do they (be honest, extroverts!) consider us as convenient?

Some people are convenient, sure, but that's not the normal basis of a friendship.

Personally I think INFJs often have to do a proper door-slam when they feel friendships are not even or they are being used. Think it's healthy, but the divide isn't extrovert vs introvert, it's people who value you for who you are vs those who consider you convenient or would use you.

 

[CollisionCourse?]

I'm definitely not trying to attack you, but why do you feel being used? She offered you a deal. If you're not interested, you wouldn't break any obligation if you declined it.

Did she really ask you for a favor, or is that just your interpretation based on a friendly way in which you two communicate? If she really did, that's nothing unusual among friends regardless of I/E, and it's up to you how much you value your friendship. On the other hand, she should be aware of the fact, that you getting the job is not a pay-off. It's just your favor she'd be owing you, even if you get paid by her company.

I am finding without much shock that though I enjoy the company of this extrovert as a buddy/friend, doing business with that person may/ will change the dynamics too much and introduce more of a employer-employee or big boss-worker dynamic. And I don't think that I can handle that. In my experience, family and/or friends do not mix well with business.

Why don't you tell her this? At least you will find out if she values you as a friend. She can't suspect you don't after this.

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

Why do you feel that the extroverts in your life are always telling you what to do?

Some people are convenient, sure, but that's not the normal basis of a friendship.

Personally I think INFJs often have to do a proper door-slam when they feel friendships are not even or they are being used. Think it's healthy, but the divide isn't extrovert vs introvert, it's people who value you for who you are vs those who consider you convenient or would use you.

Based on past painful experience. Maybe that is why I am being extra cautious.

I am an INFJ who does not want to door-slam anymore. While I strongly feel it was justified a few times I have used it, I found that it tended to isolate me more and onlookers always side with those who are the first to tell their side of the story.

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

Why don't you tell her this? At least you will find out if she values you as a friend. She can't suspect you don't after this.

Thanks, I'll do that if she asks again...

 

[Kasper]

Well it may not be an issue of disrespect or using, hard to say without additional information about the specifics, but enneagram 7s (many ExxPs) are driven by experiencing fun and avoiding pain, if this was something she saw as not using strengths and totally unfun then I can understand her lack of interest in doing it herself. Question is, what would she get out of it if you had've taken her up on her proposal that suggests she is using you?

I ask this as another way of reading it is she has a job that she needs someone to do, she knows you have the right strengths so considers you a good fit, if you are unwilling or unable she will need to find another person. It may have simply been a situation that she saw as win-win.

 

[21%]

Stock phrase: "I'd really like to help, but I'm pretty busy right now / my work is pretty tough at the moment / I've been stressed out about things in my life / etc. so I don't think I will have time to do it"?

 

[sculpting]

I second the notion that mixing friendship and work can make a very big mess-especially if the terms are somewhat nebulous and subject to interpretation.

It sounds like your enfp is simply delegating a task and offering payment-although as I said there seems to be something nebulous about the payment. She may actually feel she is doing you a service by offering to let you profit from the task, since it sounds like you work freelance.

On the other hand it sounds as though you care much emotionally, for your work and are seeking to be of service in return-you dont seek payment primarily-you seek to show affection via offering her your time to teacher her how to do the task.

From your perspective it feels as though the offering of service-Fe-has been rejected-thus she is just using you to accomplish a task.

From her perspective though, she is functioning in Te mode where she is using you-given your expertise, knowledge and skill set to accomplish a task quickly and efficiently in the most productive manner possible. Not emotive in nature-just results oriented.

Productivity is enhanced by finding a skilled, dedicated person to complete a job, and then paying them, rather than trying to learn and make mistakes while simultaneously also completing many other tasks.

Demand payment for your work in any case. (all of course offered as one potential interpretation of your OP,apologies if I went off course)

 

[wildcat]

Anyone ever read the book "Managing Einstein" by - forgot who.

Recently, an extroverted friend ( ENFP ) asked me for a big favor. In short, to do the grunt work for her and then IF it works, I shall get paid a share.

