I knew as soon as I’d left our meeting that offering to do this skills test was a tactical error. He assumed I wouldn’t be able to pass it—I know with certainty I can’t. My plan, insofar as I have one, is to cheat to the best of my ability, and then hope for the best.
A wave of nausea washes over me, whether at the prospect of this quiz, or from tequila on an empty stomach, I can’t be certain. After reading through his email, I have to grip the edge of my desk and breathe.
When Connor said he’dsend it over,I thought he meant he’d email me a spreadsheet full of numbers that I would neatly color-code and send back to him. I never bargained for a third-party platform that would run me through a series of coding tasks styled as little games. I have the sinking feeling he’s outsmarted me before this skills test has even begun.
The first task is a sample, and I click through the guided instructions that show me how to complete the puzzle in front of me using bits of code.
It’s a surprisingly friendly little quiz. I’m toured through the dummy task by a charming green dinosaur named Brian. He’s holding a butterfly net. My mission is to help Brian find the butterfly. Though I’m not stupid enough to think this will be easy, the premise is simple enough.
Any hopes I harbored of cheating are dashed the second I clickstart quiz:each of these tasks is timed, my every move tracked via the progress bar running along the top of the screen. A bright blue clock in the right-hand corner counts down from five minutes. Can a clock be ominous? This one definitelyis.
Brian the dinosaur waves me good luck and then leaves me to my fate, his animated form wandering offscreen.
We cut to a screen split down the middle—on the left-hand side is a blank notepad where I’ll input the code I write, and on the right, a 2D meadow that looks suspiciously like a ’90s video game. A butterfly appears. My first task is to help it flap its wings three times to land on the lone flower in the foreground.
—
Actually, this isn’t as bad as I feared. Once the task begins, the notepad populates with all the elements you need. All I need to do is put them together. It’s like playing piano on the computer—I need to organize everything into an order that makes sense.
For task one, I’m presented with a function (“flap_wings”) and a short lesson on how to create a “loop.” The function will make the butterfly flap its wings once. I need to use the loop to make the butterfly flap its wings three times.
This is crazy simple stuff—even I can see that—yet it still takes me multiple attempts to check the puzzle. Eventually, I get it. I settleon:
for i in range(3):
flap_wings()
And like magic, the butterfly moves. Brian pops back up and saysgreat job, you got it.
The next few tasks continue in the same vein. I successfully make the butterfly land from flower to flower, each sequence becoming progressively more complicated than the last. At any stage I can press “play” to check if the sequence I’m building is doing what I want it to. Most of the time it isn’t, but I delete and adjust until I get it. If I had to come up with the code myself I’d be toast—as it is, I can barely do it by selecting from the options the assessment givesme.
Finally, Brian appears again. Any triumph I felt at seeing his little green form fades away when he cheerfully tells me it’s time to use what I’ve learned for the butterfly hunt. I’m to use the lines of code from the previous tasks to complete this onewithout any hints.
Damn you, Brian. I thought you were my friend.
From there, the quiz melts into a haze of panic, sweat rapidly pooling under my arms as I get closer and closer to running out of time.
Brian is supportive as I try and give chase to the butterfly, but his presence feels sinister to me now, like he’s spying on me, reporting my every move back to Connor, who’s upstairs somewhere, laughing evilly.
I catch up to the butterfly line by line. My final action is to bring the net down before it gets away, but I can’t do it. I can’t find a single sequence that remotely resembles what it asks. I’m going to fail this quiz.
I’m so demoralized at the realization that I’ll have to climb down off my high horse and beg Connor to give me the job thatI just stare off into space until the final ten seconds, when I type out a line of nonsense and click submit.
Brian shakes his head, forlorn, telling me what I already know: we didn’t catch the butterfly.
A colleague appears over my shoulder as theGame Overmontage rolls. “Oh wow,” he says. “It’s Brian! My kid loves this game.”
I turn back to face him. “What do you mean?”
“DinoCode,” he says, gesturing at my screen. “Such a great platform.”
“You’ve seen this before?”
“Yeah. Like I said, my kid loves it. He’s been learning to code since he was four.”
I frown at the screen, my chagrin growing. “This is…for kids?”
He looks at me like I’ve sprouted two heads. “Yeah. This is the junior game, see? It says so right there.” He is indeed correct; right along the browser bar it readsDinoCode Junior.Iswearit never said that until now. “Wait till you get to the over-10s. It’s a Stegosaurus named Julie. My daughter does it at school.”
