This is obviously not the one Nuclear Mom saw outside her UF classroom
UF did not prepare me for everything. It didn’t prepare me for the snowy conditions in which I would eventually live. I did encounter freezing temperatures at UF. I remember one day there was a squirrel frozen to death on a tree just outside my Modern Physics classroom window – I might not have been paying attention during class that day, I hope I didn’t miss anything of quantum importance! (That really nerdy joke made my husband laugh pretty hard. Wow! The things you learn about your spouse while writing a blog!)
UF also did not prepare me for the evaluations I would be subjected to during my interviews for a job as a Nuclear Engineer. As I am writing this, I am beginning to wonder if others were actually subjected to similar evaluations? Should I be admitting that I was evaluated. They told me it was a perfectly normal part of the interview process. Was there something particular about me that required the evaluations (maybe I’m just getting a little paranoid)? What if someone is reading this and knows that they only use those evaluations for ‘special’ candidates? (Great, now I’m obviously delusional because I think someone might be reading this.)
When interviewing for a position as a Nuclear Engineer, I was subjected to multiple tests to determine my fitness for duty. These tests are advertised as being used to identify suitable candidates for high risk public safety positions such as nuclear power plant workers (although I think they are better used to identify Girl Scout leaders best suited for making large amounts of gelatin dessert!) The tests were psychological diagnostic exams (and I know that wasn’t in any course description I had at UF, maybe they covered that during football games – I knew I should have gone to more than one game.) Curiously, my husband (also a Nuclear Engineer in case you missed it the other three hundred times I mentioned it in previous blogs) was never subjected to these exams. That is one of the problems with marrying a Nuclear Engineer; there’s constant competition and comparison (but it is usually over who is the funniest, not over who got psychologically evaluated the most). I am sure I took those exams at least three times (for three different interviews) – I hope they don’t compare my answers to my answers to my answers.
Some of the questions included: Would you like the work of a florist?, Would you like the work of a librarian? (Should I have been taking a hint that the nuclear industry wasn’t a viable employment option?), Would you like the work of a park ranger? (I don’t have anything against park rangers, but I personally don’t like bugs and I couldn’t identify poison ivy if it were growing up my leg – don’t tell my Girl Scouts, though, they think I know everything.). Other questions included: Do you like tall women? (I myself am tall, so I always wondered if they meant did I like myself?), Do you like mannish women? (My husband asked me if it was intended to mean women from the Isle of Man? – of course not, then it would be Manx women.) How are the answers to any of these questions going to help determine if I am a suitable candidate for employment as a Nuclear Engineer?
The hardest question for me was: Who was the better president – George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Seriously, does everything have to be a competition? If I had to choose, well, let’s see, Lincoln had that very cool beard and hat. And Washington had that whole cherry tree, telling the truth thing. Sure, one of them freed the slaves and one of them helped defeat the British and won independence for our country, but neither one of them was an advocate for nuclear power, so how could I possibly choose between the two of them? (Thinking back, I probably gave a different answer every time I took the exam.)
The only question on those exams that I truly understood was the one about whistling. It asked, “Do you like to whistle while you work?” If I were living with Snow White and my six brothers and working in a coal mine, I might enjoy whistling, but normally I find whistling highly irritating (there’s probably something somebody could read into that). Recently, I heard a whistler and I blurted out my standard saying “Whistling is for psychopaths!” before I realized that it was the pastor’s wife who was whistling in the sanctuary prior to Wednesday evening orchestra rehearsal. That’s when I blurted out “Yikes!” (meaning UF didn’t prepare me for that situation either!)
