What do you do better than anyone else? What is your best feature? What crazy talents are you oddly proud of? Don’t be afraid of sounding like a jerk. Toot your own horn! You know you want to… This is for the benefit of no one but YOU. Negative comments about the egomania of others will be frowned upon by me, and as you can see below it would be your total loss if you get on my bad side.
Me, I think I’m one of the prettiest people that I know. I have beautiful eyes, shiny hair, and rosy cheeks. My features combine in remarkable ways to produce a specimen of undeniable cuteness.
I’m also terribly smart. I can’t imagine what it would be like to not immediately be able to grasp the how and why of things I learn in school. I have a great mind for trivia, too. You may call that useless, but look at Ken Jennings.
I can SING. People have paid to see me sing. I can belt out Pearl Jam like nobody’s business. I listen to music sometimes just to hear myself.
I am also a talented ac-tor. I’ve been told I have “great comedic timing” and I’ve won an award. My director (who does not compliment often) has gone out of his way to tell me I’ve done well.
Basically, you should feel bad that you don’t know me.
I have gotten used to it but I often hear second-hand that various people from work, friends, acquaintances, etc. sit around and talk about how brilliant I am. I am also a savant when it comes to my job (designing software solutions to address business issues). A very common problem in business is that the business people can’t think logically about how to solve something and the IT dorks act like the programming languages and systems are a means to an end themselves.
I am that very rare person that can out think a typical business person in their role and then turn around and start telling a programmer exactly what I want them to do in expert language in with more in-depth systems knowledge than they can ever dream to know. Management calls on me when they have serious needs to have something done right. That something could be teaching a class, programming that has proved elusive to others, talking with business people, and writing articles to serve as how-to’s all over the company. This wouldn’t all all that unusual in a Mom-and-Pop company but mine has 60,000 employees. Despite that, I am the only person that knows how to do some really high-exposure and high-dollar processes (did I mention that I do financial analysis too). I still wouldn’t consider all this to be mind-blowing but I have only been at the company a year and had never worked in the general industry before.
I’m genuinely interested in hearing other people’s opinions, even if they are different to my own. And I’m interested in hearing not only what they think, but why they think it. I got complimented on this at work the other day and I never realised it was something I did better than many people.
I can drink more in one evening than pretty much anybody I know (even guys) and still walk out of the party. Or bar. Since I’m 5’9" and weigh about 117 and eat less than 1200 calories a day, I’d say I’m really good at the drinking. Oh yeah, and I don’t puke afterward either.
I can pick up things with my toes, whip them up behind me and into either of my hands. I favor left-foot-to-right-hand. I assure you, it’s very 007.
I can also pick up coins off the floor with my toes, flip them up in front of me and right into my shirt pocket! (Okay; my percentage isn’t very good, but it’s probably better than most people).
I can also worry about ANYTHING. Grass is green? I’m worried about it. Sun came out today? I’m worried about it. Cute puppies? Don’t even get me started …
I’m an electrical engineer (EE) I must admit I’m pretty egotistical about my knowledge of all things EE, even to the point that I have problems working with other EEs due to ego clash. Fortunately, there aren’t very many EEs where I work (most are aerospace, materials, and mechanical engineers), so it hasn’t been a big issue at work.
I sincerely believe that I am the best operator on my airplane. I have no evidence to provide, and I admittedly don’t know everything there is to know, but willingness to ask when you don’t know and knowing where to look is a hallmark of a good operator.
I think that others recognize my skill as well. I hadn’t flown for nearly a year while I was augmenting the Security Forces (by the way, I had the highest test scores for that job, counting the actual cops) and they still sent me to the desert because they knew I would be just fine. Now THAT is saying something.
I can set digital clocks in a few seconds; car stereos, digital wristwatches, VCRs, whatever. I’m much sought after when daylight savings time changes.
I do good work, I either do the job right or don’t do it.
I’m a very trusted person and am always careful to maintain that trust, so I can strike when they least suspect it. Ok, strike the last part.
I’m a good listener and have a lot of empathy, to a point.
I cook so good, that my MiLs coworkers beg me through her to make them food. I can make a chicken fried steak that’ll make you wanna slap your momma. At 25, I’m the youngest adult in the wider scope of my husband’s family (that is, none of his siblings or their spouses are younger than I am) but I am always called upon to cook the holiday meals (20+ people, expenses always fully covered including the cook’s top shelf liquor). My jambalaya is renowned in my social circle and my au jus legendary. In short, I kick ass in the kitchen and I look good doing it.
When I go home to visit Mom though, the Master once again becomes the Apprentice.
