Does this make me the worst almost unemployed person ever?

Being that my current job is coming to a close, I'm working on finding another position. To put things in context, I have several prospects: possible contract work, on lists for 3 government competitions and another position that is harder to describe anonymously.

Today, I went to write a test for a government competition. You know, the kind you get invited to about 4-5 months after applying through an external competition. This job is not particularly interesting to me. The starting salary is substantially lower than the jobs for which I'm currently on lists. But, with the economy in the shitter, I figured I shouldn't count any chickens before the eggs are hatched and agreed to write the test. There were two of us at the test. We had over 3 hours to answer 3 question.

Read question 1...didn't know the answer. Would have to undergo massive BSing to fill half a page.

Read question 2...write a briefing note on a boring topic that is unrelated to any of my knowledge. Ugh...seems like a lot of work. Particularly when I've never written a briefing note and I know nothing about the topic.

Read question 3...more related to my experience, annoyingly basic.

Worked on question 3 for a couple of minutes until I decided that my heart wasn't in it and walked out. Is this the ultimate of giving up?

Actually, based on my recent experiences with government testing, I'd have to say that the tests do a pretty poor job of assessing skills. It hardly seems useful to ask very specific questions that can easily be learned within the first week of working for a department. If anything, I think the focus should be on responding to material given during (or before the test). Use that information to determine if the candidate has the capacity to quickly pick up new information relevant to the job.

A few hours later, I still feel content with having walked out of the test. But, this may just be due to purchasing a new knitting pattern and wool.


I'm glad that the ladies at Knit One Stitch Too are so helpful.

Here's a photo from Bank Street:

I like the juxtaposition of the angry sign directed toward busdrivers and the sign advertizing adult toys and lube.

Several days into the transit strike, it feels like the initial raw shock of living without buses is subsiding. One positive perspective to the bus strike that I heard was that it may, over the longterm, increase carpooling since it's forcing ride sharing. Continuing with the ride sharing post-strike will be easy, which would hopefully reduce the number of cars on the road in the longterm.