Tales of the Weird

So I’ve decided to add a new category. I think I’ll title it “Tales of the Weird”, but for some reason I suspect simply “Jane Stories” would be more accurate. As such, I’ll start this category off with a brief introduction to Jane.

For those not in the know, Jane is one of Amanda’s co-workers over at State Farm corporate in Bloomington. Anyway, Jane is a weird little critter that should have been fired long ago, but somehow due to the ineptitude present in corporate America, continues to be paid to occupy space.

She was originally an actuarial student like Amanda is currently, but was surprisingly tossed out of the program eventually. You see, until they’ve passed the requisite number of actuarial exams, you aren’t considered a certified actuary. As a result, companies have “actuarial students” who do actuarial work but are in the process of taking the grueling actuarial exams offered every 6 months. State Farm has a policy for how it handles the fact that most people don’t pass an exam their first time out. Basically, they will pay for everything on the first attempt and progressively less for each attempt after up to 3 attempts. According to their company guidelines, there will be no more than 3 attempts. If a student fails to pass an exam within 3 attempts while working at State Farm, they will be tossed out of the student program and become a lowly tech (ie mindless data entry and such).

To cut a long story short (too late), Jane took one test like 5 times (keep in mind this was exam 3 of 8, and the first two only cover basic calculus and such). Her boss then decided that maybe she just had a mental block and would regain her confidence if she could go pass one of the later exams. So she took the next one a few times and repeatedly failed. After it had long become clear that there was no chance in hell she could ever pass these introductory exams (and the later ones are much harder), they finally kicked her out of the student program. What a surprise that day was.

Anyway, if that’s all there was to Jane, then that would be one thing. There’d be nothing interesting for me to write about here other than she’s not cut out to be an actuary. That’s certainly not interesting, because a lot of us aren’t cut out for that, and it’s by no means a reason to fire her. I would certainly not be writing about someone who simply failed in their chosen career. Oh no, there’s much more. You see, Jane is an utter loon. She has the inter-personal skills of a brick and tends to sway between somewhat annoying to downright disturbing.

This category will largely focus on her quirky behavior… just as soon as I can remember some of the stories Amanda has shared with me.