A Secretary's Revelation

Note: There's no sex or romance here, just an unusual sort of rude awakening.

*****

When Kevin Fleming tells Jenifer Vollmers, his live-in fiancé, that he plans to apply for a job at Easton Pharmacy, an East Coast drug chain, she gets very excited. Jen's been working as a secretary there for over three years, since her mid-twenties. Kevin, now thirty, eight years out of college and bored with his social worker position for the state, is looking for a job in private industry, possibly in management, and Easton has openings. "We can take one car and commute together," Jen says. "It will cut our monthly gas bill." They live in Maryland, close to thirty miles from Easton's headquarters in Northern Virginia.

Jen, a high school graduate with no college, works for one of the firm's CFOs. She has a strong work ethic and her excellent reviews have earned her two promotions. She knows the Microsoft Office Suite like the back of her hand, and can often be found giving tech support to secretaries and managers alike that struggle with it. In addition, she sometimes comes up with solutions to problems at board meetings, solutions that not even her superiors had thought of. In short, she's one smart secretary. It's for good reason that Easton CEO Jim Milofsky, when he begins using the Wonderlic Personnel Test to evaluate current employees and those applying for positions with his company, chooses Jen to administer the test. She's just scored an impressive 34 out of a possible 50. "That's better than ninety percent of the people here," he reveals to her, "including me." Jim, Dartmouth graduate and CEO of Easton, had managed "only" a 32, a very good score, though commensurate with what one might expect from someone with his education and position. A secretary scoring 34 on the Wonderlic, a twelve minute, multiple choice, fifty-question IQ test with a positive correlation to the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), is highly unusual. It puts her in the ninety-fifth percentile, with an IQ of just under 130.

Jen takes it all in stride. She knows she's smart, knew it from the time she entered first grade. School work always came easy to her. She was close to a straight-A student through high school. She was college-bound, or so she thought. In eleventh grade, her parents advised her to switch to a non-college prep curriculum because they lacked the money to send her to college. Her parents, hard working, blue-collar people, had instilled in her a strong work ethic. However, they failed to instill a be-all-you-can-be ethic. Archaic as it sounds, they believed that one shouldn't rise above their raising. Jen, ever the obedient daughter who didn't question, who lacked even a modicum of a rebellious streak, did as they advised.

Jen has little doubt that Kevin will score high on the Wonderlic. "You went to college, and you're smarter than me," she tells him. This isn't gratuitous modesty on her part; she actually believes it. After all, he reads more, seems to know more. He always beats her in Trivial Pursuit, always comes up with more right answers than she when they watch "Jeopardy." Kevin is articulate, uses words that Jen needs to look up. Of course he's smarter, she thinks.

He walks into Easton's corporate offices, reasonably confident. He doesn't know the nature of the test he's about to take. Jen didn't tell him it was an IQ test. She did tell him that per Easton's hiring policy, he can't be interviewed for a position until after he takes the test. In fact, Jim Milofsky won't even look at anyone who scores below a 23. "Not that a smart guy like you has to worry," she tells him before she seats him in a room by himself, then goes into the hall with her stop watch.

Twelve minutes later, she enters the room to find Kevin bent over the test paper, pencil in hand, scratching his head. "Time's up," she says. "How'd we do?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not sure. This thing wasn't easy."

Jen glances at the test paper. "Oh, I'm sure you did just fine." She then enters her office to score it against the answer sheet. Minutes later, she's the one scratching her head, perplexed, scarcely believing that Kevin couldn't do any better than 17. "Must be a mistake," she whispers, and rechecks her work: same thing.

"Are you feeling okay, Kevin?" she asks upon entering the room.

"Yeah, why?" She shows him his score. "Like I said, it wasn't easy," he says defensively. He doesn't know what she scored and she's not about to tell him. That is, until he asks.

"Um, well, I did okay," she says nervously.

"What's okay?"

"Okay. High enough for Mr. Milofsky to at least grant me an interview if I was a would-be employee."

"Better than twenty-three, I assume."

"Right."

"Okay, so how much better?"

"Come on, Kevin."

He raises his voice a few decibels. "How much better?"

"Um, thirty-four."

"What?!"

"I got lucky."

"Jen, as a psych major in college, I know enough about IQ tests to know it isn't luck."

"Wanna retake the test? I can ask. It will give you time to study."

He grunts. "You can't study for IQ tests, Jen. They're not about what you know. They're about problem solving, abstract reasoning, mathematical and analytical skills, lateral thinking, how fast you can think."

She lowers her eyes. "Sorry."

"Looks like we won't be commuting together after all," he says. Then he gets up and storms out.

Jen crumples up Kevin's test paper, then tosses it in the trash. She feels bad, almost feels as if it's her fault. She builds up his confidence, has him expecting to do well, and then he scores no better than your average security guard. She wonders how this can be. He did go to college, saw his diploma herself. Okay, so Mount Vernon isn't exactly top tier. Still, academically, it's further than she got. And he's so smart when it comes to "Jeopardy" and to discussing things she never knew. What's more, he listens to classical music, not really her taste but she indulges him when he asks her to listen to a piece he thinks she might enjoy. Don't smart people listen to classical music?

Before today, IQ held no interest for her. Like everyone, she has her insecurities, but intelligence has never been one of them. During lunch, she surfs the web on information about IQ, its history, what it means, how it's measured. She learns that she's almost two standard deviations above the mean of 100 and that Kevin, with an IQ in the nineties, is below it. He's at the low-average level, while she comes close to qualifying for MENSA, the high IQ society. Genius? No. Gifted? Close. Superior? Absolutely! Well, she always knew she was smart, but she never knew she was that smart. But maybe she did, thinking back to seventh grade when she, along with a select few of her classmates, participated in an after-school math program for cognitively precocious kids. She knew, she just didn't dwell on it, certainly didn't brag about it.

She's had issues in all her past relationships. All relationships do, she knows. But this thing with Kevin—it's the first relationship she's been in that IQ even came up, much less ever been a potential issue. He seemed so upset, so distraught.

What to do? She'll soothe his ego, that's what. She returns home. At dinner, Kevin is sullen and withdrawn. "Don't let one stupid test get you down, Kevin," she says. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Really? Tell that to your CEO," Kevn says. "Apparently it means enough to him that I don't get interviewed."

She can't argue. Instead, she suggests they watch "Jeopardy." "You'll kill me like you always do."

He throws his napkin down on the table. "I'm not in the mood. Look, I'll try to forget my humiliation over that test if you promise me one thing."

"Okay."

"That you never again tell me I'm smarter than you. Cause it ain't so."

"But Kevin—"

"It ain't so, Jen. And based on my lovely test score, anything you say in that regard will sound patronizing."

She nods. "Okay, I promise."

She keeps her promise, and not just to avoid confrontation. But because she now believes it.