In Other News...

I had the day off on Friday, so I spent the entire day studying. I took one break to ride to Oceanside and have lunch with some old friends from my former position. It was a great break and well worth the ride! I lost one of my freeway pegs somewhere along the way, though... and I'm really hoping the stupid thing didn't damage someone's car on the way to wherever its final resting place my be.

In the course of studying, I realized that I hadn't downloaded some crucial manuals and policies to my thumbdrive!! For some reason, this simple oversight sent me into a tizzy of self-doubt and a fair amount of "test anxiety" that has previously been unknown in my academically blessed life. I've never worked in our Institutions, and because I failed to bring home the Administrative Manual specifically focused on this aspect of my Department, I knew at once I was going to be screwed on a good portion of the Supervisor's exam.

I asked a co-worker to try to email it - no dice. I planned to stop at one of our facilities on the way back from lunch in Oceanside, and stupidly forgot to disconnect the thumbdrive and bring it with me. By the end of the day, I had resigned myself to being truly average in this testing sortie because of my dumbass failure to think carefully about what I would need. Talk about a rookie mistake!!

So, I showed up for the test on Saturday and was amazed to find about 40 other testees. Oh, the pressure of competition! Not a good sign, considering my utter failure at studying.

The test: 100 questions, multiple choice, covering everything from work prioritization to administrative policy and procedure to our Union agreement to grammar and sentence structure. There were a few questions thrown in about our General Management System and strategic planning. They scheduled 2 and 1/2 hours for the exam, It took me 25 minutes to finish ( I was the first and I wonder if people thought I just gave up???). I'm a really fast reader, so it's not weird for me to be the first to finish in an exam situation.

In this promotion process, the application is worth 25% of the total ranking score and the exam is worth 75%. The exam is graded on the Bell Curve and a 70% on the curve is required to pass. Because I have less time in rank than many of the competitors and also have absolutely no Institutional experience, I knew that my only hope of being competitive in the ranking process would be to totally blow the curve. The first ten in the ranking get priority for interviews (this is the only purpose of the ranking - everyone enters the interviews on an "even keel," as the interviewers are only provided with a list of names, not the rankings or scores).

Well, you can guess how that turned out. *sigh*

Don't get me wrong... I think I did fine. I'm sure I scored at least an 85 and probably closer to 90-95%. I know for a fact that I missed at least two (I looked up the questions I could remember when I returned home from the materials I did have). Of course I have to second-guess myself and assume that I missed some questions that I don't know that I missed. Regardless, I know I passed the objective test with at least a passing score, which means I'll be fine on the curve.

Fine enough for priority ranking???? Geez, I hope so. If I don't promote from this round, it will likely be YEARS until there is another opportunity.

Two weeks before I receive results. If I passed, I will get a notice with my overall score (the combination of the app and the test), but not a notification of ranking. if I didn't pass, I'll receive a notice stating that I didn't pass, but they won't tell me my score. I figure I'll need at least a score of 95 to be priority ranked.

*sigh*