Interludes and Observations

Part I: Farewell, Mighty Dreadnought
Yes, that’s right. The 1989 Suburban I’ve had for the last four years, the Dreadnought, is gone. We sold it yesterday.

My mother-in-law’s Suburban—which is a lot newer than the Dreadnought, by the way—wasn’t working, so we let her borrow ours. She drove it for about three weeks until she could get hers fixed. She was impressed by the ride and by the power of the engine. My sister-in-law J also lives there with her two kids, one of whom (our nephew P) turned sixteen this week. Nancy’s been jokingly telling P to buy the Dreadnought for a while now, and he’s never really taken the idea seriously—until he got to drive it. He liked it. So inspections were conducted, offers and counter-offers were made, and in the end, P ended up buying the Dreadnought. They got it registered on his birthday.

We’ll miss the Dreadnought. It’s been a good car. We have a lot of memories with it. But at least we know it’s going to a good home.


Part II: Utah Drivers Just Suck
Yes, I’ve ranted about Utah drivers before. I will undoubtedly rant about them again. I’ll stop ranting when they stop doing stupid things on the road—an event that I anticipate will take place about the same time that our sun explodes, something like five billion years in the future. Unless we’ve colonized other worlds by that time, in which case there’ll be Utah drivers spread across the cosmos, and we’ll have to wait for the eventual heat death of the universe. But I digress.

On my way to Ogden last night, I found myself traveling north on Beck Street toward I-15. I was approaching the on-ramp, one of the few left exits in the area. So I looked over into the left lane and saw two cars: one a couple of car lengths ahead of me, and another three or four car lengths behind me. I watched them both for about fifteen seconds, and they both maintained a constant speed and spacing relative to me. So I signaled to merge left. And like a Pavlovian response, the j@ck@ss idiot behind me started to speed up.

By this time, I didn’t think I had time to let the j@ck@ss moron get ahead of me before moving over, or I’d miss my exit. And since I was already merging anyway, I continued to merge. And he continued to accelerate. By the time I’d changed lanes, he was right up on my tail. I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw him giving me the Utah Highway Peace Sign. Classy.

We merged onto the freeway, and he immediately passed me. And once he was in front of me, the j@ck@ss dipstick swerved halfway into my lane and back, like he was going to cut me off—probably feeling that since I hadn’t let him pass me and risk missing my exit, I’d cut him off. I tapped the horn quickly, feeling that if I didn’t at least do something to acknowledge his efforts, I might damage his self-esteem, and watched him drive off down the highway. There’s a part of me that wishes I’d seen him pulled over to the side of the road by UHP later on, but it’s probably best that I didn’t.

Because if I had, I would’ve had no choice but to honk and yell out the window, “Learn to drive, you j@ck@ss jerk!”

I was cut off by another driver about 20 minutes later, a blue sedan that came out of nowhere in the fast lane and cut across three lanes of traffic so that he didn’t miss his off-ramp. (I’ve said it before. Between 24 and 33 seconds. Do the math.) And then on the way home, I saw somebody driving one of those fancy upscale crossovers with his lights off. Oh, he used his turn signals, which put him at least one standard deviation ahead of the mean in that respect, but no headlights, taillights, or running lights. On a car that probably costs $35,000 or more. Who drives an expensive car down the freeway at night with no lights?!

I really hope that by the time we have kids that are of driving age, we’re not in this state any more. I don’t want my offspring thinking that the way Utards drive is the right way—or the normal way.

Part III: No Fava Beans or Chianti, Please
Yesterday I had a skills test with the U.S. Census Bureau. I’d heard about how many people they’re hiring for the 2010 census, and I scheduled the test to see if they thought they could use my skills. It’s temporary work, and most likely part time, but I’ve already got two jobs like that. Why not a third? Besides, the application I filled out asked what kind of management experience I have, the answer to which is, “Six years as a supervisor and a manager in data gathering, verification, and processing.” There are possibilities.

I arrived about 15 minutes early as instructed, signed in, and started filling out paperwork. As I was doing so, I saw a familiar face enter the room: one of our employees from the call center. And not one of the ones of which I’m particularly fond, either (not that there are an awful lot of those anyway). In fact, if I had to rate all the employees at the call center in order of their capacity to be annoying to me and to pretty much anyone working around them, she’d be in the Top Three, no question. She looked all excited to see me and waved. I waved back and then got back to what I was doing, which was pretty much anything but having any further interaction with her. I already have to deal with her at one job. That’s enough.

I hasten to point out, however, that I have no particular ill will against this woman. So when I say that I was not gratified by the fact that she couldn’t seem to figure out how to fill out the paperwork or that she ended up having to do it twice because she messed up the first time, that’s the truth. On the other hand, when I say I wasn’t surprised at all that she couldn’t seem to figure out how to fill out the paperwork and that she ended up having to do it twice because she messed up the first time, that’s also the truth.

People kept filtering in for almost an hour—seriously, who shows up for a job-related 10 o’clock appointment at 10:45? But just before 11:00, we started the test. The test had 28 multiple-choice questions in five sections: Clerical Skills, Reading, Number Skills, Interpreting Information and Evaluating Alternatives, and Organizational Skills. The test is designed to determine how well you’re able to handle certain tasks, I suppose, as well as how qualified you might be for different positions. The proctor told us that a passing score was 10. Seriously, 10 out of 28? Statistically speaking, just picking answers at random should get you score of 7 on average. Who can’t get 10? Some people who want government jobs, I guess.

Anyway, we started the test and had thirty minutes to take it. I made it a point to read everything slowly and carefully, to check my answers, and to fill in the little circles on the answer sheet as neatly as I could. In the end, I had time to go back over all but the last five or six questions and confirm my answers. I figured I’d done well, and if I came out of it with anything less than 25/28, I’d be very disappointed.

I was not very disappointed. I got 28/28.

The proctor told us that the people who scored higher than 20 would be the first to get a call when the jobs started opening up. She also said that they were looking to start hiring for some positions next month. I’m encouraged. I’d like to think that with my test score and my work experience, they’d find something for me to do other than walking streets, knocking on doors and conducting interviews. I walked streets and knocked on doors for two years, and that was for a much better cause.

Naturally, as soon as I hear anything, I’ll post it here.