So yesterday I had my psych test at "Hellotown".  The test was the usual 400 or so statements of "Sometimes I want to scream" or "I often feel down" and you pick "Strongly Agree" or "Somewhat agree" or whatever.  After that there was a test where you had to figure out patterns and then pick what would come next in the pattern.  I finished the tests rather quickly.  There was another applicant in there with me, I think he was on test #2 as I finished the final and 4th test.

    Today I had my psych test for "Littleville".  I had to be on the other side of Atlanta at 8:30am this morning.  I left at 5:50am and made it on time.  I figured that drive must be part of my test.  The first part of the test was handwritten.  We had to complete very open ended sentences that seemed almost like a ’set up’ to make you say something bad about yourself.  You know, something like "I really loose my temper when …." and you have to complete it.

    After that we took some computer administered tests.  There were four total and I know most of them had 300 to 400 questions.  We also had to re-fill out all our information from our applications.  Everything we’ve filled out a hundred times already.  No big deal though, I’m sure they’re just looking for consistency.

The computer tests were the usual "Somewhat agree" etc. questions.  Except the one test that was problem solving and puzzles.  And it was insane.  Math, puzzles, patterns, etc.  I did pretty well I thought.  Nothing really stumped me to the point that I was ‘guessing’.  And we were not expected to finish all 60 questions in 12 minutes.  But I got to #54 before time ran out.  It was quite a challenge and I enjoyed it.

After all that we had to go one at a time to see the psychologist.  She would go over our answers on the psych exams and ask us to elaborate.  I was brutally honest, which led to a lot of questioning or clarifications in the interview.  I started getting worried when I realized just how many of my answers threw up ‘flags’.  But as I elaborated on them, I think she realized that I was just being completely honest.  For example I answered yes to "Have you ever threatened another person with physical harm".  Now to them, they are thinking assault.  To me, I thought "Well if I am being completely honest here, then yes, I threaten to spank my daughter, and it didn’t say Except disciplining your children".  So once I elaborated on the questions she realized I was just being so honest, that it actually seemed worse than it was.  Another example "Have you ever broken a law and not been discovered".  Of course I answered yes, seeing as everyone breaks the speed limit at least a little bit all the time.

But the day ended better than it started.  I left there just as nervous as I had arrived.  Had I screwed up?  Was my dream department about to disqualify me?  The lady I deal with at the department told me the Major would let me know his answer either today or most likely tomorrow.

I contacted Hellotown and let them know exactly what was going on.  They said they appreciated my honesty and understood why I’d pick Littleville over a smaller department.  They asked that I just let them know what Littleville says, as they’d like to hire me, but don’t want to be left empty.  I promised I would have them an answer by tomorrow.

Within minutes though, the Major called me from Littleville.  He asked if I could be in tomorrow morning for some firing range time, iron out some details, and then have the mayor swear me in!

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!