The Civil Service cheater
Civil Service, as I typed the words I thought of "customer service" in the sense of civil meaning "polite"! Civil Service doesn't always mean that, of course! Although one entire section on the test was about how to act with the customers and the public. There were also a lot of questions about switchboard phones. I've worked as a temp and used many types of switchboard phones--and some of them operate differently! So hope I picked the right answers. I took three separate tests this morning.
The driving was horrendous, I could barely get out with the jeep, our road (NOT the driveway, I shoveled that twice today already and the plow came through so I must shovel again, ouch) wasn't plowed, the main road wasn't plowed the even more main road leading to the freeway wasn't plowed. The snow was deep and the jeep bottom dragged. No way could my son's car have gotten much past our driveway. But now, much later, he's gone at work. He had trouble getting out and the roads were much better than this morning.
Anyway, I arrived at the county courthouse to take the civil service exam bright and early, parked on a one-hour parking meter. And even though I was at the courthouse over three hours I didn't get a ticket. The first test had many sections, most were not too bad except the Math section.
Here is ONE question from that wicked Math section: one position gets paid $431.45 biweekly, another position receives $5.15 per hour, another position gets $262.34 every week, another position gets $5.25 per hour, and another position gets $10,557.82 per year (the test was written in 1997, I checked!). What percent more is the highest paid position than the lowest paying one?
Lovely, eh? Of course I made up the above numbers, but they are very close to what one question asked. No calculators were allowed, so I and the three applicants to the right of me were busily trying to figure it, and all of the other wonderful math problems on the one sheet of scrap paper. But the applicant in the corner to my left was clicking away on a calculator! At first I tried to just ignore it, but had such a strong negative reaction that it was becoming difficult to concentrate on the test. We all were in a closed-door room with no monitor. I got up, went out and told them. Now I am thinking probably I shouldn't have been a tattletale, but it just wasn't fair!
But if I had it to do over, I would have stood up, said aloud, "Are we allowed to use a calculator?" to make sure the other applicants realized she was cheating. The test people didn't do a thing about it, at least not that I saw, because later I was in the typing test room with the cheater. She had finished the written exam first of any of us, of course.
I took a word processing test after the written exam and passed, not as good as I would have liked. Then I took the typing test. It was weird to try to type as fast as I could but not make mistakes. I've gotten very careless about typing on a computer. Most word processing programs automatically correct common misspellings and spell check catches most of the rest. So I had to slow down and concentrate for the five-minute test. I did OK, 68 wpm with no errors, so I was more pleased with that test than the word processing test.
After all of that testing I was relieved to be done, so I drove across the bridge to visit SLA. The driving was somewhat better but still not too great. I couldn't call SLA because she has no phone now. It was fun to sit and talk for a while, then we went out to eat. Just now as I'm watching the news on TV, I see that the bank across from the restaurant we were at was robbed. It happened right around the time we were there, about 2:00. I think we must have been going out the back of the restaurant to the parking lot right about then. When we were sitting in the restaurant in a booth, I was facing the window and could see that bank! Guess I should have been paying closer attention, but I wasn't, too busy talking and drinking my second and third cup of coffee. Bad bad bad! About the coffee, I mean.
Last night after work I went to see the Vegetable Man. His house was 55 degrees F but we warmed up and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When we got up, he had to build a fire in the woodstove, so I was helping him carry in some wood. He didn't really want me to help because I was wearing my work clothes and nice wool coat. So on my third load which was the remainder of the wood to bring in, as I started carefully going down the basement stairs, he was coming up with a laundry basket.
He was using the basket to carry wood. He was several steps below me on the steep stairs and held out the basket saying, "Here, dump the wood in here and I'll take it down." Well, I had a bad feeling about it but started to put the wood in the basket when the top log rolled off and down. I could not catch it because I still had the armload of wood and no free hands. The top log hit V-Man right in the face, on the right side of his cheek. He sort of dodged, the best he could. Good thing he did or he could have been missing some teeth!
The house got warm again, we munched on some leftover Christmas goodies and it was time for me to go home again. I still had to clean the refrigerator, the ferret cage, do the recycling and the garbage when I got home, plus I was sort of wound up. So I ended up staying up pretty late last night, hope I did OK on the civil service tests!
Hey, it's Friday night! Hope all goes well for you.
The driving was horrendous, I could barely get out with the jeep, our road (NOT the driveway, I shoveled that twice today already and the plow came through so I must shovel again, ouch) wasn't plowed, the main road wasn't plowed the even more main road leading to the freeway wasn't plowed. The snow was deep and the jeep bottom dragged. No way could my son's car have gotten much past our driveway. But now, much later, he's gone at work. He had trouble getting out and the roads were much better than this morning.
