Typing Story

Well, Belle got a bit freaked about the typing test meme going around, and I don't blame her. I, too, remember hearing that about all I could be expected to do was to type, nurse, or teach. If it weren't for my mom and her constant "You can do anything you decide you want to do," I might have believed that crap, too. But I don't.

However, Belle's post made me remember how I learned to type, so I thought I would post that story here. And then I'm going to go retake that typing test, BECAUSE I KNOW I CAN TYPE FASTER THAN THAT, DAMMIT.

I was married to my first (and very bad) husband -- it just occurs to me that he might be reading this, and that actually makes me smile! -- and was working as a department secretary in a graduate school in southern California. No I won't tell you which one, but it was in a religious phase of my ex-spouse's and also of my life. If that helps.

Anyhoo, there I was working as a secretary, and every faculty member in my department did his or her own work on his or her own computer. I had a computer, too -- in fact, it was this computer:

So there I was, working all day long, with very little to do except answering the telephone, and this computer to keep me company. So I decided to learn to type. I got a textbook, and did some practice exercises out of it, just to get the hang of where my fingers should go on the keys, etc. Once I had that down, and it was mostly about speed, I got my hands on an interesting book that I wanted to read and copied it. The whole thing. I still wasn't very fast, but I wasn't bored any more and I got to read a good book.

When I found another position in this school that I wanted to apply for, and I tried to use my department office manager as a reference, she told my prospective new hirer that I was "not a self-starter." Ha. Shows what she knew.

Anyway, I was only there for a year, and then I went and got myself a teaching job and never looked back.

Which brings us full circle back to those voices, you know, the ones that said I could type, teach, or be a nurse? Yes, I became a teacher. But I was a damn good one, people. And now I'm a professor (almost with tenure). So HA to those voices.

And I got a little faster:

81 words

free Touch typing