How is possible?

So Tuesday arrives, I head off to the testing center, hand over my driver’s license and my office issued ID…..and they hand back my office ID and say this is not an acceptable form of ID…..um….what? really? We work in the same office and you can’t accept my picture security badge, issued by this office as an ID?......fine, I dropped my concealed carry permit on the desk and she smiles at me,”that one will work just fine”… yeah, I’m handing over my license to carry a concealed firearm as I’m standing next to a GIGANTIC sign that clearly states “no guns, knives or explosives allowed beyond this point” ……but they never said a word about it. OK, on to the test…..

 

***insert dramatic movie-like fade here***

 

3 and a half hours later, covered in sweat, ink on my lips from when I chewed through one of my pens, and a completely dazed look on my face. I leave the testing center. I can feel the blood leaking out of my brain and pooling just below my eyes. This test was inhuman! 3.5 hour time limit, 145 questions most involving several pages of reading(with only one question associated with it), balance sheet and financial statement analysis (each one had 1 question (edit; and they gave me a calculator that didn't work so I had to do all of the math it long hand)), terms I haven’t heard since my 5th year in college, 25 questions relating to a process of accounting (the Feduciary Method) that I STILL can’t even find proof that it even exists(Feduciary Funds, yes, but Method, no….I even asked as high as my director, and he had no clue what it was). Anyway, off I went, back to work, keeping my head tilted to the side to keep my brain from leaking out of my left ear which wouldn’t stop ringing. I was sure I burst a capillary in my right eye sometime around question 91 (a long question about the nature of acid test ratios). Both of my legs were asleep and neither of my hands seemed to function and I managed to drool a bit on my shirt while reading a large question about the Governmental Accounting Standards Board rulings on the auditing of Fixed asset accounts for state level governmental entities. Anyone seeing me hobble back to my little box would have thought the zombies had finally come. I don’t remember anything else about the day aside from the feeling of absolute certainty that I did NOT want to be an accountant anymore.

 

Wednesday;…..test #2….. Having not learned my lesson from Tuesday, I went back to the testing center to do it all again. This test was only 3 hours long and was focused around interpretation of legal documents, fraud investigation, and operational management and analysis. This test was actually quite fun, (yes I’m sick like that) they even threw in some advanced IT questions about computer logic, network admin, and software and database management. Piece of cake. The 111 questions still took me the entire time, but when it gives you 10 pages of legislative documentation, asks you one questions about it, then gives you another 10 pages and another single question, it seems to suck the time away. I left this test still sweaty and stunned, but I could still think enough to get through the work day without drooling too much.

 

Today; I had an interview planned for today, but that rescheduled for Friday…..so the day was rather uneventful….and just at a whim I decided to check my test scores to see if they posted the results of how badly I failed. The test result was up for the Tuesday test. (They never work this fast so there must have been something wrong) I actually scared my normally unshakable supervisor by completely freaking out…..75%......passing was a 60%.....so that’s not that big of a deal…..until you look at my competition, people who have been doing this for 30 years. They don’t list the other people’s scores but they do say how many people were higher and lower than you for the second section there was 1 higher score……just one…. on the first section I was the highest score, this is FRIGGIN’ AWESOME!!!!! this puts my name right near the top for every open promotion almost up to division chief. It completely takes the office politics out of the equation, I have proven myself competent...no more than that.....I have proved myself AWESOME and have the documentation to prove it.

 

Tomorrow, with any luck, I should have the results of the other test which is for a completely different kind of position, but if I did well, would open up a whole new line of work for me in the operational management and consulting jobs.

 

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