all my regards
Everyone in the office has got their jobs. Except for the boss, of course, who is still wandering around the office looking a bit dazed, and will probably be doing that for another six months while they look for another job for her. I am still having flashbacks to my interview. I know they asked me about my 'autonomy' (ability to work unsupervised) but did they really ask me to express my autonomy as a percentage of my working life? As though I might say, without a moment's thought: '35.4. And I've got a pie chart I printed off earlier, if you'd care to look...'
As the 'structure' we have entered does not seem to exist, or not yet, we are doing an NVQ in IT to pass the time. This week, we had the basic numeracy and literary test you have to get through in order even to embark upon the course. And it is pretty basic. They literally did ask what two plus two is. (Up to that point, I was fine.)
The literacy test featured some ambiguous questions. For example, you had to fill in the missing word in a sentence such as: 'The lady had to run back to the cafe because she forgot her ____.' Then you were given a choice of four possible answers: 'leg', 'bag', 'hand', and finally something completely ridiculous like 'environmental'. And there was only one correct answer, but this didn't seem right to me. Clearly, they were expecting 'bag', but what was wrong with 'hand'? I mean it could have been a sculpture of a hand, or a hand of glory, or an artificial hand, or the severed hand of her latest victim.
Either these people are supremely unimaginative or I am suffering from an excess of creativity. I don't have too many outlets for it at work beyond trying to decide how to sign off an e-mail. Is 'regards' too brutal? But 'kind regards' seems patronizing. And if I label some of my regards as kind, what does this imply about all the others? It summons the terrifying spectre of all my regards fluttering about like bats against a moonlit sky - some of them, no doubt, truly vicious.
And then I keep making that mistake of writing: 'I would be grateful if you'd let me know' (never 'very grateful', because that seems to me curiously suggestive, as though a blow job might not be out of the question) and then ending the e-mail with 'thank you'. Which suggests that I'm already grateful, and gives them no incentive to let me know at all. Hopefully, they will cover this in the NVQ.
As the 'structure' we have entered does not seem to exist, or not yet, we are doing an NVQ in IT to pass the time. This week, we had the basic numeracy and literary test you have to get through in order even to embark upon the course. And it is pretty basic. They literally did ask what two plus two is. (Up to that point, I was fine.)
The literacy test featured some ambiguous questions. For example, you had to fill in the missing word in a sentence such as: 'The lady had to run back to the cafe because she forgot her ____.' Then you were given a choice of four possible answers: 'leg', 'bag', 'hand', and finally something completely ridiculous like 'environmental'. And there was only one correct answer, but this didn't seem right to me. Clearly, they were expecting 'bag', but what was wrong with 'hand'? I mean it could have been a sculpture of a hand, or a hand of glory, or an artificial hand, or the severed hand of her latest victim.
Either these people are supremely unimaginative or I am suffering from an excess of creativity. I don't have too many outlets for it at work beyond trying to decide how to sign off an e-mail. Is 'regards' too brutal? But 'kind regards' seems patronizing. And if I label some of my regards as kind, what does this imply about all the others? It summons the terrifying spectre of all my regards fluttering about like bats against a moonlit sky - some of them, no doubt, truly vicious.
And then I keep making that mistake of writing: 'I would be grateful if you'd let me know' (never 'very grateful', because that seems to me curiously suggestive, as though a blow job might not be out of the question) and then ending the e-mail with 'thank you'. Which suggests that I'm already grateful, and gives them no incentive to let me know at all. Hopefully, they will cover this in the NVQ.
posted by martin at 12:58 PM
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