guess i won’t be going postal anytime soon

it all seemed so simple…

…but honestly, what in my life EVER goes simply?

a few weeks ago i had so much on my mind that even after some booze and tylenol pm i had problems sleeping. woke up at the ass-crack of 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. went for breakfast tacos and headed off to the gym (admittedly those things should NOT be done in that order). the gym opens at 6am, and i arrived at 6:15 – and it was PACKED…

…with mailmen. postal folk. complete with the blue shorts with the even bluer stripe down the side. that’s when it hit me – why have i never looked at postal jobs? government benefits, pretty good pay, why the hell not? that afternoon i hit the website and sure enough, there was one that had JUST opened in san marcos, fifteen minutes from the house. did all the rigmarole of the online application, uploading the resume, etc, and apparently did that part right ’cause i got three emails from the postal service in a five minute span:

1. thanks for registering
2. thanks for applying
3. your application is accepted, now go take the assessment!

i went through ’em all, and the last one said i had until august 3rd to do the assessment, which could be found and this link, this is how you register online, etc, etc. i had some calls to return, figured it would be long, so i couldn’t get to it right then – so i set a reminder on my phone on the third so i could get it done in time. it was online – how hard could it be?

well, with all the car drama this week i ALMOST spaced it – but the reminder went off on monday and as i had no way to be anywhere else, i was a captive audience. had some internet issues, but finally got online around 6:00 or so with plenty of time to spare. six hours till the deadline – what fucking test would take me six hours?

it was 150 question and had a running timer that updated every screen and gave you an hour and a half to finish it…i did it in under twenty minutes (this is pretty standard for me) – but then i got the shocker email:

congratulations on completing the online assessment successfully! now click to set up an appointment at ONE OF OUR TESTING CENTERS to complete the assessment process…

what the fuck?

it had NEVER said anything about having to go anywhere in person and do something in addition to the online stuff. not that i would have a problem showing my face, but it turns out that with this extra hurdle i was now facing a tradition of the federal government – running contradictions. two rules applied to the “testing center phase”:

1. as it was part of the “assessment process”, it didn’t move out my deadline – things still had to be completed by 11:59:59pm on august 3rd…and i was reading this at 6:30pm on august 3rd (not sure of the seconds), but i was pretty sure the testing center was closed.

2. the software was programmed (and told you) that you had to schedule your testing center portion no fewer than forty-eight hours from getting the email saying you could.

so i had to wait forty-eight hours to complete a task that had to be completed in five and a half hours. you don’t need to have passed physics to see the issue with this – in non-governmental terms, i was fucked.

the next day i went to see if another position had posted, but it hadn’t. there was one in another town about thirty miles away, but it closed out the day i applied. it still LET me apply, but no assessment email ever came my way, just a “thanks for applying…we’ll let you know” email. then in the middle of the night i got this:

Thank you for participating in the assessment process for employment at USPS.
Unfortunately, your current rating on the exam required for this position is “”, which makes you ineligible for this position. Therefore, you will not receive further
consideration for this vacancy. You may reapply for a vacancy that has this same
exam requirement after the retest date, .

this confused me – i copied and pasted it STRAIGHT from the email so you can see it shows my rating for the position was supposed to be “” – and in blank. nada. nothing. so, doing the assessment at all is what fucked me? or not doing it? i remember taking an i.q. test that said it had 500 questions, but it was actually just 100 question repeated five times – and part of your score was determined by how soon after question 100 you just said, “fuck all this” and stopped.

perhaps this is something similar?

any way you look at it, maybe i’m just not cut out for government work…