I did not say a flat out no but wanted to show her how to do it herself but she refused citing the fact that she was very busy and had more interesting things to do and I could do it more efficiently, etc, etc.

The long and short of it was that "I" "did not understand", that "I" "could earn some extra money this way, that she has already made a deal with her company if I were to do it freelance, they'd pay me, etc.

So after much thinking, I am finding without much shock that though I enjoy the company of this extrovert as a buddy/friend, doing business with that person may/ will change the dynamics too much and introduce more of a employer-employee or big boss-worker dynamic. And I don't think that I can handle that. In my experience, family and/or friends do not mix well with business.

My solution in those cases often is to show them how to do something and let them run with it. I teach them freely and then it is up to them what they do or don't do with it. But here, I met with a flat refusal to even want to learn..."I am not interested but you can do it more efficiently", etc. I am perplexed and rather disappointed. And yea, I am a bit hurt too that the things that I do well are met with such disdain. ( Useful but not fun. Got more interesting things to do. )

The nagging questions are:

Why are the extroverts in my life always telling me what to do?
I need a few stock phrases to be able to say no without ruffling their feathers.
I don't want to get to the point where I need to door-slam to make them understand that though I am willing to help, I will not be treated as a convenient friend.
Do they (be honest, extroverts!) consider us as convenient?

They are more convenient to us than we are to them.

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

@Orobas:

On the contrary, I appreciate your highly accurate reading of the situation. You've help clear the confusion of emotions this situation has brought by spelling out the POV of both sides. Thank you.

@All:
So far, most of my introverted friends have been content to just ask me out for lunch and we simply enjoy each other's company. We might go dutch or I might be treated but if I am, it hardly feels that payback time will come later.

With the extroverts in my life, on the other hand, I have noticed this mixing of business and pleasure. After lunch comes the inevitable, "would you mind having a look at this? It falls within your area of expertise". Never mind that I might be in a hurry or had other plans. Aw come on, just ten minutes, it won't take you that long and there I am and it takes more than ten minutes and I am late for my next appointment. So I get wary now. The lunches seem more like bargaining chips. It's a pattern I have noticed.

Perhaps it is I who ought to put emotions aside and learn to be a hard-nosed negotiator when it comes to business with friends.

And I need to work on establishing clear boundaries...

In my work, it is much easier to handle total strangers and getting paid by them. The transaction is clear. There is nothing nebulous about the terms here - to borrow a word from Orobas.

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

They are more convenient to us than we are to them.

Would you care to explain exactly HOW?

 

[William K]

Would you care to explain exactly HOW?

It costs introverts less to have extroverts do what they are good at, i.e interfacing with other people. In return, we get left alone to do what we want to do in the background.

 

[sculpting]

With the extroverts in my life, on the other hand, I have noticed this mixing of business and pleasure. After lunch comes the inevitable, "would you mind having a look at this? It falls within your area of expertise". Never mind that I might be in a hurry or had other plans. Aw come on, just ten minutes, it won't take you that long and there I am and it takes more than ten minutes and I am late for my next appointment. So I get wary now. The lunches seem more like bargaining chips. It's a pattern I have noticed.

Perhaps it is I who ought to put emotions aside and learn to be a hard-nosed negotiator when it comes to business with friends.

And I need to work on establishing clear boundaries...

In my work, it is much easier to handle total strangers and getting paid by them. The transaction is clear. There is nothing nebulous about the terms here - to borrow a word from Orobas.

I think you are spot on. The lunches may be useful for networking-but take turns paying so there is no confusion. Or pay yourself so there is no question of unspecified obligations. If you want to spend time with them, perhapos skip lunch and only do happy hour or dinners.

If they request you to look at something, explain you work by the hour. Tell them you would rather spend a substantial amount of quality time on a project rather than a short glance here and there. You feel obligated to be certain your work is high quality and that cannot be done in ten minutes.

Use a legal excuse-"i cant work on projects in short stints as I cannot track for tax purposes." "I cant look over these documents as then I would be held legally responsible." "My accountant/lawyer/husband/manager has requested that I refrain from doing so"

Te comes in very handy when doing business with friends-or even worse-family.

