-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com
So I'm between jobs and I get a call from a staffing agency about a tech support helpdesk job. It sounds all right, pays reasonably well and it is on the Kansas side so the taxes are easy. It also turns out that the guy who will decide whether or not I get hired is an old acquaintance of mine from college who remembers me as really tall and a good computer guy.
The staffing agency informs me that in order to make sure I get the job I'm going to have to take some basic tests, a "phone etiquette" test a stunned badger could pass, and a 10-key typing test. They send me the information and I get on the testing website.
Then it turns out that the testing website, for some reason, uses some sort of proprietary Windows web software to do all its testing. IE isn't the problem because FireFox on Windows is supported. Since I went all-Linux a few months ago, I didn't have any way to take the test myself on any of my own computers. I finally had to convince my wife to stop playing Morrowind for an hour (not an easy task) so I could use her Windows PC.
I suppose the thing I find irritating about this is that industry leaders (excepting Microsoft, of course) use platform independent testing software. Cisco in particular used testing software on its Academy website which worked great for me in Firefox on Debian Linux. Is it really that much more cost-effective to use Windows-dependent testing software on a website?
Ask THEM for an application and tell them your apply for a position to make their testing platform independent.
If you have access to one, I would also want to try their software/site, on a Mac. Too many people don't get why standards, are !