Phew! Thank goodness that’s over. I sweated my way through the three written tests. The first: alphabetize a list of names. I struggled, but persevered. Next, circle the misspelled words in a long list of word pairs. Again, it wasn’t easy, but it can be done if you stay cool and focused. The third test? Well, it had been a long time since my last math class and I was worried. I took a few deep breaths, relaxed as much as I could… went through the long list of number pairs, marking the ones where the two numbers were not identical. And I was finished.
My rep at the temporary job agency led me to the room where my computer skills would be tested. They couldn’t take my word for it, despite the fact that I’d spent the last sixteen years of my working life teaching people to use computers—in two short-lived jobs and eleven and a half years as a corporate trainer and training developer. And forget the fact that I took my first computer class in 1977, when it was all about punch cards and primitive stuff. No… I had to prove it!
So I sat at the computer and changed the font face, size, style, and/or color according to the instructions; corrected some typos; rearranged paragraphs; maybe did a numbered list or two and created some tabs—I really don’t remember, other than that it was all pretty basic. Did some entries (again, following the instructions) in an Excel spreadsheet, and then logged off.
When she finished evaluating my tests, the rep came to the computer room to get me. Her eyes were as big as saucers when she told me that I had the highest scores on all the tests of everyone they had tested in their office. I wish I’d thought to ask how long the office had been there. Ten years would have made me feel extremely… well, superior to almost everyone in the world. If, however, the office had only been open a week, I would just have been a bit more humble… just glad to hear I had passed.
After watching a required OSHA video (which, I swear, lasted for about seven hours!), I felt I understood how to use the safety equipment, and thoroughly understood how it could save my life… especially if I happened to get a desk job on the top story of a skyscraper under construction. Yup, those safety harnesses could save my life if I scooted my chair the wrong way, and found myself in freefall toward the street fifty stories below, had I not remembered to wear my harness! At my age, however, I doubt I would accept an assignment that required me to learn to be a ‘skywalker’ and actually need a safety harness to work on a computer, or that presented any serious threats to my health, well-being, or my very life!
The rep provided me with everything I would need for my first assignment: time slips, envelopes, handbooks, her business card, etc. She told me that she had to verify my past employment before I officially was ‘hired,’ and sent me on my way.
I waited for her call. After a week or ten days, I called and asked if she had anything for me. She told me I wasn’t official yet: she had been unable to verify my employment. Oh my gosh! In the three or four months since I left, a very successful company had gone belly-up! (I always suspected they wouldn’t know what to do without me!) I made sure she had the correct phone number, explained that it was a fairly small and very busy HR office, asked her to leave a voice mail with her name and number, and assured her that she would receive a callback very soon.
The next day, I called again and got the same answer: “When I try to call, nobody answers.” This time, I explained what voice mail was and how to use it (I was, I admit, a bit sarcastic). She said she would try again.
The second I hung up the phone, I called my former employer’s office and asked to be put through to HR regarding an employment verification problem. I left a voice mail. I got a call back within fifteen minutes. The company was still open, all was well, everybody either answered the phone by the third ring or returned calls promptly. They had never received a call from the agency.
I gave up, having decided that I certainly didn’t want to depend on a representative who, by 2007, hadn't learned to use voice mail (or maybe even make a long distance call). Maybe she just didn’t like me and didn’t have the nerve to tell me so. Maybe she had suddenly lost whatever communication and/or technology skills she might have had before my appearance in her life. I decided it was either personal or she was the dumbest temp agency employee on Planet Earth. Maybe a neurologist or psychiatrist should examine her to see if there was a working brain in her head at all!
~~~~~
It took me a while to figure out what was going on. I called another agency, a local one, and tried to schedule an appointment. They told me they weren’t taking on any new temps, since there wasn’t enough work locally to keep their existing ones busy. Hmmmm…
Then I called a private employment agency and scheduled an appointment. Did the whole battery of tests again… minus the safety equipment video for construction jobs, of course. They loved my résumé, and had a couple of possible opportunities for me, right off the bat. I turned one down: it was for a position in a church, and would require that I become a practicing member of that particular denomination--the prime qualification to even be considered. No thanks. I’d like a job, preferably a part-time job, but not enough to change my religion for it!
But they had another possibility: the owner of a local company needed an executive secretary, a mature one with lots of experience and skill. It had been a few years since I’d been an executive secretary, but I had been twice in the past, and hadn’t lost any of the skills required to do it again. No question that I was mature: the government wouldn’t be sending me those monthly Social Security checks if I was twenty-something and looking for my first job. The agency sent the guy my résumé and test results. No-go. It was the first time in a very long time I’d heard the word “overqualified”, which simply means that when someone looks at your skills and experience, they decide they’re not willing to pay what you’re worth—however much they might like to have what you could bring to their businesses.
To be continued...
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