Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The zoo at 2.

Okay, so say your family is coming to town from out-of-state for a week, and you get an email from one of them.  It has an attachment to an excel spreadsheet.  Laid out on that is a blow-by-blow plan of their (and in large part, your) proposed schedule for the week.  Every activity is budgeted in, to make sure they don't miss a thing while in your lovely part of California, or wherever.  Beach? Yes, twice, both Friday and Saturday at 11:00.  Visit the mission? Yes, Wednesday at 3.  And don't worry, you'll get to the zoo, on their last day here, at 2.  
Do you...

A) get excited!  They are obviously looking forward to the visit and 
want to pack a lot of fun stuff in, as do you.  You're glad they are prepared and know what they want to do, and the schedule will just make it easier to make sure nothing is missed and for everyone to know what to do when.  You might have even done the same thing if you were visiting them!

B) think... "really?"  It all has to be planned out? Aw.  I kinda like going with the flow, since you never know what will come up.  Does anyone else feel slightly stifled?  What if I'm not in the mood for the zoo at 2 that day?  What if I just really want to kick back at Brophy's for some shrimp cocktail?  

The split was immediate and kinda funny today in small group.  You can probably guess who got stoked on her family's excel sheet plan, like the strong J that she is.  Anna and I were totally option B, which made sense as we are the   P preferring ladies of the bunch.  Not like we can't stand schedules ever or anything, or all J's love Excel to structure their leisure, but you can often predict someone's reaction to certain things by knowing their preference.  



3 comments:

emilykatz said...

I LOVE THE SPREADSHEET!!!

Megan said...

hahahahahha!!!

I love that things I think are totally normal and awesome are NOT for some people. When everyone is together next week for the vacation, I'll let you know what everyone thought:) I think most of the Stichter's are J's though. That's how we ROLL! :)

*corinne said...

in my immediate family we are all Ps, with the exception of possibly my sister who might be a weak J. the difference in how we do things compared with J families is remarkable. i've been close to other families where there are people strong on each preference within it, and there is a lot more conflict regarding time and organization for them.