Chapter 99: Aptitudes

Saturday, March 19, 1983

We got up around eight-thirty, had breakfast, showered, and got ready to go. I’d done this before, of course, but I couldn’t have named the test nor the organization. As it turns out, it was ‘Personal Optimization Services,’ and the tests included the ‘General Aptitude Test Battery,’ a federally-developed test that many organizations had latched onto. They also had several proprietary in-house tests. Plus, of course, they claimed their counselors were better than the average, and they were likely correct.

Dad surprised me (well, all of us) by offering to drive. I think he’d gone over what I’d said and decided it made more sense to drive.

That put Paige and Angie in the front seat, with Mom, Jas, and me in the back. Angie was a little surprised, but seemed happy about it.

Dad drove Angie’s land yacht with slightly exaggerated caution. “I’m not sure how you kids do this,” he said, driving down Memorial. “This feels like I’m filling the entire lane!”

“It’s not that bad, Dad,” Angie said. “I bet that, if you measure it, this car is only a few inches wider than yours.”

“It sure feels much bigger!”

This time, Paige was the first to be picked up. She was waiting by the curb when we got there, which deprived Angie of the chance to update her. She seemed surprised by the seating arrangements, and even more surprised when Angie took her hand. Nothing else — no declaration or anything — but I’m pretty sure Paige realized right away that the cat was out of the bag, and that it was really okay.

I met Jasmine at the door. “Hi, boyfriend,” she said, hugging and kissing me.

I kissed right back, hugging her. “Hi, girlfriend.”

“Missed you last night!”

“Missed you, too!”

“Yes, but I bet you had a hot blonde in your bed. I didn’t.”

“I did, but her charms belong to another.”

“Who shares!”

“True enough, but not with me.”

“Yet.”

“Perhaps.”

“Yet!” she said, grinning.

We walked to the car, and I helped her in. She also seemed surprised by the seating arrangements, and gave me an elbow as she was getting her seat belt on. I was pretty sure it translated to ‘You could have warned me!’ I just shrugged and smiled.

We chatted on the way, Dad asking about impressions of each school. Unsurprisingly to me, but maybe a bit surprisingly for the others (particularly Paige), he seemed to know a fair bit about each of them. I’d guessed he’d read up on them specifically for moments like this.

He’d taken some classes (not college classes, but adult-education business courses) at A&M and liked it, though he remembered it as a school of perhaps fifteen thousand students, not thirty-five thousand. That doubling makes a big difference for colleges. There are far more schools with around fifteen thousand students than over thirty.

I knew he’d support us wherever we went, but I was pretty sure he was sympathetic to the argument that we’d be well-served going to a state school for undergraduate studies before possibly turning to something more expensive for graduate school.

Dad parked in the nearly empty parking lot of an office building and we headed in, quickly locating the offices of Personal Optimization Services, Inc. We entered and the receptionist looked up.

“You must be the Marshall group.”

Dad stepped forward. “We are. This is my son, Steve, and daughter, Angie, and their friends Jasmine Nguyen and Paige Seiler.”

“I’ve got you all down. Someone will be here to get you momentarily.”

Momentarily was right. I could see a man in a suit coming toward us already.

“Hello, Mr. Marshall and family. I’m Danny Keller, and I’ll be helping you today, along with three other associates.”

Three people came down the hall. “This is Maggie Danforth, Kelly Podhoretz, and Dave Ullman.”

Each of them nodded as their name was called.

“We try not to keep people waiting, so each of you will work with one of us, though of course we’re happy to switch or provide second opinions if you’d like. Shall we get started?”

Everyone nodded. Mr. Keller led us down the hall to a room obviously configured for testing. Each small table (larger than a school desk! But still small) had a single chair. Test booklets, answer sheets, and pencils were already in place.

“This isn’t a test you can cheat on, so don’t cheat!” he said, smiling.

We all laughed a little.

“Seriously, this is intended to find your aptitudes. Your answers will vary, and that’s fine. We expect that. No one fails — that’s not even a meaningful thing to think about. Just relax, answer the questions the way you think best, and let us worry about the results.”

Everyone nodded again. I’m not entirely sure that his presentation was the right way to approach our group, what with at least three of us battling some form of Impostor Syndrome. I thought we all had it under control, but it’s never really gone. Saying you can’t fail on a test is tailor-made to get an inner voice whispering, ‘Ahh, but you could fail it! You could prove that you’re not good at anything!’

Little risk of that, but the inner voice isn’t interested in reality.

He sat down and got us started. There were twenty sub-tests in all. Many of them were timed, and the timing was tight. We were told not to work ahead, but we all knew that scattering random answers on timed tests if one was running out of time was a good strategy, if there wasn’t a penalty for wrong answers, which there likely wasn’t here.

The great majority of Memorial students were good test-takers. We’d been taking standardized tests for years, specifically with the goal of knocking the PSAT and SAT out of the park when we finally took them. We knew most of the common tricks and plenty of less common ones. We’d score high almost no matter what.

The thing is, most smart people probably knew a fair number of them, too. That meant we’d probably get ‘smart person’ career recommendations, which was pretty much right. There’s enough variety there that they’d still likely be personal and valuable recommendations.

We plowed through the tests, smiling or making faces at each other in between. No talking; none of us felt right talking during a test like this. Not all of the tests were pencil and paper. One required us to assemble and disassemble things, while another required manipulating objects. One of the pencil and paper tests involved making specific marks rather than filling in bubbles.

