How I became a PI

Once, Dear Reader, before I was this jaded and world weary private investigator that I am today, I once had dreams and aspirations.

Hard to believe, I know.

In those heady days of unbridled optimism and thoughts of the shining and perfect future awaiting me, I was working towards a particular career path with a certain governmental agency who shall remain nameless.

Let's just say they are a bit spooky.

Anyway, this bright-eyed idealist applied for a position of  ************ ******* with said unnamed agency and, on second application, was granted an interview.

A perfect interview, as it turned out. Well, almost. I won't bore you with the details but I can assure you that I was fairly certain that this position was going to be mine. However, as the interview was winding up, I was shown into a smaller room where there was a single computer. I was told that they required I sit an online "psychometric evaluation" as part of the selection process.

 No problem, I said, and then continued to answer several hundred inane questions of the forced choice (ie true/false) variety.

Well, I left that office on an euphoric high knowing that I was in. I even had several chapters of a then unpublished book on **-***** under my arm, given to me by the interviewer (that's another story).

It certainly came as a great surprise about 4 weeks later when I received my rejection letter, worded oh-so-nicely thanking me for my time in the selection process but unfortunately not being able to go further.

What?

I mean it's not like I spent all those years at university, going on to do postgraduate studies in a particular field because this is all I wanted to do...?

Actually, that is exactly what I'd done.

Bitches!

Well, the last paragraph stated that if I was interested in the results of my psychometric evaluation, email blah@blah.com. Which, naturally, I promptly did.

And when I received the copy of the report, I saw the problem right there. In case you missed it above, the graphical summary is below...

See the problem?

No, you can't see the problem because there is no fucking problem! So what if I only scored 2% in the 'agreeable' and another 2% in the 'conforming' categories? You've heard of the phenomenon of groupthink, right? Something these particular organisations are all too susceptible to.

Well, I was the fucking solution right there!

But no, it wasn't meant to be. Some retard in HR stamped my application as 'declined' and that was the end of my illustrious career before it even began.

It was all downhill from there to where I am today.

But I'm not one to hold a grudge.