Typing

My work background for word processing is strong – I have been a word processor in various forms since I graduated college in the early 1990s. I taught myself to type in the late 1970s/early 1980s on my dad’s old TRS-80 computer, playing assorted text-driven computer games.

By the time I graduated college I was the person everyone came to for term papers to be typed up. I made a LOT of money my senior year typing papers for people. When I graduated (with my wasted Liberal Arts degree) the only thing I knew how to do was type, so I quickly got a job at an environmental firm as a word processor.

I freely admit I’m a better word processor than secretary. I don’t make any secret about it – I love working on computers and learning new softwares. For a while when I interned for the federal government during my college summers I even dabbled in the hardware aspect, “putting computers together” (read: installing hardware and software) for the Immigration & Naturalization Service.

So today I was talking with Mare-Bear about typing in general, and we both took typing tests. She said she gets nervous when taking tests, and her scores reflect it – despite the fact that I’ve WITNESSED her typing very fast (just as fast as me), she scored about 60 wpm in the test.

My scores at Typing Test?

Test name: Strategic Alliances with Competitors
Gross Speed: 91 WPM
Errors: 2 words
Net Speed: 89 WPM
Accuracy: 97%

Not too shabby! I told Mare-Bear that she should be able to come close to that, but she claims the pressure of being “tested” means she’ll never score much better than 60 wpm.