No Linux for Online Job Testing

[Leo Mauler]

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?


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