After Training Class

Episode 6

On the last night of training, we had our written test. It was in five sections and it took almost nine hours for us to complete the exam. The one test that took the longest was the city code test with nearly eight hundred city codes on it. After we handed in our test we were instructed to stay in the classroom.

Our instructors had plenty of extra help that night to grade exams. We had to get an eighty-five percent in order to pass training. Because of my degree, I scored relatively high on the exam with a ninety-three percent. There were ten of our classmates who failed the exam and washed out of training. With our training complete the next night we had our graduation party and presented our certificates of achievement.

While I was fascinated and enamored by the industry, I still had a lot to learn and Continental would be a very rough teacher. Most companies you go to work for and if you show up five minutes late no big deal. But in the airline industry, that five minutes is time that had to covered by someone else. Case in point, we were allowed twelve attendance points a year. If I called into work sick for one day, then that was two points. If I called in for three days, that was six points. Any tardy of five minutes was one point.