To be honest-your friends would piss me off a bit-it sounds like they really are using you some. If they are very close friends-I would be honest and say you feel as though you are being used. If this is uncomfortable tell them a story about how another friend has really been bothering you by endlessly requesting that you work on projects without pay and you feel it has damaged the friendship. (The magic of Ne paranoia should suffice from there.)

Dont let them push you around or give you a sob story. Good luck!

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

@ Orobas

thanks for all the tips.

Those clever people typically say: don't bring anything for lunch - just bring yourself. I read it as polite turn of phrase and ignore it. In my book, point of honor - I never just bring my empty tummy!

Sob stories? A lot. I am my IRL extroverts dumping ground and free therapist. Perhaps I should learn to have my eyes glaze over when they tell their stories and watch for their reaction?

I'll read up more on Te and Ne and cognitive processes in general. Ne paranoia? Can that stop their budding/full-blown exploitative ways dead in its tracks?

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

It costs introverts less to have extroverts do what they are good at, i.e interfacing with other people. In return, we get left alone to do what we want to do in the background.

You must be joking.

 

[CzeCze]

I think this may be a general freelancing issue. You really have to defend your time and teach people to value your resources and expertise.

I have known all sorts of people who are volunteer leads or freelancers etc. and they can be downright brusque and even rude and openly shrewd about their time. It's something I've come to take for granted that they do. I do it, too, albeit in a much more diplomatic way (at least IMHO).

And we live in America (well...actually do you live in America?) where people understand "time=money". So it wouldn't impact you negatively in your profession to adopt the same attitudes.

My earliest experiences with this straight out of college:

I remember a woman who was selling cosmetics as a home business (who tried to recruit me and did convince me to have a product 'party' with my friends that she sold products to) invited me to another event (that cost money to attend) and I replied to her email and asked her if she had time in her week for a brief Q&A about her previous career which I was interested in. She responded that she would be happy to answer all my questions in the car to the event as she drove us there. Another volunteer coordinator for this group I was volunteering for said I should check in with her 15 minutes before our next class so she could fill me in on what I had missed at a previous class. I think I was going to miss that class too (I eventually quit volunteering due to scheduling issues) so I asked if there were another time to meet. She replied "that 15 minutes before class is the only 15 minutes I have free to go over this".

See how they do it? Clever.

It's complete bullsh*t of course. These people do have an extra 15-20 minutes to spare if they want to.

But, the point they are making is if they want to They are deciding how to spend their time and if you want some of it you either have to pay or you have to fall in line with their schedules.

Basically ,they put the control back in their hands.

I'm pretty sure as a 'J' you could do this, too.

Your language doesn't have to be harsh or your goal (of making $$$) totally bald, because your method could put people off. I never talked to the first woman again, the cosmetics lady, she was an impressive person just way too type A for me and I always felt like a potential mark around her. I found the second woman's method of communicating really off putting, but I understood why she said it. I was really young at that time and in retrospect, it's clear that I was not going to continue with that organization and accommodate me would have been a waste of time. I would have preferred if she had just said "It seems like you are having trouble making these classes and we need people here consistently for this to work, I think you should really re-evaluate if this is something you can commit to." <-- Pretty standard language in the volunteer world. When I think of that short email and "that 15 minutes before that class on Tuesday is the only 15 minutes I have to go over this with you" it honestly still pisses me off and I don't want to work with her again even after all these years.

The message itself - that you control your time 100% and people can't push you around - is fine.

 

[Quiet]

I think part of what's happening here is likely Immaculate Cloud needs to be understood more than needing to hear if he/she is in the right or wrong. That's most important to an INFJ. Also, we find it difficult and frustrated being put in a position where we feel the need to doorslam.

However difficult, it helps to keep in mind that if others need us for things (and trust me, I know how it goes) and if the don't choose to follow through with our help, it can give us a feeling of personal failure. So, it helps to try and separate that person/people as just being more likely less able to get by without the brilliance of the INFJ mind, and too bad if they don't get things done due to not being open to your help.

