[ISTJ] istj and work

[Donna Cecilia]

Oopsie, Im sorry if what I asked offended you, it's just that I read so much about ISTJs and it usually emphasis a work as something that is important to them, I suppose I misinterpreted an idea of "have to do it" for "want to do it"

But, let me ask this now, do you (or ISTJs) have a difficult time separating work from play? By this, I mean, if you are having "fun" at work, do you feel like you're not working hard enough? Does "work" have to be something unenjoyable?

I do understand that you can "like" what you do, but do you find that you will never look forward to going to work?

I´m not offended at all. You´re just trying to understand an aspect of us, so let´s move on.

I´ve been in unpleasant jobs (call center agent was one of them) at the beginning of my career just because I had to have something written in the "work experience" field of my cv (which is necessary to get better jobs later on), not because I wanted to work there.

Now, I´m in a job which I enjoy, because I work for my Country, in an area of my own expertise. But, I don´t have fun in it. If I want to have fun, I take my friends to an after-office meeting. I don´t go to my workplace looking for fun.

Work always comes before play. I work hard and, after the job is done, I play harder.

 

[Cimarron]

Now that I have a full-time job, I'm starting to see how it affects me.

In conversation with friends and family, I do notice that I talk a lot about work and what happens at work, but that's partly because I don't have much of a social life outside of work anyway. It's also because I got lucky enough to get a job doing what I like doing, although it gets kind of repetitive or hectic at times.

As IZthe411 said, I look forward to the weekends now, because work takes up most of my day, so weekends and holidays are the only real time I have for extended relaxation. I can kind of have "fun" at work--nice, fun people there, as well as tasks I often like to do--but it's still fast-paced, lots of activity, not letting me just do what I want. That's what the weekends have come to be for me, a time to slow down.

At work, there are slow periods and fast periods; business varies. Most of the time, I'm fine with light-hearted talk, joking around, casual conversation. We all do that a lot at work. But sometimes the fast-paced periods come by, and it's time to really focus. At times like those, I tend to take everything seriously. My sense of humor hibernates, my sarcasm detector runs out of batteries. It just happens. My mind knows it's time to be serious and task-oriented. Focus!