Testing the water

It has been almost 2 years since I last donned my power suit and walked in my 3” pumps. I did just that this morning (thank God I could still fit into them!) – just for the sake of sitting for a written test. Yes, you read it right the first time, I sat for a written test!

About a month ago I came across a job advertisement that I felt was too good to pass – a middle management position at one of the country’s biggest conglomerates and best of all the office is so conveniently located not so far from my housing estate. I wanted to ‘test the water’ hence I wrote in to apply for the job. Guess what...I made the first cut (despite the fact that I’ve been on a break for almost 2 years...wohooo! Saham ahkak masih laku u’ols) and they called me in to sit for a written test.

This is where it gets interesting. The test comprised of 3 sections – an essay (in English of course), translation (English to BM) and another translation (BM to English) and all these had to be completed in exactly an hour. I felt like I was sitting for my English test all over again.

I completed the English-BM translation almost effortlessly (although writing with paper & pen really made the job more testing that it already was. I wish they had allowed us to employ computer instead, it’d definitely make writing a lot less painful) then I moved on to the BM to English translation. This is where I choked! There were so many BM words in the speech (the text was taken from an actual speech) that I never knew existed. To make matters worse, the words that I didn’t know were the key point of the speech! Thus, in a gist, I translated the text completely and almost entirely out of context...wahahaha. I’m 70% sure that I failed this part terribly. Having spent too much time on this particular section naturally left me with little time for the English essay part. So, the writer in me didn’t get a chance to realize its full potential (tolong bagi laluan untuk ahkak perasan sekejap ya hihihi)...sigh!

In all honestly, I’m actually not expecting much. My goal was to test the water. Let’s see whether I’d make through the second cut. But frankly, I doubt that I would after the translation blunder hahaha...

I say never take your mother tongue for granted and assume you know everything. I scored A1 for my BM paper in SPM, yet today, I can’t even write a decent letter in BM. What telah happened?