The Early Days

 I've given myself the assignment of writing 500 words, at least, every day. Since my life doesn't have 500 words in it each day, this is liable to make this blog pretty boring. You have been warned.
I retired from the phone company, which, here, was Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. (at first) in 2009. As a matter of fact it was about two weeks before the stock market bottomed out. I had worked at Ma Bell for about 29 years. The round number of 30 years had no meaning, in my case, as my retirement was the same no matter what, as long as I was old enough and had enough service--which I did.
I started there in 1980, therefore. A friend told me I should apply for a job as either a clerk or an operator and I would stand a good chance of getting hired because of Affirmative Action, which in its fine print recognized something called "non-traditional jobs," which meant that as a white male, I should go to the head of the line so that more men could be operators or clerks. This worked, especially since I passed a typing test that required I type more than 50 words per minute, and do so relatively error-free. Since not too many men could do that, apparently, I was hired in a couple of weeks, as a matter of fact.
The plan was to hire on, as I did, and then after the obligatory two-year period had passed, submit a request to something called the Placement Bureau for a transfer to the job that I really wanted, which was either installer or repair technician. That's what I had in mind, but there were lots of technical, or "craft," jobs in the company to choose from. The trick was to think of one that was needing people in my area.
I put my transfer in but nothing came up. They were doing no hiring in the departments I wanted into. I continued clerking--I worked at the Employment Office either filing, or answering the phones, or standing at the front desk handing out applications to people who wandered in (very busy back then) or administering tests to people who were actually being considered for hire.
For every job category, there was a specific test applicants must pass in order to be hired into it. The tests were theoretically applicable to the job duties.  There was an "Operator/Clerical" test for either of those jobs that tested some language abilities as well as math abilities, as well as one weird section testing one's ability to follow instructions and then make marks on a graph with some degree of accuracy. There was a "Craft" test, for the jobs I wanted, meant to determine if you could perform math and English problems with a little bit more complexity, as well as demonstrate some spatial relationships understanding--that was the classic one with the pictures of boxes with patterns all over them, then several "unfolded" boxes (sort of like a hopscotch layout) with patterns that may or may not match the regular boxes, which you had to identify. Not sure how that applied to the job, but I suppose it helped weed out applicants with no mechanical aptitude whatsoever.
There were more tests--five or six, in all.
So, administering these tests was the fun part of the job. We all took turns on different weeks.  Testing was done three days a week, a few times a day, with groups ranging in size from 15 or so to maybe 30. It was an interesting experience being in charge of such large groups (relatively speaking!) and moving them to a testing room on the next floor up, and then seating everyone and giving instructions, and everything else that testing entailed. It was a good learning experience for me.  I was very hesitant and shy at first, which DOES NOT WORK in a setting like that, and I learned to be a little more assertive and, most importantly, learned how to communicate in general terms and still make sense.
Imagine, say, thirty people whose names you have all called, and they are all standing up in the smallish employment office seating area, and they are all trying to be on their best behavior, they want to impress, and they want of course to pass this test they are about to take.  They are nervous. I am a twenty-nine year old man wearing "business casual" clothing, (though not real good stuff, as I was only making $168.00 a week) and I must move this pulsating, amoeba-like collection of people into the elevator lobby, into two elevator cars (at least) and make sure they arrive at the 2nd floor, which was very important since the building had 13 floors and these people weren't employees and should not be wandering around without supervision! From the elevator lobby on the second floor, I have to direct the group down a hall and into a room, which looks very much like a classroom, with desks in rows, and two long table at the front.
But here I am with all these people and the first few times I had to do this, it was very awkward, very halting and no doubt very confusing to the group of applicants. Then, one day, I was walking toward the elevators after leaving the employment office, this crowd behind me, walking slowly to match my speed, and I stopped and turned around. And they all stopped, too! In that instant I understood that it was, in fact, very easy to control them to the degree I needed to.  At that moment, I was important--I was how they were going to get hired.  I just had to tell them what we were going to do, then do it, wash, rinse, repeat. From then on, for weeks, months, after, I learned to speak loudly, clearly, and with confidence, and at some point just before I transferred out of that job, I was told that among all the testers, and I was one of a group of about six or seven of us, MY groups always got higher scores, on average, for that whole time. Since I wasn't helping them cheat, this told me that I was just better at giving tests, putting people at ease, and communicating clearly with them. I was sort of proud of that.