Sunday 23 June, 2002 at 5:35AM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (0)

What a day. Today (technically speaking, yesterday, since it's Sunday now) I went and sat an exam. The hardest part was physically getting to the exam. I'll explain.

I had applied for a government job as a Communications Technician for the NYPD (police) a few months ago, and as with most government jobs here, the method of hiring is via an examination. The reasoning is that it is the fairest way of doing it without the possibility of the interviewer being accused of personal preference or bias in any form. Fair enough. Basically the highest scorer in the exam gets the job, and renumeration has a quoted minimum, with anything above that being dependent on previous experience and/or qualifications of the individual. Nice and diplomatic and politically correct.

Ok, so I received notice about a week ago that the 4 hour exam was scheduled for 4pm Saturday at the Art and Design School on 2nd Ave in Manhattan. No worries. I leave the apartment about 2.15pm as it takes about an hour to get there on the subway, followed by a walk down E57th St from 6th Ave to 2nd Ave where the exam was being held.

I'm about halfway between 3rd and 4th Ave when IceQueen calls me on the cellphone to make sure I made it ok - it's about 3.45pm so it seems to be perfectly timed. No worries. I cross over 3rd Ave and start walking the last block when I notice a big queue starting on 3rd Ave heading down towards 2nd. I guess it's probably for some audition for a movie or tv show and keep going. I turn onto 2nd Ave and walk about half a block to where the exam is being held. Guess what? The queue of several hundred people starts at the same building, yep, they are all there for the same exam for the same job.

300+ people for one job? Now that is frightening. Just shows how tough the job market is in NYC at the moment.

Ok, so I cruise back up E57th St to 3rd Ave and take my place at the end of the queue. Of course the temperature at this time is near 90°F (32°celsius) and humidity is around 90%. *ack* Eventually the queue moves and I end up sitting in a room about to start the exam ..at 5.15pm. Still no worries, I'll just get home later.

The first 10% of the exam was memory-based, which meant you were given a booklet and given 10 minutes to read and memorize it before it was collected, and then the actual exam paper was given out after that. Of course, you couldn't take notes or anything while reading the booklet. I know I got all that part correct, fortunately. The rest of the exam I found relatively easy, except for the last 10% or so which you needed to have a basic working knowledge of the layout of NYC and landmarks to be able to fly through it. Of the couple of questions that I remember from this part, I guessed correctly.

Although the exam duration was supposedly 4 hours, I finished in an hour and a half so I bailed. I've been told that 90% of the time your first answer is correct in an exam, so I didn't go through the whole thing again and second-guess myself, so to speak. I ended up getting home earlier than originally expected so that was all funky and kewl.

The results come in the mail in about 6 weeks, and I presume you are notified at that time if you managed to get the highest mark and therefore get the job. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but there were a lot of people going for the job. Here's the kicker. Joy of joys, I have another exam next Saturday for another government job. Yipee. Ok, I think I am able to sleep again now. *waves*

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