Circuitbomb.com

I love to write.  I do.  Writing has been a fantastic outlet for me in the past which I reflect on from time to time.  When I was learning to use a keyboard back in my younger years, I never learned home row.  I just didn’t.   Learning home row was not a practical approach to typing for me.  I had to learn my own way.  You see, during high school I took computer classes, just because I love computers.  The classes were designed to teach basic computer use, and of course we used one of those fancy ‘Learn to type’ programs which have you place your fingers on home row.  I loved breezing through this software, finishing my tasks first, and on time. Without using home row.  Mind you, my typing is not far from home row.  I don’t type each key while looking at it, bringing my finger from above my head to slam onto the keyboard.  I type, and I type fast enough.

Writing is a very important factor in the business place.  Sometimes you don’t really realize how much writing you do.  Documentation, technical documents, memos, emails, presentations, letters; all these things you can eventually find yourself doing within the workplace.  If there is one thing I hate, it’s poor writing.  So I strive to ensure what I write is good.

So what is this all amounting up to?

Tonight I had to take an aptitude test for a potential employer.  Not that there is any harm with that.  It’s just that the aptitude test paid no attention to what I was applying for in the first place.  The only part of it that would likely have anything to do with what I would be doing there, was writing.

Let me tell you how this aptitude test went.  It came in three parts, and was timed.

The first part gave me 50 questions within a 10 minute time-frame, and informed me that I would likely not answer all 50 questions within that time.  I will admit that with the majority of these questions, I only guessed.  Why?  Basically because I’m horrible at math.  I’m not ashamed of it, but just because I’m horrible at finding out 50% of 20% of a sports ticket that is priced higher and answering how much profit is going to be made in my head, does not mean I cannot do math.  I am no stock broker,  accountant or finance advisor, I’m a web developer.  I can gauge the width in pixels of an image, I can calculate the equivalent of pixels to ems and pts.  I do math all the time in the work I do.  Anyways, the rest of the first section of the aptitude was comparisons such as a fox is to hole as….

Husband is to couch.  I finished all 50 questions within the time limit.

The second part of this aptitude test was a little easier, something I am a bit more familiar with.  Basically the second part of the test was a flash memory game, pretty fast for the most part.  The second part was in three sections, the first one shapes and colors, the second one shapes, and the third one numbers.  The first section had me hit one of two keys when I seen a particular shape or colored shape. The third one had me hit the numbers 4, 5, and 6 – whenever I visualized a set of numbers with either 4, 5, or 6.  Easy.   The second section is what got me in part two, because the application flashed the shapes at me so quickly I had almost zero time to respond.  It blew my mind.  I asked myself time and time again throughout the second section, how is this going to help them make a choice on who they hire, how does this have anything to do with what I am applying for.

The third part of this aptitude test is typing as many words in the paragraph as you can within the time limit of one minute.  When I read this I just lol’ed.  I hate these word per minute calculators.  You type what you see and if you make a mistake you can’t fix it.  Well great, this testing would be just fine if it was used in…say…finding out how many words a minute you can key while keeping your eyes fixed on the screen, for yourself.  But when you have someone standing over your shoulder or your on a time limit for a job you really want, you get nervous, stressed out and after the first mistake you make more.  And so you get hanged because you didn’t meet the minimum.

Oh?  So, this gauges how well you can perform under pressure?  Such as meeting a deadline?

No.  The pressures, as similar as they may seem are completely different.  When meeting a deadline your not sitting there looking at the screen trying to type word for word a paragraph…unless it’s your own, or you have expressed consent, that is called plagiarism.

This is the second ‘typing wpm’ test I’ve had to take in the last couple years.  The first one was for a local newspaper I really didn’t want a job at in the first place because of their bias -(cough Daily cough Record acck cough), excuse me, but hey I needed a job and sometimes you just gotta try and grunt your way through things.  Especially when you’ve got a daughter to feed.  Anyways,  I’m not getting my hopes up with this new ‘could be’ opportunity.  It just would be nice to settle in with a local business, close to home, with some extra consistency.

By the way, who says a person who codes can’t write?