rites of pre-temps

4/28/99

I'm a temp! Woo-hoo!

Okay, so big deal. Shut up. I've never had such a...a... a white collar job before. My vacation plans are gone, but I left myself enough time to go to Wisconsin and see John. Three days with him will be better than sitting around on my ass (alone) for two months like I thought I'd be able to. (Vacation, my ass.)

I went to the temp place today to take their tests and interview and stuff. The tests--I can't deny it--they were fun. In school I always loved taking standardized tests. Filling in the little bubbles was so...perfect, I don't know why. Must touch some deeply hidden, obsessive-compulsive part of me. My tests were mostly on the computer, making sure I could use WordPerfect and Excel. I faked most of the Excel part, and I still did well enough that they are recommending me for Excel jobs. I've used data-base programs and WordPerfect before, the basics were obvious.

There were a couple of pen-and-paper tests first. I loved it. Math problems and alphabetical filing. A long list of words, and it's my job to put an X by the ones that are misspelled. "Misspell" was one of the words on the list, incidentally. I was in anal-retentive heaven. I was sorry they didn't give me a grammar checklist, too.

My data entry and typing tests were nothing special. I faked the data entry test, just like Excel, so I felt a bit inadequate, like, oh god, they're going to laugh at me, I only got through three pages, they're going to know that I've never done this. Know what? They did know. I don't know how they knew, though, since I only fell short of their keystroke minimum by about 500 strokes per hour. (I got 7000. Not bad for a data entry virgin.) Typing, I'm average, 48 wpm. I went through a chat-a-holic stage last summer, and my typing skills improved greatly. Could be the single benefit of yahoo chat rooms.

Can't say that. In a chat room I met my friend, eric, who's dressed in my clothes for a day (don't ask) and written a journal entry for me. I'll put it up tomorrow, while I'm out celebrating the end of my twelve-tone exam--my last final exam ever! (Until later.)

The twelve-tone exam for which I'll begin studying... ... now.