the first day
After the driving test on Saturday, I called my new office and let them know that I had passed, and asked when I should report. The woman on the phone was welcoming and told me to show up at 10am on Monday. Monday, December 23 – two days before Christmas.
No one wants to deal with a new employee two days before Christmas. Especially when you’re working for the post office. I’m sure they weren’t *that* happy to see me. Needless to say, it’s not my fault I was told to report on that very day, and no one should treat me as such. For the most part they didn’t. But there were some detectable looks. Glances at my on-the-job trainer, as if to share with him their pain. “Poor guy has to train some chick when we have (holding up hands) THIS MUCH mail!”
Yeah, I saw you guys.
It got off to a rocky start. The trainer made a crack about a certain religion. A crack about a religion. Two days before Christmas, training a new person, whose personal beliefs you know absolutely nothing about, and you make an off-color comment about a religion. And wouldn’t you know it – it’s the one *I* believe in. It couldn’t be a crack about cults, or about stupid people, both of which I’m sure many of you categorize people like me who actually show up for weekly church gatherings, no – it just had to be about Catholics. Thanks.
As soon as it came out of his mouth, my eyes dropped to the floor. My face turned bright red, as I was really truly insulted. Hurt. Let me try and explain. Pretend you have a child. You love your child. Your kid may be funny looking, or have some kind of physical disability, but you’re his parent, and you don’t care. You love him no matter what. And then someone talks about him in front of you. Someone who doesn’t realize that’s *your* kid. That’s how it hurt.
He looked at me and asked, “You’re not . . . (dramatic pause, where I could imagine him actually holding up his fingers in hex-like cross configuration) Catholic, are you?”
Uneasily I answered, “Yeah. I am.”
It was a long day. Too bad I really want this job.
Filed under money making | Comments OffThe Driving Test
So like I said, that test was the big hurdle I was worrying about. On Thursday, I learned that my driving test was scheduled for Saturday morning. At 6:30. Yeah, I didn’t think they would schedule a driving test that early in the morning either. But they did. The worst part was that the last day of classroom training was Thursday, so I had to sit at home on Friday, worrying my ass off about the driving test. Since I hadn’t taken said test yet, I was useless at my new office, so I was told to hold off on calling my new office until after I knew that I had passed the test.
Friday night I got to bed nice and early. Nervous as I was, I knew I’d be no good out there with not enough sleep. Of course, it wasn’t like I had to drive all day long, or deliver any mail or anything, but it was scheduled to be a full four hours long, and I really didnt know what to expect.
I woke up early. Five AM early. Me and no one else in our entire apartment complex. It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and people have better things to do than to wake up at FIVE AM. Like sleep. I loaded up on coffee and headed out the door.
Got there a little early knowing the instructor was one of those guys who shows up early for everything, and hoping that he’d start the test early so that I could go home early. No such luck there.
The sun wasn’t up, so he wasn’t in a rush to get out to the truck. Of course they should have thought about that when they scheduled the darn test. But no, that would involve too much thought. Or perhaps they just wanted to get the testing done with early. There were two tests scheduled that day: mine, which was to last until 10:30, and another new inductee (if that’s what you call it), who was due to begin his test at 11:00am.
We got all the paperwork out of the way and headed off in the direction of the trucks. I had to drive two different vehicles for my test – my station has a couple of different types of delivery trucks, so I’m required to be certified to drive both types.
Of course the testing part of the lot is at the completely opposite end of the building entrance. So we treck it out to the testing area, only to find that there was only one truck there. Being that I didn’t know those were our testing trucks, I didn’t understand the instructor when he stopped in his tracks and sighed, “Shit.”
“What?” I asked.
“There should be two trucks here.”
“Oh.”
It’s now 6:45 and we head back accross the lot, back to warmth and phones. He makes a couple of calls and finds that our truck has been borrowed for maintenance. Uh. Don’t these people check before carting away training trucks? Apparently not.
Someone towed it back to where we were and we got on with the test.
I’ve always wanted to drive a postal truck. Tell me you’ve never wondered what it’s like to drive a right hand vehicle on the right side of the street. Yeah, you’re jealous, I know. It’s ok, though. It’s not that exciting.
I swerved into the wrong side of the street a couple of times. I parked where I shouldn’t have parked (you aren’t supposed to back into stalls situated in front of day-cares when there are open stalls at the far end of a parking lot – stalls that you can front-end into, and drive straight forward out of.) I forgot to turn on a blinker when driving inside a parking lot (I thought that one was a bit nitpicky myself) and I neglected to use a merging lane that I turned left into. It wasn’t marked. I turned straight into the driving lane when I should have used the invisible merging one.
It’s okay, though. As dumb as I think some of those were, I passed the test!
Now I just have to make it to March 15, when my probation ends.
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