I've been taking a bunch of tests to qualify for a transcription job. They're not easy and I need a perfect score to pass. I finally failed one of the tests but managed to pass it on the retry.
They're really picky about their style guide. Fortunately, it basically amounts to syntax rules and I've been dealing with compilers that are equally picky about syntax for decades.
It also helps that all throughout my schooling my mother worked at the local university proofreading research scientists' papers and she insisted on proofreafing all my essays too.
I never thought I'd end up being happy about that.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • •So the cooldown period for me to re-take the exam is over. They want me to redo The. Whole. Damn. Thing.
Fine, whatever. It'll take me a few days to get through it all, but I don't expect to fail again.
Given how their style guide is now permanently burned into my brain, there's a tiny vindictive part of me that toyed with the idea of spinning up a competing service. That's probably more throuble than it's worth, though.
I see now why they're always hiring. I wonder how many people get to the prequalification exam and then just decide it's not worth it.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • •After a closer review of the style guide, I have come to realize that the question I was repeatedly getting wrong was one that wasn't even on my radar as a candidate. I misremembered a stupid trivial detail from the guide.* I was rabbit holing on the wrong two questions, one of which I still maintain can be argued to have two correct answers, but I now know which one they're looking for.
Not looking forward to sinking another ~5 hours on this thing.
* That would have had virtually zero impact on my ability to successfully do this job.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • •I passed!
Now I have to wait for them to determine whether or not they think I cheated. I didn't, but if they think I did, that's what matters. I can't see there being a reasonable appeals process for that.
🇨🇦 CleoQc 🍁🦜🧶🚐🌈
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to 🇨🇦 CleoQc 🍁🦜🧶🚐🌈 • •@🇨🇦 CleoQc 🍁🦜🧶🚐🌈 It's a legal transcription job. They do regular transcription too, but they have AI doing much of it, so they're not looking for new people there.
They're smart enough to realize that AI isn't currently sophisticated enough to properly follow the various style guides required by their legal clients. I guess they realize that if the quality of the work drops, they'll lose the contracts.
That said, I'm sure all the work I do is going to be used to try to train an AI to replace me, but that's probably true of any job at this point.