compulsive compartmentalization

Now that I’m out of work with five years of memories to sort through, let’s explore one together. Wouldn’t that be fun? OK! Get ready for a magical ride of whimsy and mirth!

Disclaimer: This ride contains neither whimsy nor mirth.

Among my many attempts to procure gainful employment elsewhere, two attempts stand out in my mind.

Humiliation #1

Several years ago I saw an ad in the paper that every cartoonist dreams of. It said: “Cartoonist wanted.”

Wow! Cartoonist? That’s me! They’re asking for me! So I sent in an application. To edit the boring part of the story out, I came pretty close to getting it. But, sadly, my art didn’t mesh completely with that of some of the other cartoonist employed there. (Which I’ll take as a compliment since I thought most of their art sucked, but I digress.) What makes this job application stand out is that they called me back to interview for another job. “Sure, I’m desperate!” I think to myself.

So they have me take a bunch of tests. None of which were a drug test, which is sad because I could have passed that one. Am I so insecure in my own personality that I should worry about a personality test? Probably, but unfortunately that wasn’t the hardest part.

You see, I had to take a “test” to show how I would do working in their graphics programs. No problem, I use them everyday, right? So they find someone that is willing to let me use their cubicle. This lady will keep popping her head in to see if I’m finished. I assume this is to see how I work under pressure. More likely is that she has work to do and wants her desk back. I begin to pick up on this. They open up the graphics program and a file with some images in it as well as hand me a sheet with 3 or 4 problems to solve.

They promptly leave.

So here I am, taking the test. I read the first problem. Create a graph. No big deal. Except that Naggy McIwantmydesk keeps the pressure on me. I begin to freeze. I can’t think. I don’t know where to look to create a graph. I can’t think. Can’t. Think. I begin to recreate the graph by drawing it with the line tool.

This only succeeds in giving me ample time to worry about the next 2 problems.

After a while I give up on the graph. Or maybe I finished. It didn’t matter, either way I was screwed on that one. The next one was to create line art from a color image file. Okay, except one thing. You can’t do that in the program they told me to. Maybe that was the test. If it was that was the only one I passed. Because I didn’t do it. I surf their network to find another program I can do it in. This is known as “cheating”. It’s how people in the real world get their work done. They use whatever they can get their hands on to do the job.

This search proved futile, so instead I stood up to leave. Being 2 1/2 hours away from work (where they think I’m at lunch) I had to back. I look across a sea of cubicles to see…..nobody. Out of probably 40 cubicles there isn’t a soul left.

The rapture has occured in this office.

I walk to the HR guy’s office to tell him I can’t do the test and I have to get back to work. He too has gone AWOL. So I leave. Later I call him to tell him I couldn’t do the test, and he gives me some crap about how they’ll review my other test results or something.

Yeah, sure.

I sit back at my desk at work, and figure out in 4 or 5 minutes how to do a graph. :sigh:

It only took a few months to get my self-esteem back up to it’s usual level of lowness. Just in time for my next big failure…

Tune in next time when you’ll hear Brian say: “This job woulda been boring anyway.”

This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2004 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Memories, Mirth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.