This makes four now. This time it's a requirement of a job I'm applying for. Yes, I know I'm retired. Funny as it may seem, the new job will involve driving too, me and my own car. It will also be part time, and on an irregular schedule. Did I mention the pay is lousy?
And yet....
I'm enduring training right now. I put it that way because it's very frustrating. It's done online. I have to access a website for it, log in as me plus a special password, and wait... and wait... and wait... and give up in frustration.
I can't just go take a paper test, after listening to somebody for half an hour or more for each segment, and test for comprehension. Except that's what the training is, just done via videos so everybody gets the same information, then check off the correct answer(s) to the questions to prove you were awake. Some are true-false, some multiple choice and pick the best one, others offer lots of choices and you check all that apply. If I can ever get to the video part, I'm golden. The problem is locating the video. Everything is a link about 45 characters long, starting each try from an email they send you, which takes you to an explanation of what your task is next, just click on the embedded link for the video. If I read the broad view instructions correctly, there's an expectation the total takes 8 hours.You just have to wait to complete the link. And wait.
You get a white screen with three dancing black dots, letting you know you haven't gotten access yet. You are told it takes 90 seconds to connect. I usually give up after 15 minutes. It got so bad that I decided it must be because my laptop is too crowded with stuff, just like it was a year ago, preventing me from upgrading my software for a couple years. Really. So I attacked it two ways. First, I went in last night and spent a couple hours deleting bad photos. It needed to be done anyway, just a bit labor intensive at a time when I wanted to get through another couple sections of the videos. About 400 were deleted. Lots of room.
But that didn't do it. So I did much the same thing with You Tube TV. I've built up a huge library of shows, and it suddenly went totally out of control with Olympics. Take Gymnastics. About 30 hours of stuff just for the women: team, individual all around, individual per apparatus. Same for men. Then they put trampoline in there, men's and women's. For all I know there are other sub-categories for trampoline but I got bored quickly. Then they put the performances in extended viewing formats for prime time, single out medal winning performances into their own segment which can each somehow stretch into 7 minutes for 45 seconds of muscle and grace. Oh, and don't forget the back stories. How many tines do you need to know Suni Lee came back after two, count 'em two, kidney diseases, and see the same clips of her struggling and falling off the bar? Sure, she's a hero and amazing. But really, how many times? I bet she's sick of it by now too.
In a week, even after selecting what I wished to watch and deleting things I didn't, my library sat with almost 600 events in it. There's a whole 'nother week coming. I'd delete something and next time I turned my laptop on, the same thing would be busy downloading again, sometimes 4 selections at the exact time, along with teaser reruns of favorite regular programs which never managed to show up in my library to see later unless I picked one to watch live, and even then it vanished as soon as I watched it.
So, lots of work to clear out my data load, and still impossible to access the video I really needed to view and interact with. Or the next, or next. Yesterday's introductory training sessions were no problem for some unknown reason. This morning I managed to access one in this section... at 4 AM. Yes, I was up, and totally flabbergasted when it worked. Of course, as soon as I finished that one, and tried to load the next one... black dancing dots again. AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!
I finally stopped in at the office which is in charge of the training and hiring, on my way home from my fingerprinting appointment. That was also weird because no ink pad was used, but a screen they rolled my digits over and got smeared fingerprint results because the guy rolling my fingers always managed to lift them off the screen with a bit of motion. Three copies each of thumb, 4 fingers together, single fingers in sequence, then other hand. Then repeat because the screen didn't like the results. Another three tries of all of it.
The office was on my way back. I popped in and had a discussion with the woman who is in charge of things like seeing that we do our tests and go through the rest of the job requirements. I explained my issues. She insisted it wasn't that my data capacity was over full. According to her, I was using the wrong browser. They don't tell you at any time during your training, but it works if you use the "right" browser. Firefox isn't it. Safari is worse. One must use the browser it was designed for: Google Chrome.
I'm thinking about using it. Not sure I want it on my laptop. Don't know exactly how to get it there, but I expect if I googled Google Chrome I'd find out. But will they tell me how to remove it? You know, after training's done? If I don't like it or want more privacy (how do I tell?) or something? Or do I go into this office, or the library, neither of which use Apple, and go through hours of "Oh, it's so easy you won't know it's not an Apple," when I've had the experience that lets me know better?
I'm thinking.....
I expect you want to know what all this is in aid of. Why go back to work? I have been asked to. The position is a PCA, or Personal Care Attendant. Much of what I will be doing is taking this person to doctor's appointments or to other places they cannot get to, and other times just keeping this person company, checking in if you will. I already do some of that, especially the driving to appointments. I've been asked to do it on a more formal basis, and by going through the training I can get paid enough to more than cover the cost of the gas.
There's just this training thing.......
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