It depends on the maturity level of the ESFJ, as it does for EVERY type (and every type has flaws and strengths). I'll be honest, a portion of the bitching comes across as inexperience bitching about inexperience, and it doesn't help when typically the INTP/ESFJ relationship in question is usually a child/parent relationship because then you have a type who thrives on imposing structure using their authority to limit a type that values freedom and exploration and challenging rules outside of tradition.
My house agent (I just bought a house over the last two months) is an ESFJ, I think. This was great for me, because she was good at the stuff I needed her to be good at because I was bad at it. She was very outgoing, she was very proactive, she was always reaching out to contact people who needed to be contacted. She never complained about driving to see house after house even though I was on the other side of the city. She would check in with me and make sure things were good. She stayed on top of all the practical concerns. She had accumulated a lot of hands-on knowledge not just of houses in general, but residential areas around here. She also fought for me, when I was tired and/or didn't know the rules as well; in fact, her black and white way of "right and wrong" in how the house purchase should go led her to ask for more for me than I wanted to ask from my quiet, laid-back, "fair" viewpoint, and I ended up getting some things I would have never asked for when we were negotiating with sellers. She also was concerned about my feeling good about things, which was important because I tend to shirk that part by nature -- I basically had someone looking out for me.
Where her maturity came in (versus an immature ESFJ):
- Like I said, she knew a bunch of shit about houses -- what's good, what's bad, the problem areas. ESFJs aren't dumb, but they usually need a learning curve period and hands-on experience to accumulate knowledge. My agent was pretty smart about houses.
- She wasn't overbearing -- she could channel her energy and release it in ways that did not bowl me over or cause problems.
- She didn't take differences of opinion or my quietness at times personally. It wasn't about her. She recognized it was just me and nothing personal.
- Sometimes she had strong advice, but she never judged me for doing something different.
We had a conversation after closing. I had given the prior owner an extra day in the house (for cash) to finish moving, and the bastard left a freezer in the basement that I had told him before I didn't want and that he never put in the contract. Basically, instead of telling me he didn't want it, he just said nothing and pretended to go along (passive aggressive), then refused to contact me about it despite both agents advising this and thinking he was being a shit. He had left a $1000 check with me in case the house was damaged after closing, and my agent told me to cash it and pay for removal, then send him the remainder. The thing is that was a lot of money for me to randomly deposit and then write him a personal check back for a chunk of money... I didn't want to dick either of us over. He also was being a pissant about it, he contacted me in mid-week, didn't even mention the freezer, and got all in MY face, demanding his check back and that I was being an asshat by suggesting I would take the cost of freezer removal out of his check. Like, apparently it was all my fault the problem existed + we hadn't talked, when he was being asked to contact me.
Getting back to my agent: She said if it were her, she'd just deposit the money, then send him a check for the remainder after the freezer was removed by someone. (That was her gut, moral, black and white instinct.) But she could also acknowledge on her own some of the other issues involved, and what a hassle it was, and maybe he had already stopped payment, and he'd probably throw a fit about it and it could create legal complications since technically it was after closing and so I owned the house and the property might be legally mine, etc., and I didn't want to send the guy large sums of money, etc.
We were talking by phone, and after discussing some of the complications, I said, "In the big scheme of things, I keep reminding myself it's a freezer, maybe $100 to get rid of, and it's not worth a lot of drama and conflict when there are bigger things to deal with." She said she admired that and didn't know how I could approach it that way, because she's not that way.
Basically, long story short, she seemed to be a pretty balanced ESFJ even if still ESFJ. I'm glad she was my agent.
I also have a personal friend who teaches elementary school kids who is ESFJ. She can be a little frustrating at times because she does usually have an opinion and can sometimes take a strong stance out of the box. She also can have an emotional reaction to things without thinking them through. At the same time, she's respectful of my thoughts, listens carefully to what I have to say, and we usually learn from each other -- once I explain some other perspectives, she's very honest ("Oh, I hadn't looked at it that way before, that makes sense."). And again, she's good at stuff I'm not and vice versa. She's more proactive than me, and looks out for my feelings when I've tended to set them aside too much.
(As far as age range, these two are both in their 40's.)
