Frazzled

Today I took a civil service exam for a promotional recruitment list. It was a multiple choice test, where you fill in the bubbles with a number two pencil.

I took the afternoon off for the test, and just before I left my office, one of my colleagues and I did one of those surprise face-offs in the hallway - she was walking by fast and I was coming out - and I stopped short and....twisted my bum knee. Just by the trick of getting a little off balance.

I limped to my car and drove to the testing location, stopping on the way for a quick hamburger at the drive-thru.

Sitting in the parking lot I proceeded to dribble ketchup on my shirt.

I hobbled into the testing room, showed my photo ID, picked up the test booklet, two pencils, the testing form, and two pieces of scratch paper. The monitor stopped me and made me give back one piece of scratch paper.

I obediently sat and waited without opening my test booklet while they gave the instructions. They told us to turn off our cell phones, so I held down the little button on the top until the screen went dark.

The first 20 or so questions were math-based. Review a sample quarterly report, choose which values to put in the blank cells. Analyze the data to determine the percentage of the variables. When I have to do this under pressure without a calculator or Excel, I am reduced to the same paralysis that gripped me in the seventh grade. Even with scratch paper.

Then questions about functions of spreadsheets - formulas, formatting, and locating cells. I'm pretty good at that, but in a funny way I'm almost TOO good at it. I am so practiced at using the mouse to perform quick tasks that I no longer think about what I do. So choosing a multiple choice answer that describes the proper terms of each step was actually weird. What tool bar is the format number icon on? When I open a new spreadsheet, are there already worksheets visible, or do they only become visible after I right-click and add new? I don't remember!

Then I got bogged down into some really wretched problems about Human Resources policy, compensations and pay rates. If a Ditch-Digger being paid at Step Two of the classified rate gets night shift differential which for his class is 10%, is it true or false that a Ditch-Digger can be paid more than a Truck Mechanic? If a classified employee under bargaining unit C files a second appeal in the grievance procedure, what are the maximum number of days from the initial filing of the grievance before he gets a ruling?

Then my phone rang, inside my purse, on the floor beneath my chair.

I instinctively grabbed for my purse, but realized that the instructions specified we were not to access any other materials. The monitors pursed their lips and shook their heads, while the little marimba rattled away to its final plink.

It was hard to get my mind back around figuring which step a supervisor classifed as P-12 should be compensated at.

The monitor said, "Thirty minutes remaining."

I flipped to the back of the booklet. 91 questions. Hmm. I was at 68. I skipped the remaining HR questions and went into the next section, writing. That was easy!. I blazed through to finish at question 91, and then went back to the questions I'd skipped.

"Two minutes remaining."

I double checked a math answer I'd been uneasy about, corrected it. Checked my bubbles to make sure they were all proper. Checked my erasures.  I picked up my test materials, went to the head of the room and turned everything in.

As I headed into the hallway bathroom, I heard the monitor announce, "Put down your pencils."

In the ladies room, another person emerged from the stall. "How'd you do?" I asked.

"Wow," she said. "I didn't realize that kind of stuff would be on the test. And it was so long. 100 questions."

100 questions?

I have a bum knee, ketchup on my shirt, the monitors hate me, and I missed 9 questions.