Convention Center means crowd!

Today was the test for the city of LA. Now, the letter said that due to the overwhelming number of applications they received, the test date and location had been changed. In my experience, most government testing facilities can only hold 100 people or so, sometimes 200. The county of LA has access to a room that can hold 200 or so. My guess is that the city is the same way, so I figured they must have gotten more response than they can accommodate, but I had no idea how much more until this morning.

15,000 people to be tested today and tomorrow and maybe some day later this week. Wow!

I learned later that my mom had talked to the some of the workers running the test and found out that there were 3000 people scheduled to take it this morning, but only about half showed up. So that's why the line kept going and going and going and going when I was trying to find the end! I bet more than half showed up, I'm guessing there were probably 1700 or 2000 people there. Where's the eek icon when I need it? It was crowded. I stood in line for over an hour just to be seated. The test was scheduled for 8:00, and with having to process and seat all these people, plus identification paperwork and thumb printing everyone, the test didn't actually begin until after 10.

The test was a bit harder than I was anticipating. It was 100 questions - 10 filing, 10 math (thank goodness it was only 10!), 20 about Windows, 20 customer service, 20 interpersonal skills and 20 grammar and spelling. The hard part was the customer service and interpersonal skills. Lots of what would you do questions. Some of the answers could be eliminated by common sense (ie, if you're dealing with a customer you don't pick the rude choice!), and it seemed obvious enough that you don't bug your supervisor with every problem you have. The rest were kinda judgement calls though, and that was hard. But I finished in a little over an hour and I'm expecting that I passed.

I never did see my friends unfortunately. When I saw the line, I figured they were well in front of me, and they were probably seated before I was even in line. The room was split into sections A-S with several proctors assigned to each section to facilitate things. I was in section R. They were in section C I found out later. I thought briefly about hanging around a bit after the test to wait for them to come out, but I know Anna well enough to know that she took the whole time, and my poor mom was in the car waiting for me, so I left. If I had waited a bit, I probably could have caught Zoraida though.

Last test story - Got to the convention center, found a parking space. You can't get into the test without ID for obvious reasons. I grabbed my letter, went to grab my ID, and it's nowhere in my purse like I thought it was. Uh oh. Where's my ID? Dumped out my purse, no ID. My mom started questioning me about where I had it last and we deduced it was last week when I went to EDD. Aha! It's in the envelope with my birth certificate and my appointment letter for EDD. Which I think I took in the house. So I check the backseat, the trunk, wherever just hoping it's in the car somewhere and not at home. My mom says check the glovebox. Sure enough, there's the envelope with my b/c and EDD letter, but no ID. Uh oh. Where's my ID? If it's not in that envelope, I have no idea where it is. I don't remember what it was, but I said something that tipped my mom off to look between the seats, and sure enough, there it was, right between my seat and the center drink holder/console thing. Hallelujah! I can take the test! So off goes Laurel with her letter and her ID to stand in line for over an hour. And I left my nearly full venti white chocolate mocha in the car to get cold. Sigh.