How School Prepares Us For Life

Today, I retained my job with the U.S. Census. Ordinarily, this would not be something of note, but yesterday I was informed that I might be FIRED FROM MY FEDERAL JOB.

It’s worth noting that if you get fired from a federal job such as the U.S. Census, it can be very difficult for you to ever get another one. Certain employers may not be too happy about it, either.

I wasn’t, though, because my boss stood up for me – *his* boss was all ready to fire me or at least demand my resignation, though, so we know it’s serious. My crime? I filled out a Census questionaire with a pen rather than a no. 2 pencil. It was the absolute FIRST questionaire I filled out, too, right after I was done with the weeklong training. I felt pretty silly about it, of course, but my boss’s assistant (who was observing me) said she didn’t think it would be much of a problem. I only found out yesterday that it might be a problem at all.

This seems rather silly to me, but I guess I don’t mind. I’d much rather be forgiving than bitter or angry, and people are coming from different places in their lives where this may seem a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Water under the bridge and all that, even if I just crossed the bridge and had several limbs bitten by passing sharks.

Now, I was homeschooled, so the only time I really spent in public school was for the periodic achievement tests and for the SATs. That said, I recall they were very clear that we had to use a no. 2 pencil to fill out the answer sheets. I was never entirely clear as to whether the pencils I had brought in with me were number two or not, as they usually weren’t labeled, but I guess they must’ve been or I would probably have been fired from education too. Clearly, all of that was preparing me for a nice career working for the decennial U.S. Census.

The pay is nice, but the earned leave is outstanding.