Some personality differences are easy to spot, like how we communicate, what motivates us, and how we work with others. But some show up in smaller, stranger places. Like when you’re just trying to figure out whether the garbage goes out tomorrow. It’s a low-stakes question, but the path to the answer can tell you a lot more about someone than what’s on the surface.
In one way or another, we’ve all seen it; two people trying to solve the same simple problem in completely different ways, and each is convinced their solution is perfectly reasonable, while the other is out to lunch.
I recently found myself in the middle of a… disagreement between two friends, Martha and George (names changed to protect privacy and dignity… mostly George’s). They’ve been married for a while, and live in a town where garbage is collected every two weeks; I know, exciting stuff! Same day of the week, same time, alternating recycling and yard waste. To make it easy (for some people, anyway), the town has a handy app that sends reminders and tells you what’s being picked up and when.
One evening, Martha asked a seemingly innocent question: “Is tomorrow garbage day?”
Martha is an Inquiring Green, so she naturally expected a quick, evidence-based answer; maybe a glance at the calendar the town sent out, or a two-second check of the app. Instead, George, an Authentic Blue, got up, went out to the garage, and opened the bin.
His reasoning? If the bin was empty (or close to it), then it must have gone out in the last week, so tomorrow probably isn’t garbage day. For added certainty, he walked to the street to see if any neighbours had put their bins out yet. If a few were out, maybe tomorrow is garbage day. If not, then probably not.
This train of thought was completely baffling to Martha. The app exists, it’s reliable, it tells you definitively what day it is. But George doesn’t even have the app! Not because he doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t know how to use it; he just doesn’t feel the need. To Martha, this way of figuring things out felt like trying to read tea leaves when the answer was printed right there on a label.
As the neutral, third party that got dragged into this, I couldn’t help but think that neither of them was technically wrong! But that’s what makes situations like this so relatable. Two perfectly capable people, with two completely different ways of doing things, both just trying to get the trash out on the right day.
That is Personality in Action! It’s the small moments like this, literally just a question about garbage, but it tells us everything about how people prefer to gather and evaluate information. If you look below the surface, here’s what was going on:
- Authentic Blues value real-world observation, shared experiences, and emotional reassurance. For George, looking in the bin and scanning the neighbourhood wasn’t just about finding an answer; it was about feeling confident in the answer, in a hands-on, grounded way.
- Inquiring Greens, on the other hand, value logic, efficiency, and verified sources. If there’s an efficient tool that gets to the answer, why not just use it? The app is reliable, consistent, and doesn’t require guesswork.
The real friction didn’t come from the fact that George walked out to the garage, it came from how obvious the app solution seemed to Martha, and how unnecessary the app seemed to him. Each one genuinely couldn’t understand how the other thought their approach made sense.
That’s the core of a lot of personality-based frustration: not just that we do things differently, but that we struggle to believe someone else really prefers to do it their way.
When it comes to the bigger picture, whether it’s garbage day, where to eat, or how to fix a leaky faucet, our personality preferences shape not just what we decide, but how we decide. Do we: look it up? Ask someone? Test a theory? Or go with our gut?
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. And while your method may feel like the obvious one, it probably isn’t to the person next to you, even (or especially) if you’re married to them.
The next time you find yourself wondering if it’s garbage day, and your partner walks out to the garage instead of checking their phone, maybe resist the urge to roll your eyes. You might be watching a very Authentic Blue form of logic in action.
Brad Whitehorn – BA, CCDP is a lifelong Introvert, and the Associate Director at CLSR Inc. He was thrown into the career development field headfirst after completing a Communications degree in 2005, and hasn’t looked back! Since then, Brad has worked on the development, implementation and certification for various career and personality assessments (including Personality Dimensions®), making sure that Career Development Practitioners and HR Professionals get the right tools to do their best work. Brad is also on the board of directors for the Career Professionals of Canada, and an advisory committee member with the Career Development Professionals of Ontario.
