PTEC & The Elusive GED

I got an unexpected call from PTEC this morning (that’s the Pinellas Technical Education Center, Pinellas County, Florida). I’d contacted them about a month ago about taking an online class to prepare for the GED test. Then I’d largely forgotten about it. But a lady called this morning inviting me to take a pre-test to see how much general information I know. Personally, I think it’s bizarre that you have to take a test in person to qualify to be able study online to take a test that you’ll have to take in person, but there you go.
I guess they want to figure out if I can read and write. The woman actually said something about determining my reading level. Hehe. Okay, so I know that most of the people who take GED tests are not exactly the best and brightest among us. Usually they’re the people who barely noticed that they were even in school back in the day, who didn’t pay enough attention to learn anything. Not people like me who were bored with school because they were being held back by tyrannical school administrators. Come on. I was invited to join Mensa in 1992, for Christ’s sake, but I spent my last three or four years in school in remedial classes because the administrators wouldn’t let me take the harder classes?
Since I touched on that subject, I’d like to take the opportunity to wish the staff and administrators of Kings Mountain Junior and Senior High Schools during the early 1980’s an express trip straight to Hell; especially Mssrs McRae and Froneberger, who individually and collectively earned my personal, eternal enmity.
Anyway …
I’m going to go to Clearwater tomorrow morning to take that test and register for the online GED classes. My lack of a diploma or GED has caused me a lot of problems. Which is strange, really, considering that I have a CDL and drove a tractor-trailer for eight years without anyone ever asking me for either. I could drive a 40 ton loaded vehicle, pull hazardous materials, and deliver and pick up at the nation’s sea ports. Now no one believes I can pick my nose without supervision. Of course, I’m in an entirely different situation now. Thanks to that last corrupt cop and bogus speeding ticket, I can’t drive a truck anymore. Not that I really want to. But now that I’m job hunting, it’s quickly becoming apparent that you can’t flip burgers at fucking McDonald’s without a high school diploma. Not that a GED or diploma means an awful lot, but I think employers figure that if you have one of those, you’re most likely not a total idiot.
Personally, I don’t think having either of those means you’re not an idiot. But there you go. At least it’s a basic certification that you did something in your school life other than tell fart jokes and draw pornographic pictures.
I look forward to doing this GED thing. It’s way overdue. I’ve been threatening to since 1992, when I last signed up for a GED class. Maybe once I have that damned piece of paper I can get a decent job.
Hell, I might even finished that correspondence course that I started back in 2003 (I still have an active account there and can still take my final exams, even though my last submitted exam was completed in October, 2004). Not that I want to be an auto mechanic, exactly. I’d just like to finish something for once.