judecorp | Clarification of Suckage

judecorp

I don't think I was incredibly clear in my description of suckage. Let me try again.

So I mailed my application materials to the State of Massachusetts on March 28th. Massachusetts is one of those states that requires you to apply before you can register for the test, because they require pre-authorization. Control freaks. (In Ohio, any yahoo can take a licensing exam if s/he wants to pay the 175 smackers.)

Massachusetts takes about two weeks to process an application. On April 10th, I received a packet from the state. In it were all of my application materials, unprocessed. All because I sent a personal check instead of a money order.

In case you don't have a calendar handy, April 10th was a Saturday. I received my stuff around 3:00pm, well after the post office was closed. We got a money order, bundled everything up again, and left it in the mailbox for Monday's mail. The 12th.

Insert two more weeks of processing here. My new packet from the state arrives on April 24th. I receive it on April 26th, due to March. I immediately go to the ASWB (Association of Social Worker Boards) website to register for the exam, and pay the $175.

The next day, I receive e-mail stating that my registration has been processed. I call the ASWB to ask how I register for an exam. They tell me I will be getting an authorization letter.

I figure it takes a couple of days. *bzzzzt* Wrong-o.

I read through the fine print and see a tiny note stating that the ASWB does not allow you to register for an exam until 14 days AFTER your payment has been processed. My payment was processed on April 27th. 14 days later is May 11th.

I don't believe it's possible to call and schedule an exam for, say, the day after you are able to call. The booklet says one must "plan ahead."

Did I mention that the ASWB is changing their entire test format and content? Yes. As of May 17th.

Just shoot me now.

Hopefully the job I want I want I want will not be incredibly turned off by the fact that I will not be licensed by the time I leave Ohio. It is possible that I will have the exam taken by the time I leave Ohio (if I can find the time out of work to do so), but according to the Humble Literature, it takes 1-2 weeks for the "official scores" to get to the Commonwealth. And /then/ they send me another packet of stuff, this time an application for a license (yeah, the other packet was just, you know, the application to see if you're worthy to even do this crap, to the tune of $145). I then have to fill out this application, send /more/ money, and wait. Wait for processing. Wait for them to print out some sort of authorization to practice social work. Wait for said authorization to be mailed to me.

Yeah. And we'll be moving halfway across the country in all this, so WHO KNOWS where some of this stuff will be mailed to. Or when I should give an address change. Or how effed up things are going to get when they start getting forwarded from place to place.

Right now I want to go to bed for about 20 years. I don't have the energy to be at work, my head is still killing me, we have to drive 13 hours starting at oh, say, 6:30pm, and there are a million things to do before then. And it's raining.

The only up-side is that I scheduled a third job interview yesterday, for a research position that doesn't require a license at all. The cost? My first scheduled job interview called at 5:30pm yesterday to say they hired someone else. I was temporarily up to 3 job interviews, now back to 2. And no license in sight.