in which I relate workplace pop-psychology crazes to early 80s television shows

Yesterday everyone in my office went to a True Colors workshop. Basically the idea of this is that everyone in the office gets an assessment of their Color, and this helps you to be more understanding of your coworkers and, possibly more helpfully, what types of behaviours are most likely to piss off your boss. I'm dubious of these types of activities because they tend to ask you questions like, "Do you like to do things spontaneously?" and then, if you say yes, your analysis will say, "You like to do things spontaneously!" and it's like, well, thanks, I know because I just told you. Not that insightful.

The outcome of all this is that I am Green, which means that I am intellectual, that I value intelligence and learning above other things, that I like to improve processes and I hate inefficiency, that I see the big picture and I like having lots of information to make decisions. It also means that I am critical and have little patience for incompetence, which is very, very, very true. This whole thing is a pretty apt description of me actually. One of the things our workshop had to say about Greens is that they show others they care by trying to find information for them, which is something I do almost to a fault. I can be the worst person for a heart-to-heart conversation because my instinct will often be to present the other person with as much information as possible in hopes that I can help them to make a decision, when really what they want is to be told they are pretty. In this sense, I am basically a man.

HOWEVER, more importantly, I realized that the four Colors (this word is always capitalized, to differentiate it from "colors," which is a normal word that still means the same thing it has always meant) actually align with almost eerie precision to the personalities of four of the main Fraggles from Fraggle Rock. I don't think this can possibly be a co-incidence. Consider:

Gobo is Green, like me. He's an explorer and an information-seeker. He is brave and independent. Like most greens, he's a natural leader, but he can also be overbearing and domineering, too convinced that he is right and unwilling to listen to others.

Red is Orange. I know that sentence may seem confusing, but bear with me. Red is energetic and dynamic. She is impatient and gets bored easily, and she likes to be active all the time. Red is athletic and very competitive. She tends to jump into things without thinking, and she has trouble admitting her mistakes.

Mokey is Blue, obviously. She's emotional and creative and intuitive. She's a dreamer, and she follows her heart. She also has high emotional intelligence. She's the Fraggle the others go to for advice and sympathy. She is extremely empathetic.

Boober is Gold. He's a worrier, and the irresponsibility of others stresses him out. He dislikes changes and interruptions of his routine. He is very organized and systematic and he makes a very valuable contribution to the Fraggles' lives by doing their laundry. His outlook can be a bit negative but he is very cautious.

The only Fraggle left unaccounted for in this schema is Wembley. Therefore I think there should be a fifth Color added to the True Colors system to accommodate him. I plan to write a letter about this very issue later today.

I think I would have gotten more out of the seminar if the focus had been on Fraggle Rock. I mean, the Fraggle I most admire is Red, but I have now realized that I can't ever be like her, no matter how much I might want to be. As a Green, the best I can hope for is to do some good mapping of unexplored caves, and maybe to learn to play a tiny guitar.

An earlier Fraggle Rock conspiracy: Doozers = Bob the Builder???