As I was waiting for my email to download today, the usually annoying Netscape ads in the email window caught my attention. There was a link to something about “finding the career that fits your personality type.”

On a whim, I followed the link. Okay, it wasn’t really a whim. I am addicted to quizzes and tests like that: personality tests, IQ tests, relationship quizzes, find your career quizzes, etc.etc. The types of quizzes you find in Cosmopolitan - not that I actually read Cosmopolitan, but if I’m in a waiting room somewhere and I see a copy, I will pick it up and immediately turn to the “quiz” section.

Don’t ask me why I do this. The questions are generally ridiculously transparent, and I put absolutely no store in the results. I know what type of romantic relationship I have, I know what kinds of friendships I have, I know what type of person I am. Usually I’m just bored, and I’m curious to see how closely the results I get relate to my real life. It’s a way to pass the time in a relatively interactive fashion.

So I followed the link to the Netscape find-your-career page. At the start you could either choose your Myers-Briggs personality type if you knew it, or you could take the little quiz to find out what type you are. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test is a rather interesting, quite thorough personality test that I took in college. So I knew my type already, but I took the Netscape quiz anyway because…well, it’s what I do.

I got the result I was expecting: INFP. INFP means introversion, intuition, feeling and perception. According to the Myers-Briggs test, I, my mother and another 1 percent of the population are INFP’s. The reserved people. The reflective people. The people who sit in corners at parties quietly talking to one other person all night long. The type of people who are often mistaken for snobs, but who are really just shy.

The type of people, according to the Netscape personality and career quiz, who are suited to be librarians, or museum curators, or writers, or artists, or psychologists. It’s so clichéd as to be ridiculous. And what’s even more ridiculous is that, at one point or another, I have seriously thought about each of those careers.

Obviously no test in the world can tell you who you are, and even the Myers-Briggs test won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. But I found the test interesting precisely because it told me something I knew already. When I took the actual test and read the description of my apparent personality type, I couldn’t believe how accurate it was. It was almost scary to see myself described so thoroughly.

Okay, people say the same thing about magazine horoscopes, which I really don’t believe. And some people have their problems with the Myers-Briggs test as well. But I think the test is kind of cool. Maybe it’s because I’m self-absorbed and introverted like that.

And maybe because it’s a comfort to really believe that only 1 percent of the population has a personality like mine. It would explain why I always feel like either I am an alien on this planet, or everyone else is an alien and I am the only normal person around.

But what this is all leading to is this. After I took the little Netscape quiz today, my personality result popped up with following message:

“Your answers to the questionnaire indicate that you have the Myers-Briggs Personality Type highlighted below. If you’re satisfied with this calculation, click NEXT to continue. You can always change your answers or pick a different personality if you’re not happy with the one that was calculated for you.”

I cracked up. First of all, the test was to determine what personality you have to find the career that fits the personality you have - not the personality you would like to have. Picking a random personality type kind of defeats the purpose of the test.

But it was the wording of the last sentence of the message that really did me in: Pick a different personality if you’re not happy with the one that was calculated for you. Change your answers and everything will turn out differently. If you’re not happy, do it all over again and The Great Calculator will present you with a whole new personality. The Great Calculator is all-powerful. With the click of the mouse, you will be recalculated. You will be a whole new You!

Ah, if only it were so easy.

Further reading…