Anyway, I arrived at the county courthouse to take the civil service exam bright and early, parked on a one-hour parking meter. And even though I was at the courthouse over three hours I didn't get a ticket. The first test had many sections, most were not too bad except the Math section.
Here is ONE question from that wicked Math section: one position gets paid $431.45 biweekly, another position receives $5.15 per hour, another position gets $262.34 every week, another position gets $5.25 per hour, and another position gets $10,557.82 per year (the test was written in 1997, I checked!). What percent more is the highest paid position than the lowest paying one?
Lovely, eh? Of course I made up the above numbers, but they are very close to what one question asked. No calculators were allowed, so I and the three applicants to the right of me were busily trying to figure it, and all of the other wonderful math problems on the one sheet of scrap paper. But the applicant in the corner to my left was clicking away on a calculator! At first I tried to just ignore it, but had such a strong negative reaction that it was becoming difficult to concentrate on the test. We all were in a closed-door room with no monitor. I got up, went out and told them. Now I am thinking probably I shouldn't have been a tattletale, but it just wasn't fair!
But if I had it to do over, I would have stood up, said aloud, "Are we allowed to use a calculator?" to make sure the other applicants realized she was cheating. The test people didn't do a thing about it, at least not that I saw, because later I was in the typing test room with the cheater. She had finished the written exam first of any of us, of course.
I took a word processing test after the written exam and passed, not as good as I would have liked. Then I took the typing test. It was weird to try to type as fast as I could but not make mistakes. I've gotten very careless about typing on a computer. Most word processing programs automatically correct common misspellings and spell check catches most of the rest. So I had to slow down and concentrate for the five-minute test. I did OK, 68 wpm with no errors, so I was more pleased with that test than the word processing test.
After all of that testing I was relieved to be done, so I drove across the bridge to visit SLA. The driving was somewhat better but still not too great. I couldn't call SLA because she has no phone now. It was fun to sit and talk for a while, then we went out to eat. Just now as I'm watching the news on TV, I see that the bank across from the restaurant we were at was robbed. It happened right around the time we were there, about 2:00. I think we must have been going out the back of the restaurant to the parking lot right about then. When we were sitting in the restaurant in a booth, I was facing the window and could see that bank! Guess I should have been paying closer attention, but I wasn't, too busy talking and drinking my second and third cup of coffee. Bad bad bad! About the coffee, I mean.
Last night after work I went to see the Vegetable Man. His house was 55 degrees F but we warmed up and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When we got up, he had to build a fire in the woodstove, so I was helping him carry in some wood. He didn't really want me to help because I was wearing my work clothes and nice wool coat. So on my third load which was the remainder of the wood to bring in, as I started carefully going down the basement stairs, he was coming up with a laundry basket.
He was using the basket to carry wood. He was several steps below me on the steep stairs and held out the basket saying, "Here, dump the wood in here and I'll take it down." Well, I had a bad feeling about it but started to put the wood in the basket when the top log rolled off and down. I could not catch it because I still had the armload of wood and no free hands. The top log hit V-Man right in the face, on the right side of his cheek. He sort of dodged, the best he could. Good thing he did or he could have been missing some teeth!
The house got warm again, we munched on some leftover Christmas goodies and it was time for me to go home again. I still had to clean the refrigerator, the ferret cage, do the recycling and the garbage when I got home, plus I was sort of wound up. So I ended up staying up pretty late last night, hope I did OK on the civil service tests!
Hey, it's Friday night! Hope all goes well for you.
7 Comments:
Hope you did great on the tests.
And ha,ha,ha..sorry about VM getting hit in the face with a log, ha,ha,ha..sorry it's not funny, ha,ha..
I'd take coffee drinking over bankrobbing watching any day. Good choice. and good luck on the tests. I've been a public servant most of my life, and I really liked the service part of it, although sometimes my service was limited to a pretty small audience.
I'm paranoid by nature, so I wonder if the person with the calculator wasn't a set up to test your honesty...but would anyone go to such trouble?
I hope you scored well on the test.
Have a Happy New Year!
Just tell the guy that you're too used to having to login.
OOoooo, i love a good bank robbery, as long as nobody gets hurt of course! Of course, i like coffee more....about 7 times more..me very bad.
You would have done very well on your tests, i have good vibes happening :o)
Happy New Year PBS!
Wishing you a very Happy New Year. Hope 2006 is your best year ever..
I think it's good you reported that cheat.
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