After we’d finished the last test, he smiled and said, “We just need to scan these, and then we’ll be meeting with you. Individually, as we said, and your results are your own. You can share them or not as you see fit.”

Paige, surprisingly or not, leapt in. “I don’t care who hears mine.”

Jas nodded. “Me, neither.”

Ang and I looked at each other. “Well, I don’t care,” she said.

“And neither do I.”

He chuckled. “That makes things easier. We’ll still meet with you individually, though.”

“Fine by me,” Paige said.

We went back to the waiting room. Mom and Dad were waiting.

“Done so soon?” Mom said.

“That felt like it took a while,” Angie said.

“It’s the focus,” Paige said. “We really haven’t been here that long, but we just lost ourselves in the tests.”

I nodded. “Same reason some of our tests at school feel like they go on all day.”

Angie giggled. “They do! Some of those trig exams take a week!”

We compared notes a bit, but there were so many questions. We all chuckled a bit at the dexterity tests. I imagined we’d all scored high, but I knew plenty of smart people who might’ve had some difficulty with those.

After a bit, the four of them came out, each holding a file.

“Angie?” Mr. Keller said.

She smiled, got up, and they headed off. I got Mr. Ullman (no surprise that I’d get a guy, considering) and we headed off to his office.

“Please have a seat,” he said, smiling, after we shook hands.

I did, and so did he.

“You’re an unusual group,” he said. “Mostly, when we get teenagers, it’s because their parents don’t know what to do with them. Unmotivated, seeming to struggle at everything, things like that. From what your father said, that does not seem to be an issue here.”

I chuckled. “Nope, not at all. I’d say we’re pretty motivated.”

“I like that. Makes the job more interesting. Our biggest category are people who are applying for a specialty where there’s a lot of training investment and employers are worried about a hire not working out, either because they’re not qualified or because they’re too qualified.”

I nodded. “Boredom, perhaps, or someone who quickly gets a better offer from another organization once they have experience.”

“Exactly. Now, there are a lot of smart people who excel in what many might consider boring jobs, but usually it’s either because they find interest in it, or because it comes so easy that they can put in their time without undue stress and find fulfillment elsewhere.”

“That makes sense. Some people want to work a set schedule on things they can do well, then go home and not think at all about work until the next work-day.”

“I take it you wouldn’t like that?”

“Hard to tell,” I said, smiling. “I’ve never tried it. My work comes home. It’s part of the job.”

He chuckled. “Good point! But, then, I’d expect that. Okay, let’s look at the numbers,” he said, handing over a sheet of paper.

I quickly scanned it. Nine categories. I wasn’t sure what the scale was, but most of the numbers were comparable. Either the scale varied, or I was dinged a few points in the clerical and dexterity sections. But, only a few points.

“You scored very highly. I’m doubting that’s a surprise.”

“It’s not, but I know some people who I think would score well and might be surprised.”

“That’s another category we get — people who want someone to tell them if the thing they want to do is within their abilities. Usually, when someone’s looking for that, the answer is ‘yes.’”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Anyway ... with your scores, nearly anything that doesn’t require college — I mean, really require it, rather than just a piece of paper with any degree on it — would be a poor fit. The major exceptions would be entrepreneurial, where it’s possible to simply go out and start a business without a degree and prosper, technical fields where one can self-educate to a high level, or something like art, where — again — self-education can be a path to success.”

“I’m not aiming for art. As for the others, I can see that, but college is very much the plan.”

“And graduate school, if the field fits with that — which nearly all of them do.”

“Yes, almost certainly.”

“Good. We’re on the same page there. Now, getting into specifics...”

He dug through things. I had exactly the same problem as first-go-round me had — I was good enough at nearly anything to make it hard to pick one. The numbers said I could be an MD or a philosopher, a chemist or an accountant, a businessman or an English major. We went through some of them, weeding and narrowing things down. Hard sciences? Likely out. Pure liberal arts? Also likely out. That left us with business, engineering, political science, and a number of other fields that were already my top guesses.

He cautioned me, as had the first go-round counselor (who could have been Mr. Ullman, or Mr. Keller, for all I could remember) not to take a job where I’d sit by myself in a room. He was pretty certain that my social scores were too high.

This time, I actually listened. It wasn’t that I’d fail, which is what first-life me thought I’d been told. That was just plain wrong; I’d proven so by taking jobs that left me sitting by myself. No, what he was saying was that I’d lack engagement. I could do the work, but I wouldn’t love the job, and that would make trouble, sooner or later. I’d start slacking off too much, reading or (in later years) surfing the web, or whatever, and my productivity would fall.

That, I could agree with, and it was an important point. I wasn’t really suited to being the guy in the ivory tower, off researching things in-depth and issuing my findings. I needed an engaging job within an engaging team.

After about half an hour, I thanked him for his time, he thanked me for being interesting and challenging, and we headed back out.

Angie was already there, and Jas appeared as I was sitting down. Paige took another ten minutes to appear. When she did, she was smiling broadly, which had to be a good sign.

Mr. Keller sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting area, looking at all of us.

“I’ve shared some of your results with the Marshalls, but not all of them. Please feel free to share what you want, but always remember — these are your lives. We’re trying to help you make an informed decision, nothing more. I’ve seen people who should be stellar at something fail simply because someone pressured them to do it, instead of their deciding on it naturally. I’ve also seen too many people get pressured into something they’re fairly good at, instead of following their hearts and doing something they’re great at.”