The Failed Typing Test

 

 She stood at the door, dressed in a tweed skirt and a black blouse. Her hair was tied back. Although she was in her mid twenties, she had the aura of an old woman. "I'm looking for a job," she said.

This was the early 70s. I was doing a short stint as a recruitment manager for secretarial help.

During the interview, she told me her family didn't want her to work, but she had secretly been learning how to type. Never once did she meet my eyes, finding her fingers nestled in her lap, the focus of everything around her. "I disobeyed them once and went to Hawaii. It was the biggest mistake of my life."

There were so many things I wanted to ask her about why her family didn't want her to work. Why was her trip to Hawaii a mistake? What was making her secretly trying to learn to type? 

I didn't. Instead, I suggested the required typing test.

She barely scored 35 words a minute, an improvement on her third try.

There was no way I could place her. Her demeanor would have made all our clients reject her even if typing wasn't involved. 

"I suggest you continue learning how to type," I told her. "Then come back." 

I wanted to give her hope, although I knew there was little.

I wanted to tell her to escape her family, seek counseling, feed that tiny spark of rebellion, but I didn't. 

She left and never came back. Over the decades, I've wondered what happened to her when I see a young woman dressed in black or a young woman almost defeated by their life. 

I imagined how I could have "saved" her by taking her home and building her confidence no matter how impossible that would have been.

I'll never know.