An Interesting Exercise:

Things have been picking up in the job search department. I had an interview with a pharmaceutical company on Monday that went...okay. I could have done better, but that's life. The fact that they called me for an interview at all has lifted my spirits a little. On Wednesday I got a call from another pharma company who wanted me to come in and write a test. Test? What sort of test? The HR rep tells me it's general math and english, high school level stuff. So basically there's no way to prepare. And high school level math?? That may sound like a walk in the park, but after several years of complicated math, I haven't looked at the easy stuff for a long time. So despite all my efforts to stay positive and optimistic, I still felt kind of nervous this morning as I drove across town in the driving snow during rush hour. Almost being side-swiped by a van didn't really help (although I did forget about the test for a split second).

I should know better by now. First of all, there were maybe 24 people in the room with me, the majority of whom were around twice my age. Secondly, the majority of the people who were also writing the test 1) belonged to a visible minority, and 2) were applying for production jobs. So what did this mean? It was a really basic math test. What's this plus this? What's 7% of this number? If I have this many kilograms of pills, each with an average weight of this, how many pills do I have? No sweat.

The english portion was kind of funny. The first part was simple written communciation. There were three scenarios and we had to write a paragraph about how we would go about doing it. The first was about addressing an envelope for a letter you were going to mail. I couldn't think about it without giggling, let alone write about it. The second was about a fire alarm that goes off in the building. That was a little iffy. The third was to describe how you would go about taking the bus or subway to the company. I decided to go with the third one, based on the fact that I could actually see myself doing it. Not that I couldn't see myself in a fire alarm situation, but that one could have things attached to it, especially in a pharmaceutical environment, that involve more than just exiting the building.

The other parts of the english test were just about reading comprehension. There was a little story, and then there were some sample documents and you just had to describe things in your own words or find specific information. They said that you need to have at least 70% in both sections to pass. I haven't felt this good about a test in years.

So in both cases, they're going to get back to me by early January. And I just got an e-mail from a classmate today about an opening at her place of work (also a pharma company) in Montreal. Looks like the law of averages is kicking in.

"Oh no, she's not a secret now"