Doh!

I had another interview and another round of testing for a public library job today. The interview went okay - it was one of these where I wasn't entirely sure I was giving the right answers but maybe I was. The questions were weird and it was seriously the most structured interview ever. I work better with a little less structure. But it could have gone well. Hey, they only interviewed six out of 70 of the test-takers and I was one of the six so I feel like I already won.

Then came the testing for a different job but in the same library system, where I had a brain freeze which might result in me not getting an interview. One of the questions was "What is the name of the sixth book in the Harry Potter series?" Umm, I have actually read the Harry Potter books but I'm sorry to say that I am not a fanatic and do not remember the order of the book titles. I put Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix which I am PROUD to say is the title of... the fifth book. Oops. Close. But, hey, at least I didn't put "Harry Potter & are you seriously asking me this?" which I was tempted to put.

THEN, I had to "name three authors (currently popular) in various genres": mystery, romance, science fiction/fantasy, horror and western. Umm, again with the currently popular crap... That was on the last test too. I've been a graduate student for the last two years so I have no idea what is currently popular - this evidenced by the fact that I'm a book behind on the Harry Potter series. Ha ha.

So, anyway, mystery was easy for me, romance a little harder (I came up with two and then really struggled to think of a third when finally duh, Danielle Steel finally came into my head. She's only written about 800 books.) I went with old stand-bys for horror, hoping that these writers (Stephen King, John Saul and Dean Koontz) are still writing and therefore "currently popular", and then all I had left was science fiction and western.

Science fiction/fantasy: I was totally stumped. Umm, yes, I have dated at least six guys who are total sci-fi nerds. TOTAL fanatics and yes, even lived with one for years who read the same books over and over and over again, yet I could not come up with the name of any authors. None. Terry Brooks popped into my head eventually so there was one. After some struggle, I thought of Terry Pratchett, but I wasn't even sure if he wrote sci-fi or if that was my imagination. (Turns out he does.) I could NOT think of a third. I kind of thought of like 8 or 10 but kind of doesn't count when you don't remember their names!! Finally, I put down Isaac Asimov since I caught about 12 seconds of I Robot on cable the other night. Asimov is a sci-fi author but I doubt he would be classified as "currently popular." We'll see I guess. Who I wanted to put down was Robert Jordan, since I actually met him, but "that guy I met with the bushy beard who writes like one book every four years" probably wouldn't have cut it.

Western: Umm, are there even three authors who write westerns? Because I don't think there are. I put the obvious Louis L'Amour and then was like, umm, who else? I was desperately picturing that guy who won the Oscar for writing the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain, but could not for the life of me think of his name. (Larry McMurtry). I so wish I could have thought of him - or had the balls to write "the guy who won the Oscar for best screenplay for Brokeback Mountain." Instead, I settled for Annie Proulx who wrote the short story "Brokeback Mountain" and is so totally not a Western writer. And for the third name, I put Tony Hillerman, who I know damn well is a mystery writer but I was pretty sure his books take place in the west so I went with it.

Boy did that suck! These questions are ridiculous. The remaining 8 questions on the test were at least more like interview questions: "Explain what customer service means to you." "Tell me about your customer service experience." "Tell me about a time you made a mistake on the job and how you corrected that." I feel like I can bullshit my way with those kinds of questions, probably because there are no right or wrong answers staring me in the face.

Anyway, bottom line: I feel stupid and I have more waiting ahead of me. They told me to expect a couple week wait after the interview and I know it will probably be at least a week before I hear if my score on the test qualifies me for an interview.