Lead Test

Once again, all licensed and accredited members of the Jones family have taken and passed the state test for Pb Supervisors. We maintain our rights to legally be present in containment fields for lead-based-paint remediation projects.

We've done this a few times now, and the day always begins with us riding an hour in the car quizzing each other on such arcane facts as "What's the PF for a half-face-negative-pressure respirator?" (It's 10, by the way. I have at last found a reasonable use for my steel-trap-memory-for-useless-and-arcane-trivia: I can pass tests using it.) I actually find this kind of fun. It's the first test I've actually been relaxed for, since I already had no trouble with the class test and I passed fine last time.

Relaxed doesn't always mean anything, though. There were things that popped up on the test that left me scratching my head and thinking, "I'm pretty sure I knew this before...but what on Earth is it talking about?"

Such as the question "When is the best time for a Supervisor to review the scope of work on a lead abatement project?"

It was question #1. I sat there and thought, "I'm in big trouble. I knew I should've studied more. Maybe being relaxed wasn't such a good sign after all."

Turned out it was one of seven questions that had me really stumped without a guess at first glance. It was just coincidence it happened to be #1.

You know what I figured out while taking this test, though? A little insight into how my memory works. I don't look at a question and literally ask myself, "What's the answer?" I look at it and test out what comes into my head first. Usually it's kind of a random picture. For instance, on a question about occurrence-based insurance (which I haven't thought about in the three years since last taking this test), the first picture that came through my head was one of a whiteboard with a long green line drawn on it and the labels "1980", "1990", and "2000".

It was an illustration our first teacher drew on the board to explain how occurrence-based insurance worked and why insurance companies aren't thrilled to offer it to lead-abatement contractors. That picture gave me the correct multiple-choice answer, because somehow that picture is linked in my head to the right answer.

Thing is, it's not something that popped out at any point in the last week between our refresher course and the reading I've done. I haven't even looked at insurance stuff. But that picture was filed away in my memory with a hyperlink to the correct knowledge I needed to answer the question. And I've got millions of those little hyperlinks stored in there. Apparently, my brain creates triggers with a lot of odd parameters, which is why I can remember all kinds of weird little tidbits (like the infamous Indian earwax) and completely blank out telephone numbers. I haven't yet learned the right keywords to bring back telephone numbers I guess.

Maybe next year.