I am rubbing the sleep from my eyes. A restless two hour nap didn’t help me rest much. The only clean socks I had this morning was this pair of winter (i.e., long) socks, so there I am, slumbering in bed in a t-shirt, boxers, and the socks dangling off my feet, which are themselves hanging over the edge. I think Tippy was playing with the socks. With her claws. I think I might’ve kicked her, once, in reflex to a claw digging into my toe. I know that whatever happened and whoever it was, there were claws attacking me again shortly thereafter.
When Feet Strike Back?
The test was easier than I expected. There was an information packet the Postal Service had mailed earlier which contained sample questions similar to those on the exam. I’m not, I think, supposed to say too much about the exam and what’s on it, but only one section (the memorization) really gave me trouble, and I think I did passable on that. From start to finish, once the test was started, it only took an hour and a half or so.
Key word: started.
As in, the information I got said the test started at eight, so I rose my ass up out of bed at a quarter after six and got myself down to Glen Burnie shortly after seven.
Arriving at the ballroom, I had to present the first page from the information packet along with my driver’s license. I also had to get past a guy with a metal-detector wand. That was fun.
I wasn’t the only person who got themselves to Glen Burnie before eight o’clock. The exam was held in some garishly decorated, poorly lit ballroom. Even the Test Monitors were complaining about the location — piss poor parking, awful lighting, and a worse sound system. The folks in the far corner kept having to shout “Can’t hear you!” at whichever Test Monitor was trying to use the PA system to administer the test.
Oh, but that came later, after they actually started the test.
Because for probably an hour and a half about the exam was supposed to start, we all sat and waited as more and more stagglers kept being admitted. Apparently the Post Office has been running two or more exams per day at the ballroom for the entire week, and people were failing to show up when they were scheduled, but rather, whenever they felt like it. In any case, the small group I was sitting with was quickly mumbling about, “It’s past eight o’clock” and “What the fuck, why don’t we start?” and “Cripes, now I know why my dad bitches about the government being inefficient…”
Once the exam started things moved fairly quickly. Of the testing population, there were probably about nine hundred people, a good number of those were middle-aged or older. One of the forms we were handed was a “choice sheet” which listed the twenty-four or so post office branches located within the Baltimore Region Employment Office (or whatever they termed it)*. You were supposed to select what three Post Offices you would like to be considered for employment at (I suppose final hiring is done by individual Post Masters?), as well as what job openings they had. I marked Cockeysville, Lutherville-Timonium, and Owings Mills. One white girl, at the other end of the table, made a big deal about how she wanted to work in a small, rural post office where she didn’t have to deal with “urban life” (read: black people, which is how I and I think everyone who overhead her interpreted her comment). There weren’t many white people around (maybe a dozen and a half?), and I was distinctly uncomfortable as she (quite loudly) made these comments. Thankfully, none of my table-mates took it out me, instead rolling their eyes and ignoring the idiot.
Did I mention the Monitors constantly interupted testing repeatedly to warn the folks who had parked in specific areas were going to get their vehicles towed if they didn’t move them immediately? “Black Ford Explorer, License Plate…”
“We told you where to park!” one Monitor said at the PA stand. That’s not true, though - nothing on the information packet said anything about where or where not to park.
Fortunately, the last three sections were a “personality” test, and once finished, applicants were free to turn their test over to a Monitor and scram. As soon as I was finished — it was the same five questions repeated fifty times — I was out the door. Thankfully my car had not been towed, but removing myself from the parking lot was a bit of a pain as cars were parked illegally everywhere — they blocked lanes and other vehicles. I finally freed myself and raced north on Ritchie Highway, glad to be free.
I got home slightly before noon.
And napped.
And now am about to head off to work.
(Hopefully, not for much longer)
Woot!
*There was only one entry for Baltimore City, so I guess working at a specific City P.O. is “as will”)