One Thousand Words Per Minute

I grew up in the generation where , when kids turned eighteen years old, they weree expected to obediently leave their parent's house and go find a job, something place else to live, and a life. To say this was a horrifying situation for me is to say that pig is pork. I had never cooked, never had a job, never even baby sat, never even touched raw meat. I couldn't manage a cash register or even a ruler. The one thing I could do, because I had taken one typing class, was type. That's it.

The year I took typing was one of the year's when girls were instructed NOT to take typing, because all they might end up with was a secretarial job. The reason I took typing when all my friends did NOT take typing was that my father thought I would be an absolutly wonderful secretary. Oh! The places a SECRETARY might go!

"Just THINK of all the wonderful things a secretary can do!" my father would rhapsodize. "Why, they can meet the general public, they can meet mighty smart people, they can answer phones....and they can TYPE! And so can YOU! And iIf you can TYPE, you're ALL SET!" I don't know why, but my parents never thought it might be a good idea for me to go to college. I think they thought maybe I just wouldn't be able to "make it". Little did they know that the more higher-level thinking I could do, would be practically the ONLY thing in the world I COULD do.

My first interview was with the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. I was eighteen, fresh out of high school. I took a test, passed it, got an interview with a big man with sticky-out eyebrows, and did my very best at convincing him that I, who knew nothing about anything but reading books and playing piano by ear, should work at his establishment. Finally the question came. The key question. The one I had been waiting for.

"Do you type?" the man asked. "I can," I answered. "And approximately how many words can you type per minute?" the eyebrow-man asked. I looked him dead in the eye and said, "One thousand." His head gave a little shudder. "ONE THOUSAND?" he said, "is that an approximate number?" "One thousand." I said again. Firmly. Resolutly. I sat there, hands in my lap, just staring at him in the eyes. I must have scared him because I don't for a moment think I convinced him. But I got the job. One week later I was a key pumch operator for the Supply Department. I wasn't lying when I said "one thousand", I simply hadn't bothered figuring it out. But the amount of words I could type was a big number, I knew that. And one thousand words per minute was a big number. So. I should be hired.

I told this story to a friend the other day and he laughed. Then he laughed some more. He said that the more he tried to think of typing one thousand words in reality, as if it could actually be done, the more hilarious the entire situation was for him. He figured out the numbers - how many words I'd be typing per second if I - or anyone else - could type one thousand words per minute. He couldn't fit them all in. His face and neck turned red. He covered his mouth with his hand and laughed. Then he took his hand away and sputtered all over the table. I laughed too, because I guessed it must have been funny. He said even Bach couldn't type like that.

So I just have this to say to all job applicants - be clear about what you mean and what you say. Be friendly, be determined and plunk yourself down into that interview-chair as if you are a chunk of dead weight that will never be able to be removed unless they give you the job. If you answer something in a ridiculous way, stick to it. Don't apologize. Just look 'em in the eye and dare them to disagree or make fun of you or oppose you. It's not lying I'm talking here, because I wasn't lying. It's simply a kind of voracious plan of Self-Attitude that takes stands up for itself so firmly that nobody dare dispute you. It can be done. I have done it many, many times in my life. And it can help in places other than the interview situation, it ca help in the market place. In the strawberry fields. As a parent.
Believe in yourself enough to snag that "whatever-you-want" attitude. Then just sit there and wait for them to crumple first.