Small Word

A few weeks ago, I wrote here about how I started walking in laughing. Today, I ended up walking out laughing. The day started normal enough with a few orders. Not long after the day began, I received an email from my boss informing me that I needed to take a required e-learning course on hazardous materials. Every year we have to take these same lessons over again and I have arrived at the point of just going through the motions without paying much attention to the material. There is always a short quiz at the end to see how well you know the material. I wasn't worried. There would be no problems since I have taken them so many times before.

Wrong.

One of the quizzes had 4 questions on it. I breezed through the first 3 questions and passed them with flying colors and was ready to conquer the last one and finish this hindrance to my day. The question was easy enough. It was testing me on the three ways of gaining exposure to a hazardous material. Simple, I said. Inhalation. Ingestion. Absorption.

I read the question as choosing the three correct answers, leaving the incorrect answer blank. So I clicked on the first one (Inhalation). Immediately, the question was finished and told me in no uncertain terms that I had missed it. WHAT???? How can that be??? Of course, inhalation is a valid means of being exposed to a chemical. There is obviously a glitch in the program for this question.

Upon speaking to my manager, he said he would take care of it and called the proper people. I went on with my day knowing that I could return to that particular section to retake the quiz and finish the module. After lunch, I retried it with the same result...TWICE!!! So I again told my boss, and he told me to call PC help. With a quizzical look in my eyes, I said OK and proceeded to do just that. After talking with the help maven, I was still coming across the same problem. She then asked to connect to my computer and she went through the quiz with me. After answering the same question for a fifth or sixth time the same way, she pointed out to me a little word I was missing. Do you know what the word was???

NOT

Yes! That little word was a thorn in my flesh all day long! I was reading the question as I was supposed to choose the 3 ways of exposure when I was really supposed to choose the single way of not being exposed.

Well, I felt like an absolute idiot! Here I am ranting each and every day about people not following instructions or not reading the words in front of them or for just being plain dumb when I follow right in their footsteps over an ever so small, but extremely important, word!! Of course, when I actually understood the question for what it really was, I answered it correctly and passed the exam and the course. I then, somewhat sheepishly, thanked the maven and went about my merry way. When my manager asked what the problem was, I evasively answered that it was because I couldn't read correctly and dropped the subject. His response was a very slow roll of the eyes.

What more can one do after such a huge blunder?? Laugh. And laugh is what I did. Not a guffaw that would awaken the curiosity of my fellow co-workers. No! Never! More like a internal chuckle that wouldn't end because of the absolutely inane problem I had with my grasp of the English language. Oh well, I guess we all have those moments in time and today was certainly mine.

Here's hoping this moment won't make a return visit to me for a very, very long time.