T's, F's and drawing lines

[mippus]

I just read something interesting on the difference between T and F.

It says T's feel a need to seperate different aspects of their life, like work and family. As a result, a typical idea would be that whatever happens in your family life should not affect your professional life.

F's would feel less need to seperate these and thus can be more easily be affected at work by what happens in their private life.

To me, it seems to make sense. I even find it a bit uncomfortable when friends meet colleagues. Any thoughts?

 

[Athenian200]

I think what you're describing would be especially true for TJs and FPs.

I'm personally somewhere in the middle. I can kind of understand someone being in a worse mood because of what's happened in their personal life, or even wanting to change jobs because their goals have changed.

But on the other hand, it kind of bothered me at one point when an uncle of mine had his wife and kid come to his workplace and help him out with something. I don't really like the idea of someone using their family as free workers. It doesn't seem right to me for someone the company hasn't employed to be doing the work other people are getting paid to do. It also kind of bugged me that a lot of times workers would be called on to do personal favors for their superiors after hours, like driving them home. The excuses always had something to do with "family," and it just didn't sit too well with me.

I think that there should be more of a division than that, if you take my meaning. I don't really see how that would make me a T so much as a J, in my case.

 

[01011010]

I am a pro at compartmentalization. I see everything as separate and within it's own category. School, job, most hobbies, friends, family, and love interest rarely if ever intersect. It's almost like each section is one insular life in itself. They aren't combined as a whole. It probably helps that I don't live in the same state as the people closest to me, but I've always employed the same methods even when I did.

 

[Snowey1210]

I'm not so much into compartmentalisation. Most of pursuits and interests seem to be pursued in a holistic type fashion, I'm very much a big picture person. At the moment I'm trying to figure out what I want to study next but it's difficult because I like science but I don't want to limit myself by commiting to just biology, or just psychology. I guess I've just got to apply my "T".

My suspicion is that drawing lines is more of a P/J issue, rather than an F/T but no doubt there is some sort of correlation.

 

[nightning]

Agree with athenian on the TJ/FP divide.

 

[INA]

Agreed. I compartmentalize a good deal if I can.

 

[Simplexity]

I think compartmentalization is a tricky thing for me. I would say I compartmentalize more in response to other people, maybe even in accordance. I am more much more fluid and amorphous when it comes to thought. I need something to force me to compartmentalize and people do an excellent job of that. I think the reason I have sort of a hang up with it is because when I'm thinking of things that interest me I try not to have discrete areas and conclusive things like I know some TJs are prone to, especially INTJs.

 

[Kasper]

Yup, I do this quite a bit.

 

[Orangey]

Eh, this needs to be qualified a bit. I don't like to mix family with work or school because it reveals too much about me personally for me to experience it comfortably in a work or school setting. I do, however, mix school and work (they're both basically the same thing for me) with my family life, and with other aspects of my personal life, in the sense that I do school/work related things and talk about them in family and other personal settings.

I don't like to mix people from any of them with each other, though, so if that's what's meant by the OP, then yeah, I do very much compartmentalize.

 

[Gamine]

I have to disagree with the generalization made. I have to compartmentalize. I separate situations and environments (home, work, school), people and relationships (friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, mentors) and even this sentence in a sad attempt at parallelism in listing my life. I thrive on a constant intake of information, create new ideas and give all my heart to the people in my life, but I rarely allow these things to cross.

Maybe its all about my own need to control situations and perceptions in different areas? Maybe it all about crazy? Too many sources of stimulation, if I didn't separate them my mind would require me to isolate myself more than I do to organize it all.

 

[cloakofsnow]

I understand the necessity to draw lines, but my lines are often very flexible. I know sometimes it makes people uncomfortable (as, for instance, in a case where I might introduce coworkers to friends and mix the two groups a little at a gathering).

The problem is that clear lines sometimes make me feel uncomfortable in that it makes me feel suffocated and boxed in. I may know a person from work, but I still can't help seeing that person as a person first before I see her/him as her/his job title. This actually causes me a lot of private grief.

I find that the way society has become in our times is a bit too compartmentalized for my liking. Too much compartmentalizing just feels cold to me.

I don't know whether or not this is a J/P thing because I haven't yet figured out which one I am.

 

[garbage]

When it's practical, I compartmentalize, categorize, and separate aspects of my life. When it's more useful to combine roles to accomplish multiple objectives at once, I don't. My boss is also my thesis advisor, for example. But I do typically compartmentalize most people by how I know them or what activities we do together.