I just bought an apartment with my fiance and I got to pick out everything. The colour of the floors, the paint, the furniture, everything. If I do say so myself the place looks stunning. To begin with I picked out a great looking apartment. Not only is it on the top floor of the building, but it has awesome features like a security carpark (valued at 30-35k in this area), slanted ceilings, a separate laundry, a balcony, and a clothesline on the balcony. A clothesline!
Colour-scheme wise I went with very dark brown distressed floorboards. My fiance was apprehensive but it really turned out well. The floor is very striking so I chose light paint colours - ecru, white, light turquoise, and a pale lime green for the hallway. We bought the shelves and tables at Ikea but everything else I sourced from markets or eBay. And it’s come together really well. People rave about the apartment; it inspires them to save for their own places. We get people dropping around all the time.
A friend lives in a 1.7M apartment that was furnished by an interior decorator and our place looks better.
I’m a great synthesizer – not in the Walter/Wendy Carlos sense – but in my ability to listen to a lot of people talking in a meeting and pull all the threads together into something coherent.
I’m also a master at color memory. I’m in a store. Do those towels match the yellow tiles in the bathroom? Nope. Wow! I love that scarf! Will it go with that periwinkle sweater? Oh, yeah!
I’m a good speller, and incredibly well-read - learned to read at age 3. Because of spending my teen years holed up in the library or reading in my room instead of going out drinking or sneaking out to have sex with the local boys (yeah, like anyone would have wanted me), I have an extensive knowledge of trivia, and can kick anyone’s butt at Trivial Pursuit.
Also, I’m nice, most of the time. (Or at least I like to think so.)
Like the OP, I’m a very good singer. I learn melodies and harmonies quickly, and I have excellent pitch and tone. It’s just what I do. My voice has even gotten me laid.
I am a kick-ass editor. There, I said it – and, by doing so, have no doubt invoked Gaudere’s law. I have a definite knack for grammar and spelling, and I’m good at spotting (and fixing) awkward/unclear/misleading sentences or paragraphs.
I’m a good listener, partly because I’m genuinely interested in other people. I’m also really good at remembering random facts about people long after said people have forgotten that they told them to me. I don’t do it on purpose or for any effect, I just pay attention when people talk.
I don’t think I’ve ever met an issue – personal, political, etc. – that I wasn’t able to see both sides of. Sometimes I wish that I could live in a simpler, more black-and-white world, but on the whole I think it’s an asset.
I am really, really good at arranging furniture and organizing rooms. If there’s something I want to accomplish (e.g., “If I could just have some CD storage in here…”), I can almost always figure out a way to do it without making the room look cluttered or otherwise bad. This talent comes in handy each time I move and need to figure out how to fit existing furniture and accessories into a new space. I can do it with other people’s space/furniture, too, but only if they ask me to.
I’ve got a great memory - I can remember the most ridiculous facts and have earned myself various nicknames, including but not limited to Useless Pit of Knowledge. I declare often that it is not useless, nor am I useless - didn’t I just answer your question?
I’m very good at spelling; that’s been an egotism since fifth grade. I was in a mixed class of fifth and sixth graders and after our weekly spelling test, the teacher asked who we thought the best speller was in the class. Paul or Simon was my bet - older kids who were very intelligent, and these bets were backed by the rest of the class (Paul and Simon said each other). Then she said it was me. I was happy. I think it’s linked to the memory thing as well - I’m a reader.
I have nice hands; I’m olive skinned with long piano fingers and soft skin. I also think I have nice legs and was tickled pink when the boyfriend said “I don’t want to sound lecherous, but you have really nice thighs.”
I also really like my hair - when I towel dry it and leave it, it settles into a classic 1920s bob with perfect waves. I would have had it made if I was born in time for that fashion era!
Well, according to my wife, I’m a great husband. I’m proud of that, as I married late and had no previous experience in husbanding.
I’m also a good speller. My mother taught me to read when I was a toddler. I always got A in spelling, all the years of elementary school.
I carry a storehouse of mainly useless (to the rest of the world) information about the history of popular music around in my head. I learned to play six instruments because of records. I went to work in record stores because it brought me closer to the history of music. I got into radio to be even closer to it, but radio isn’t much about that anymore.
I can mix and edit sound like nobody’s business. I have a reputation as a professional in this area, and in audio restoration. Sometimes strangers write to me and ask about my work that they have or have read about on the web. I know I’ve made it because some of my work has been bootlegged. Google tells me it’s still being distributed years after I did it.
I’m a great accompanist. I think few if any people I know can follow a singer and help them make music like I can. And, in auditions, no one I know can support an auditioner like I. I leave people walking away from auditions feeling like the song was written just for them.
