Testing, one...

Well, I rode the bus to and from work on Friday. Almost missed the bus back home, although there would have been another one in a half-hour or 45-minutes or so because it was (what passes for) rush hour in the city where I work. I barely threw everything in drawers and locked up (now I have to do that since I work at the front desk) and ran down the street without even time to put on my coat. The bus had already pulled away from the stop, but the bus driver nicely stopped for me. "Our business is people!" he said cheerily and waited while I dug through my pants pockets for the fare. Luckily, as my fellow passengers were getting impatient, I found enough change. Getting to work had been far easier and cheaper, too since the fare that early in the morning was off-peak.

Saturday morning I had to get up almost as early as during the week to take a civil service test. It was the weirdest test and test proctoring I've ever seen, and I've taken a few during my working years. Anyone who read the short blurb and downloaded the applications could show up for the test, so they had no idea of how many people were coming. It's almost needless to say that they did not have enough test copies and for a brief moment my two table buddies and I thought we might have to duke it out for a test copy.

One of the two proctors disappeared to make the needed copies and the entire room relaxed and began to talk among themselves. I had a sociable hour talking with the woman and the guy at my table, none of us had met before. Finally the copies appeared and the proctors began to hand them out, "You may begin." they said. The test was timed and the room was full. We estimated that we had a ten-minute handicap by sitting in the back of the room because we couldn't start until we received a test copy! Those in the front were diligently working on their test long before we received our booklet, yet we had to stop at the same time.

A few of my fellow test-takers began to whip out calculators. Apparently they had called the listed phone number, "If you have any questions..." and were told that calculators were permitted at the test. The also calculator-less guy to the right of me said, "Hope you're good at math, I'm not." and he begged for a stack of scratch paper on which to do the calculations, and gave me half. I needed the paper, and was kicking myself for not having a calculator in my bag. I used to carry one but had taken it out when it kept having difficulties with the lint in the bottom of my bag. I had had no reason to call the "If you have any questions" phone number and thought it was quite unfair that only the pesty people had found out about the calculators. That was the beginning of the civil service test.

Hope you're having a great weekend!