Examining

It certainly sounded like a job in which I could prove my intelligence. Checking high school exam papers would not only give me the mental stimulation I needed, but provide that next step in the career ladder.

With several other temps including Becca and another Australian girl Terry, who was a teacher back home, I found myself working with permanent staff and, for the first time, temps from England.

Excited about my new temporary job I arrived for work smartly dressed. Something corporate, I thought, and wore my smartest pants, blouse and blazer. Tempted to put a pencil behind my ear to complete the exam-marker look and exude a sense of learnedness, I resisted, not wanting to make the other exam markers feel inadequate.

After shuffling into a large room, we sat at tables arranged in a U-shape where I discovered what marking exams really meant.

Exams were multiple choice. We had to mark exam papers by looking at a student’s answer sheet, making sure all questions had an A, B, C or D selected. If the students hadn’t used a pencil dark enough for the scanner to register, we had to darken the pencil line; once each exam sheet was complete they needed to be scanned. We also made sure students had not selected two answers for one question; if this was the case, we had to erase one choice leaving one answer. The most questionable part of the job was if a student had not selected an answer we randomly selected one on their behalf therefore giving them a marginally higher chance of getting into Oxford or Cambridge University, but if we were feeling less generous, we selected the “no answer” box.

I don’t know what happened, but not all of us were required to “mark” multiple choice sheets. Someone needed to scan the exam sheets.

Just like in school, I felt singled out for talking too much by teachers who seemed to forget it takes two people to have a conversation. It could have been I was struggling with the menial task of using an eraser and pencil sharpener and because within five minutes I had chewed the top off my pencil and started to eat the pencil lead and shavings. But I became the designated scanner.

Escorted to another room, I fed an ancient-looking scanner pages of multiple choice exam papers. After finishing a pile, in another area I sorted the exams by alphabetical order with the help of a permanent staff member. I was watched, I suppose in case I hadn’t learnt the alphabet.

In this new area I noticed that other permanent staff tasked with the same job as me – alphabetising exam papers – had been chosen because, like me, they were special.

I found myself in the room with a greasy-haired slightly overweight woman in her mid-forties wearing a cat t-shirt who probably lived in supported living; an unusually tall and slightly overweight man with big features who carried a satchel and probably had a tumour on his pituitary gland; and a young thin guy with a twitch who stared at everyone with suspicion.

These were my co-workers. People I would have to make friends with because they were in my class this year.

The one normal woman – a kind of teacher or minder who watched over us to make sure we knew B came after A – also taught me that one sheet of paper goes on top of another to form a pile.

Just like at school, Becca and I had been put in separate groups and punished for having fun because the system doesn’t like productive workers who enjoy themselves.

Every break time, Becca, Terry and I reconvened at a vending machine where we dared each other to buy the soup.

You could buy tea, coffee and hot chocolate from the vending machine which we purchased and drank, but in all our time lingering not once had we seen anyone buy a soup.

And so we would have variations on the same conversation.

“Vegetable is a flavour enjoyed by all,” I would suggest. “I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t buy it.”

“But then,” Becca would say, “soup is a winter option.”

We all nodded. It was November, not quite winter in England.

“But it feels like winter,” Terry suggested and laughed.

It was practically winter compared to Australian and New Zealand autumns.

We would peer at the faded vegetable soup label next to the selection button and try peer pressure.

“Go on Becca, just try one. Don’t you want to be cool?” I would say.

“I am cool,” Becca would say, throwing her head back and closing her eyes in a manner communicating her perception of cool.

One day Terry considered buying the soup. “I wonder how old it is?”

It was a tantalising question with an answer we would never know. The three of us stood back, lost in thought considering the soup’s age. It was something we desperately wanted to know.

“It could be anywhere from ten to twenty years old,” I thought out loud.

“Maybe older,” said Becca in a tone expressing fascination and wonder.

An employee would approach the vending machine and we would stand back for them to insert coins and make their selections. I would will them, trying mind control techniques, to buy the soup, but invariably they bought coffee.

“Why do they even have the soup in there?” Terry would think out loud.

“That’s valuable retail space for coffee,” I would say.

First, Terry got a teaching job and left, then Becca gave me the sad news: a big-name finance firm had hired her and I was left to believe I was seeing my future self in my co-workers when I saw the greasy-haired lady pick cat fur off her top. I liked cats and was running out of money. Soon I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy the basics like shampoo.

Becca and I kept in touch. Trying to make me feel better, she expressed how having a real job managing people meant she had to practice self-restraint: no more silly immature outbursts. I felt sorry for Becca and better about my giggling indulgences along with my failings. Becca had to remove fun from her personality to be successful, but then Becca was always a professional.

Months later, a scandal appeared in the newspapers. The company contracted to mark exams was being investigated: mistakes had been made and deadlines not met. Becca and I giggled over a coffee from behind high-street sunglasses and wondered if it had anything to do with the incompetent staff.