I’m in the same low-conscientiousness, high openness boat (testing as an INTP under Myers-Briggs).

I am skeptical (naturally) about the cross-cultural applicability of Big 5, or at least their framing. If some traits are so universally awful, why would they survive in the gene pool?

I think we have a society built on certain abilities and tasks, like writing and dealing with abstract rules and data, for which high conscientiousness is made. And this means conscientious people have an easy time fitting in and finding something useful to do. Those who don’t have to find more unusual niches — often carving them out for ourselves, as you’ve done: no one offered the mobile writing life to you as an option out of highschool (I’m guessing!).

You asked how low “C” has mattered in life. I think for me it has manifested as a total inability to jump through hoops for their own sake. I have to be interested in something to work on it. When I am, I can be very detail-oriented and even be a bit of a perfectionist. But without internal motivation , I can’t sweat the small stuff — literally cannot: I can triple check my own work, and still miss an error because, I guess, my brain just does not care to attend to it. Obviously, this is not what most bosses want! The trick is always to find a way to be interested in things (high openness). In school, that was easy enough; in the workplace, often less so.

But low “C” and high “O” also mean creativity, and probably other strengths. Capitalizing on those seems better than trying to endless mold one’s self to a high “C” activity — you can only stretch yourself so much, I think.