O Ye of Little Faith

I have always hated proctoring in the main testing room (the "big room") at the Testing Center. I avoid it if at all possible. I happily sign up to proctor the Music Room and stamp the incoming tests for the day, but secretly hope no one will notice the absence of my name in the Big Room column. I just feel like I am such a bad proctor; I never catch anyone doing anything bad, I can never find out whose cellphone went off, and I can't muster up the courage to confront anyone about a questionable circumstance.

But today, the Big Room was unavoidable. When we opened at 10, no one had signed up to proctor, so Katie, our supervisor, was calling people out and asking them to go proctor. How can one say no to the supervisor? My sneaking around, "forgetting" to sign the board had failed.

So I walk into the testing room. Within 5 minutes I find a guy who's using scratch paper from yesterday. Though it didn't seem he was cheating, I thought I was pretty awesome for catching it. Then, 5 minutes later, I spot a guy get up from a seat and go find another seat. Fishy by definition. The guy is looking pretty intensely at the girl next to him's test as he took the new seat, so I casually walk over between them and lo and behold, they are taking the same test. A religion one, no less.

As I walk back trying to get a good angle to see where dude man is looking (his baseball hat hides a lot), another student stops me and says, "I've got a better view of that one." As it was apparent he did, and it would be hard for me to maneuver into seeing him better, I asked the guy to tell me if he saw anything. "I'm saying, I've already seen it." Um, could this cheat-catching be any more easy for me?

I go back to the front, talk to the supervisor, and we send in another employee to see the boy cheating. "By the mouth of two or more witnesses shall the truth be made known"... even at the Testing Center, yo. The other employee was in there for max 30 seconds and then came back out, claiming it was the most obvious thing he's ever seen. Since I'm wearing the nametag, it's my job to go in there and gather the guy's test materials and escort him to the supervisor. I always pictured myself being so scared and nervous in confronting someone like that... but I guess because everyone knew what he was doing, especially himself, I wasn't worried.

After cheat-man was in the custody (that makes it sound like such a bad crime, hahaha) of Katie, I went back into the Big Room to conclude my proctoring shift. Let me tell you, I felt like the biggest, best proctor that ever lived. I felt like Master Champion Cheater-Catcher (even though I didn't really do anything. And then, as icing on the cake, someone's cellphone went off not 5 minutes later... and I was standing one row over from her. I have *never* been able to tell who the cellphone culprit was. This was fate.

So I don't know why Heavenly Father felt the need to boost my Testing-Center-self-esteem, but I'm glad He did. Today at work was one of the best days I can remember working there, and I've realized it's all in the attitude. I was so much more positive and happy after feeling confident I was doing good at my job. Thanks for such a great lesson, Father.

P.S. As like, icing on top of the icing on the cake, Katie said my report I filled out on the incident was so good, and it read like a story. Score one for writing skills.