“‘Cause I’m 0 to 60 in 3.5
Baby, you got the keys
Now shut up and drive” –Rihanna, “Shut Up and Drive”

I’ve heard of treating real-life tasks like a video game, but this is ridiculous.

For the past week and a half or so, I’ve been training at my new job. The training mainly involves an evaluation called the P-Box and driving laps on Rough Road. P-Box stands for “performance box“, which is a small electronic device that is suction-cupped to the lower corner of the windshield. It uses GPS signal data and a digital display to show your vehicle’s actual speed. You insert a SD card in the bottom of it to record the driving data. Rough Road, as I’ve mentioned before, is the only part of the testing roads that my coworkers and I drive on. It’s basically a 3 km long loop with curves and HUGE potholes in it. It has one lane marking going all the way directly down the center of the road and you’re supposed to keep the vehicle centered over this line. There are speed limit signs posted in each section to let you know what speed to go–the fastest speed on the track is 100 km/h (about 62 mph). In order to pass the P-Box eval, you have to drive 3 consecutive laps and hit the speeds in each section as exact as possible. You’re graded on how steady your speed control is, with the maximum score being 99. The margin of error is +1 km/h over, -5 km/h under. Anything more than that and you instantly fail the lap. You have to do 3 laps in two different types of vehicles: a sedan and a minivan.

It took me 3 days to pass it in the sedan. If you’ve ever driven a Toyota Camry, then you know how sensitive the gas pedal can be. It’s almost impossible to keep it at a steady speed. It was even more difficult for me, since I had to wear my steel toe shoes while driving it. After every run, I’d go back to the garage, hand the SD card to my supervisor, and he’d insert it into his laptop, run it through the P-Box software, and show me my score. In addition to your score, the P-Box program also shows an outline of your drive and lays it over the ideal drive, so my supervisor would use this to show me exactly where I lost points and what I need to work on. At first, it was demoralizing, because on the screen that displays your score, it shows either PASS in green letters or FAIL in red letters. I swear, I must have seen the word fail about 20 times before I finally passed (low to mid 80s each lap).

Eventually, I moved on to the minivan. Everyone kept telling me the minivan would be much easier. It was NOT easier for me…at least, not at first. I spent most of last week attempting it and failing every time. The hardest part of the test in general is keeping the vehicle at a steady speed over a road that belongs in a Middle Eastern warzone. And with a margin of error of +1 and -5, I was sweating bullets every time the speed got close to either extreme.

Anyway, today I passed. I did 2 runs of 3 laps and scored mid to high 80s on both runs. When I got back to the conference room, my supervisor B. ran my data through the P-Box program and showed me my score, then emailed the results to my boss R. who was also in the room. R. put the score up on his monitor and pointed out where I needed to improve. There was also a technician/trainer from the contract company in the room (named T.) who had been glancing at my P-Box results since the beginning and giving me advice here and there. He saw my results from today and said “Okay, now it’s time to improve on your score.” My brain being completely fried, I said “I don’t really have to improve, do I? I passed, that should be enough.” He said “Yeah, you did pass and you did great. But there’s always room for improvement, right?” I said, “I guess. But if I already passed, I think doing laps over and over to try and get a better score is redundant. I got high 80s both times in the minivan and I only had to do it once. I really don’t think doing it again is going to improve anything.” He then went on to explain how, when driving a test vehicle, driving Rough Road repeatedly can lead to exhaustion and whatnot and how if your max is low 80s then you could possibly sink into driving not as accurately and blah blah blah (I basically tuned him out by this point). After whatever the fuck he said, he ended by saying, “So, how do you feel about it?” and I said “I think I’m doing fine now, but my opinion clearly doesn’t matter, so…” He apologized and said “I’m sorry you feel that way” which was fucking bullshit, but whatever. It was about 2:30 and R. eventually said he wanted me to go back out again. I clearly looked exasperated by the whole thing because T. eventually said “Look, we’re not asking you to drive laps over and over again” and I laughed and said “R. literally just said that!” After a few minutes of going back and forth about improving on my scores, T. left the room and R. said “Since you don’t want to go back out, you can go home early. You probably won’t be needed tomorrow, since we won’t have access to the minivan (our team shares the van with the Operations department at the proving grounds). I’ll let you know if we need you Wednesday.” I then gathered my things and left.

Well…at least stuff is happening at work now. I guess I’m gonna have to get used to people judging the shit out of my driving. It’s not like I’m being singled out or anything, though. Apparently everybody has to do a P-Box test at least once a month, so my coworkers are gonna have their driving judged too. I still hate it, though. I need to find something that I like about this job so I don’t feel so terrible going to work every morning. But right now, I have nothing. Hopefully it’ll get better.

Thanks for reading.

Song of the Day: Lupe Fiasco – Kick, Push

Just a rebel, looking for a place to be.