Extroverts seem to need to "share" their thoughts, feelings and ideas with others anyway. I can see how this situation is annoying for you.

 

[sculpting]

@ Orobas

thanks for all the tips.

Those clever people typically say: don't bring anything for lunch - just bring yourself. I read it as polite turn of phrase and ignore it. In my book, point of honor - I never just bring my empty tummy!

Sob stories? A lot. I am my IRL extroverts dumping ground and free therapist. Perhaps I should learn to have my eyes glaze over when they tell their stories and watch for their reaction?

I'll read up more on Te and Ne and cognitive processes in general. Ne paranoia? Can that stop their budding/full-blown exploitative ways dead in its tracks?

So one thing to be careful of-I am not certain a simple extrovert/introvert is the best way to split this.

I would suggest more an Fi/Fe split. So when i speak, I can do so for enfps-but not enfjs at all-they work by whole different mechanisms.

If the enfp is telling you all about the latest drama-they are seeking external affirmation/calibration that their Fi judgments on the matter were actually okay. (My entp best friend wants to kill me when I do this.) Since we cant go by Fe social standrads, we seek validation of our Fi from other individuals. Two enfps will have a convo in which it sounds like two people just exchanging "I" statements.

"I was totally hurt by blah blah blah..."
"Well, I once had, blah, blah, blah happen..."
"Really, well I then had to do blah blah blah.."

For an Fe user, this sounds horribly selfish and egocentric. It looks like the convo is all about the individuals. In reality as the two share their own stories reflecting unhappiness-they are bouncing Fi judgments back and forth and learning about what responses may or may not be appropriate in a given situation. This seems identical to two entps bouncing ideas off of each other to find weaknesses in their Ti schemes.

(Hmmm, I wonder if the INTJs see ENTPs doing this and feel it is "idea dumping" like an INFJ sees an enfp and assumes emo dumping. I dunno...)

So the sob stories-not really meant to be manipulative, but yeah, they will annoy the crap out of you. I try hard to work on not emo sharing, but it is really hard. You can just say-"I find I carry emotional stress with me and it tires me, I want to be a sounding board but today can we talk about more lighthearted subjects."

Now if they couple the sob stories with request for work-that is manipulative and I would put your foot down.

Ne paranoia? So enfps typically think everyone is mad at us or doesnt like us, especially when younger. We will read into generic statements and assume that you are actually talking about us. Thus if your "friends" dont quite pick up on subtle hints but you are not comfy being direct-you can tell a generic story and if they are an enfp, they will immediately self apply the moral. Dont overuse though as Ne makes us totally neurotic about stuff like this.

 

[Unkindloving]

You must be joking.

On to something, actually. It likely depends on the circumstances and the more susceptible of the two. I've been one of those people who persuades introverts into doing certain things, but i've also been a runner for introverts.
It's a bit of a power play, but tends to not have ill-intentions. It sounds like your extravert wasn't having ill-intentions, yet was doing a bit of that.

I agree with just saying you'd love to, but are busy or something resembling that.

 

[Immaculate Cloud]

So one thing to be careful of-I am not certain a simple extrovert/introvert is the best way to split this.

Now if they couple the sob stories with request for work-that is manipulative and I would put your foot down.

Ne paranoia? So enfps typically think everyone is mad at us or doesnt like us, especially when younger. We will read into generic statements and assume that you are actually talking about us. Thus if your "friends" dont quite pick up on subtle hints but you are not comfy being direct-you can tell a generic story and if they are an enfp, they will immediately self apply the moral. Dont overuse though as Ne makes us totally neurotic about stuff like this.

Thanks - I need to find out if the story before the request for work is in fact a mere venting of frustration over job-related issues or a way to push my buttons (Immaculate Cloud to the rescue!). Hard to separate sometimes especially when the person doing the venting is a close friend and one is wired to want to help a friend...

The Ne paranoia. I think I might just have encountered it once without knowing it for what it was. I had made a comment on some local public figure being superficial, giving vacuous interviews, having situational morals or hardly any moral worthy of the name, and got a drawn-out defense of that person, who is a mere acquaintance/network of hers!