CEPA

Today is Saturday but I'm at work. Our college gives a test called CEPA (Common Educational Proficiency Assessment) and I have to got to work twice on Saturday, my day off, to proctor this exam. In exchange for being required to come into work for half a day on two of our days off, we get two unofficial days off in the summer. At worst, a person can expect half a day of walking around a room with 16 test takers making sure that they don't cheat. At best, you can expect to sit in a room waiting in case one of the invigilators needs to go to the bathroom. Guess which I'm doing today.

For both of the days, April 17th and today, I was scheduled to sit in a room, drink coffee, chat with co-workers, read a newspaper and screw around on the internet on my laptop. On the 17th, I got called out to take over a testing room because one of the head invigilators called in sick. I went from expecting to just hang out to having to make sure that the papers were collected correctly and that no cheating went on. I didn't mind so much because at least it was easy.

This time around, I was scheduled to cover again and took precautions to have something to do so I looked busy. Namely, I brought my laptop into the room. I was surprised at the amount of whining that went into having to sit in a room, relax, and read, do some work, or play around on the internet. My biggest complaint was that the wireless internet connection was a little spotty. As for other people, I heard "Why do they need so many people to cover?" "Can I go to my desk and you call me if you need me?" "Why can't we just go home?" I wanted to tell people to quit complaining or next time they might just put more people in the exam rooms next time just to shut us up. While having to be at work at 8:00 am on your day off is no treat, you'd think that adults would be able to sit in a room for three hours and keep themselves entertained without complaining about it.