The stunning normalcy of my jeopardy tryout (long and boring)

[bisonbison]

When I woke up on Monday morning, I was under the impression that my Jeopardy tryout was that day. Only when I reread the email to get the address did I realize that it said TUESday June 13th 3:30 PM. 24 hour reprieve, which I celebrated by going out to dinner with people from work and getting poopfaced. (no drunk driving)

Gain: I have the hots for a new girl with a boyfriend.
Loss: I forgot the Noble Gasses.

Woke up this morning, ran late for a training I'm giving the new girl, meeting meeting meeting meeting drive to jeopardy tryout: palace hotel, san francalifrisco.

I decided not to eat anything other than a bowl of cereal today for fear of getting stress/liquor poops in the middle of my mid-afternoon audition, but as I was driving up I wasn't really nervous except about finding parking. I just kept thinking "how awesome and nerdy is this?"

Parking, 10 minute walk, upstairs, business center in the hotel. 8 people, all wearing glasses, and all either bald, ponytailed or eccentrically styled. I have found them, my nerdier half-siblings, and we are all 20 minutes early, all afraid we'd get locked out and have to insult people on the internet to make our lives worth living.

No one talks. I'm content to stare at the wall and contemplate how heavy those granite floorboards must have been to move. I've been trying to cultivate this state of mind, so I go with it. Then here comes the wired, loud 60 year old guy, an insufferable mouth with a Romanian wife he kept mentioning. I suspect mail-order.

He starts chatting up the only woman under 50 with a decent look (A mid 20s girls later admits to having 9 cats). The time passes at the same rate it always does, and cause I wasn't thinking it seemed to go pretty quick.

mid 20s production assistant girl comes out, scoots the 80+ year old, bitter, bitter man away from the table and has us pick up personal questionaires and blank sheets with 50 slots for answers to a quiz.

No one knows what to expect. The 2 emails we've gotten have essentially said: come at 3:30, dress apprioprately. No details. We all get a clicky ballpoint Jeopardy pen.

A fat, maybe-gay italian guy named tony comes and takes polaroids of us smiling. "You were blinking in that one, I'll take another." I get to keep the first one.

Then we're ushered into a small room, tastefully appointed. 20 of us sit down* and the contestant coordinators introduce themselves. Definitely no Alex, but they show us a DVD going over some basic tryout tips. These 3 guys and a girl run these tryouts all over the country again and again and again. Either they truly like working with each other, or they are deep into roadtrip fatigue bliss. They were charming and not grating and genuinely delighted over the funny little things that happen. Good job jeopardy.

Then we take the quiz. 50 questions, read from the screen by Jeopardy announcer Johnny Gilbert. They asked us not to reveal the questions, cause it'd be unfair and actually queer our chances of getting on, so I'll just say they were all over the map. Any topic jeopardy covers, any little category tricks they play like "Before and After" or "Rhyme Time": fair game.

Out of 50, I think I nailed about 40-42, muffed 2 or 3 and
could go either way on the rest.

Then we have Q&A while they grade the quizzes, get to ask a lot of stupid questions (me, first, "why did he shave the mustache?"; me, second to last, "What's the most anyone's ever been in the red at the end?"). Most of the people are normal, or kind of old and underemployed, but there are a few freaks. Think 2+2 with only 1 college student (Her dad's a professional magician and she lives in Vegas!).

Then we all get to take shiny happy turns playing mock jeopardy for 3 minutes each as we learn the basics of clickers (WAIT FOR THE LIGHT, CLICK A LOT). I go in the last group. I do okay. I don't ring in on a bunch of stuff, but the ones I ring in on I know, so pat on the back for me. They then have a mock interview in front of the group. I explain how many hands an hour you play when 8-tabling, and get one decent laugh line:

Me: "I like spoiling my nephews."
Glen, our Alex standin who has excellent patter: "Do you remember each of their birthdays?
Me: "I'm lucky if I remember their names."

It turns out that in this group of 20 from around Northern California (and guy from Phoenix??), there's a Gmail engineer who daily gets a report I put together. We don't recognize each other until after our interviews (we namedrop Google shamelessly). Way to go cross-team bonding!

Then we leave. They haven't told us our scores on the quiz, their feelings about our telegenic qualities or anything except that there's a nationwide pool of 400 potential contestants every year.

If they want us, they'll call. If we haven't heard from them in a year, we're free to try out again. It's kinda like giving a girl the digits, but for nerds. Like me.

I think I have a decent to good shot at getting called.


* At this point in the story, we lose the possibility that this is all a hoax played on me by sadistic friends. Please note, something like this could fantastically humiliate one of your good friends if you're willing to put in the effort to forge some emails.

[StevieG]

funny and interesting, thanks for sharing

how many questions did you all manage to run through in the 3 minute game session?

[Claunchy]

Cool post. I wish you the best of luck.

[4 High]

Good luck.

Did you ask anyone else what they thought they got on the quiz?

[bisonbison]

how many questions did you all manage to run through in the 3 minute game session?

Probably 10 or 12. It didn't seem like that many at the time, cause it's harder to think in front of a crowd unless you can direct yourself at them.

[bisonbison]

Did you ask anyone else what they thought they got on the quiz?

No (seemed like it could be rude). People did chat a little on the way out, trying to nail down answers we were unsure of, but not much.

[Waterfall]

My uncle was on Jeopardy a few years back (he's bald with glasses go figure) From what he told me the most difficult part of the show was using the little buzzer correctly. I guess its a lot harder than it looks. I do seem to nitice a lot of people having trouble with it on the show. Wouldnt hurt to practice chiming in with your new click pen while watching the show to practice.

just my .02
goot luck

[By-Tor]

Did anyone recognize your status as an internet celebrity?





Did you flash the sign?

[BeaucoupFish]

[ QUOTE ]
They asked us not to reveal the questions, cause it'd be unfair and actually queer our chances of getting on

[/ QUOTE ]

What? I'm not being juvenile, what does this mean?!

[bisonbison]

What? I'm not being juvenile, what does this mean?!

It's hard to explain, but here's Answers.com:

1. To ruin or thwart: “might try to queer the Games with anything from troop movements . . . to a bomb attack” (Newsweek).
2. To put (someone) in a bad position.