I guess that we were both right about a thing or two I live in a government town. That means that the biggest employer is the federal government. I'm beginning to understand what this means and how they work. I have a whole French language rant brewing in my head regarding the bilingual component of most jobs, but I'll save that for another day. This post is dedicated to some of the nonsense that a person goes through to be hired by the federal government.

I have applied for numerous clerical / admin positions over the past several months. My name has made it through the initial stages of the "competition" in three cases. What that means is that you get invited to write a "test" first. My first experience with this was pretty amusing. They asked questions like, "You have the following eight tasks to complete. Please tell us what order you would do them in and give reasons for your choices". And seriously, man, we're talking about administrative tasks like distributing mail and checking office supplies. It was almost comical. I have to say that I wrote some beautiful essays that day, though. I was rushing to get to work on time and was feeling surprisingly wordy. So when they asked me to discuss why I was passionate about office administration, boy did I give them some poetry. Seriously, I believe I threw out phrases such as "the unsung heroes of offices everywhere". Hilarious, truly.

I have done two more "tests" since then, and they were both equally un-challenging. "Please demonstrate that your brain is intact". I left the last one almost angry. Anyway, it is what it is.

So, before you read the following chat excerpt, here is my disclaimer. In my circle of friends, the word "gay" is used mostly to mean "dumb" or "silly". It is not intended to be disrespectful and I don't think it's "low-brow", as one of my brothers once decided it was. Oh, and it might help if you understand some French. We were practising.

Chief: oh good news
interview for that last gay test I wrote
(for the job, I mean)
froo: that's some progress
Chief: meaning I passed the gay test
froo: a test for gay people?
Chief: basically
froo: i don't think they can do that
if you're not gay enough, no job?
Chief: no, it's more to rule out gay
froo: oh, too gay = no job
Chief: minimum levels of gay
I wonder if they'll try to sneak in some french speaking!
froo: practice!
Chief: J'aime faire la bicyclette
froo: je n'aime pas laver la vaisselle
Chief: est-ce que je peux emprunter ton gay test?
froo: vous n'etes pas gay assez pour ce job
Chief: vous etes trop gay pour emprunter mon aspirateur
froo: j'aime faire la gay bicyclette  | ¶ 9:41 p.m.