Computer training

It is a cold and blustery day. Stephen the Dog sits high above the world looking down on a gleaming sliver of ice. The crowd goes silent as he lowers his goggles over his eyes. A cold icy wind tears at his goggles as he beings to hurtle down the track.

Stephen accelerates faster and faster until he is nothing but a blur of black and while screaming down the track toward the finish. The stoic, unrelenting clock his only competition. Suddenly a grey object darts by. Damn squirrels.

I was thinking the other day about my career. While I do get paid to write about things on the internet it does not pay that well. I need to get ahead. I have been driving around with my A in the truck a lot and have been hearing commercials for computertraining.com. They claim in only 6 months they can get me a job in IT earning up to $75,000 a year as a Microsoft certified systems engineer. That sounds pretty cool. They even have an online skills assessment test.

On Saturday I logged in and took the test. The test is all about computers but really it was pretty easy. I did not actually read the questions and answered them all with option D. D is for Dog right ? My A says I got 5 out of 20 right. I guess that is really not that good. Sure I could have gotten them all right but I wanted to see what would happen if I did not do great.

Well today I found out. I got an email from B at Computer training saying I did not score high enough to get in. However I do have the opportunity to take the exam again. I think I am going to ask my A for help this time. It does not say anything about outside help.

I guess it is good that they will not let me in with a 5/20. However I am going to try harder next time and I think I will be able to do better. I really think the lack of opposable thumbs held me back on the exam. Who am I kidding the exam is ridiculously easy. Any idiot can pass it. Really the is no time limit and it is about simple computer things. Umm you need a computer to take the exam and you can check all the answers with you computer while you are taking the exam. How do you shutdown a windows computer Hmm I don’t know it is certainly not option B drop computer in the bathtub.

Well I am off to retake the exam. Man $75k per year is going to be sweet. Hopefully my Bobsled career will take off and I won’t need it but my A says I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. With $75K/yr maybe I can but my own TV so I won’t have to read the bottle in the recycling bin during “Alone time”




Dear Stephen:Thank you for taking our online skills exam. You have not scored 70% orbetter on the exam. The 70% is a minimum score that would qualify youfor a visit to one of campuses. During this visit you would have theopportunity to visit a live class and attend an informational meeting tolearn more about Microsoft certifications and the opportunities theycreate for starting a new career in the information technology field.We realize that you may have been at work or simply short of time when you visited our website and took this exam. Enclosed in this email youwill find a link which will take you to another exam where you canre-test your skills to see if you can qualify for this visit. Pleaseallow yourself plenty of time to take the exam because it will be yourlast opportunity.When you are ready to retake the Skills Challenge, please click the