further adventures in my quest for employment

So hey. I haven’t had a job for a really long time now (it’s been something like nine months and that’s… sad), and though I’ve been applying for things, I haven’t even been asked to come in for an interview all year. I mean, I had that phone interview in February, and that was a disaster, but for the past couple of months it’s been like I’ve been sending my resumes out into a black hole. And while on one hand, man I miss paychecks, on the other hand, it’s been okay. I might as well enjoy my time off instead of bitching about it, you know? Besides, I left my last job right before Labor Day weekend, so really, it’s like I am having the longest weekend EVER. Have you ever had a weekend that lasted for around nine months? Exactly. It’s awesome.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I applied for a job, and earlier this week I got a phone call about it. It seems they are interested in me and my mad skillz, but they have to make sure I’m eligible for an interview. Since it’s no exaggeration to say that at least 100 if not more people apply for each open position these days, I figure the people in charge of hiring have to weed through their contenders somehow before beginning the interview process. So what do I have to do in order to make it to the next round? Take tests in typing and spelling. It’s fine, because I sure can type fast and spelling isn’t a problem. All my life, or at least since my pre-teen string of spelling bee championships, I’ve been asked to spell things. It’s not like people stop me on the street and yell “Hey, spell eleemosynary!” (Though if they did, as you can obviously see, I would be able to rise to the challenge.) But if, say, I were working, and someone else happened to be writing something, I would usually be asked at least once how to spell some word for that person. I’m not exactly sure why, because it’s not like I go around telling people that I sure do know how to spell, but I guess maybe I look like the kind of person who sometimes reads dictionaries for fun. By the way, dictionaries make for fascinating reading. For real.

Anyway, my appointment for these tests is this afternoon at 2:00. My first dilemma is that I have no idea what to wear. I mean, I’m not going to wear The Interview Suit for a spelling test, because I want to save The Interview Suit in case I get called back for an actual interview. But do I need to wear something that involves pantyhose? What is the level of formality for this? Second of all, I can type really fast. I can comfortably type between 75-80 words per minute with about 98% accuracy, and I can get over 90 if I’m really in some sort of typing groove, but that’s just if I’m typing letters and occasional numbers. If I have to type a lot of numbers in this typing test, I am so screwed.

I’m trying not to think about it too much, or to put too much pressure on myself, because that won’t help matters at all, because then I’ll just make myself nervous and I can’t type when I’m nervous. Did I ever tell you about the time when I was in high school and I had a job as a typesetter for a newspaper (this is actually where I learned how to type so well, because there’s nothing like having to type press releases for four hours straight to teach you the way around a keyboard) and I had a crush on this guy in the office and every time he would enter the newsroom I would get flustered and hit every key next to the keys I was supposed to be hitting, turning everything I typed into an unintelligible mess? That was awesome. And it’s also proof that nerves and typing do not mix.

Anyway, there it is. I have to take a typing test. I’ll let you know how it goes, and in the meantime, I have to try on a bunch of different outfits. I’m so busy!

UPDATE

Okay so I got there, but I went to the wrong office. Good thing I was a little bit early and not running on my usual Arab Standard Time (I’m kidding — I’m never late), because I had to backtrack to find the right spot (which of course I had walked right past, and which (also of course) had a sign that said “Welcome to Human Resources” right near the door) and I went in and the HR lady and I had a bit of a do-si-do around my name, culminating in her commenting “That’s not a name you hear every day, is it?” and me being sensitive and awesome and not replying “Well actually, yes it is.”

Anyway, I got set up on this computer to take my spelling and typing tests, and I decided to do the spelling thing first, because I wasn’t worried about it at all, and I figured it would be nice to get it out of the way, so I read all the instructions, which told me that I would be answering multiple choice and true/false questions, and began the test, which was a series of sentences with a word highlighted in red, for which I had to correct the spelling (or note that it was already correct). So I guess those instructions were all a lie. The first time I went through, the test froze after question 7 and I had to ask the lady to come over and please fix it. Then I had to start it over and it didn’t freeze, but after I answered the final question (number 52), I got an error message on the screen stating that the test results couldn’t be processed. So I took it AGAIN and it worked the third time. And then I took the typing test and I was going kind of slowly, because I had to move the keyboard (it was on one of those pull-out things, but this one was really low and rested between my knees, which isn’t exactly ideal), but the cord was short and I couldn’t slide it directly in front of me, so I had to lean a bit to the side, and the keys weren’t as sensitive as the ones on my keyboard so I felt like I had to press them really hard. But I finally got into a groove with it (I think it was 5 minutes) and the final speed at the bottom of the screen was 72 wpm, which isn’t too bad.

So that’s that. I’ll hear in a week or so whether or not I get an interview.