Monday, August 8, 2011

The Captain Has Turned On The Seatbelt Light, Please Return To Your Seats - We May Experience Some Turbulence

What's that you say? My Exam file for Essays 4-6 wasn't uploaded by the deadline on Friday?

Blah2!

Yeah, that's right. Apparently, according to the Examsoft technical support guy, the program didn't write my answer file for essays 4-6 to the "upload" directory when it closed after that morning's session. He uploaded it easily enough on Monday morning, but the issue is still unresolved with regards to the State Bar.

According the the rules, instructions, warnings and advisories, any file not uploaded by the deadline of noon on Friday will receive a score of zero (0, zip, nada, zilch, nothing, crapola, go-pound-sand) for that session. Does anyone have any guesses as to what the likelihood is that I will pass if I receive scores of 0, 0, and 0, for essays 4, 5, and 6 (yes, that was a rhetorical question.)

I just got off the phone with the very nice lady at the Office of Admissions who asked me to submit a written account of my efforts to upload that file.  She said they would consider that when they determine whether or not to accept my answers.

Blah3!

On the positive side, after hearing my verbal account of the steps I took to get the file uploaded when I didn't receive the confirmatory email, she said she didn't think there would be a problem. However, Murphy's Law still applies, so I'm going to be holding my breath, crossing my fingers (and toes), and saying frequent prayers until until I get confirmation from them that they will indeed accept my answers to essay questions 4-6.

All things considered, my reaction to this mess is, "What more can they do to me; make me take the February 2012 exam? No problem. Been there, done that; albeit for different reasons."

I'll post again when I discover my fate.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG, PB.. I am SO sorry :(
You have been to hell and back battling this thing as I have. I'm going to write a book one day. Anyway... Just keep on keepin' on and hang in there. We WILL get our bar cards!

Anonymous said...

How do you let that happen? You get an email confirmation when it is successfully uploaded ... you have to know that given that you've taken the bar like 10 times. How do you let that happen? Why weren't you on the phone first thing Friday morning (or Thursday evening for that matter). Are you honestly trying to fail?

Dude - if you can't even get your exam uploaded I don't really have high hopes that you will be a good lawyer. "Sorry judge, I know I was supposed to file the brief yesterday but had trouble uploading it ...." WTF.

Anonymous said...

I had a similiar issue with the file for questions 4-6 - no automatic confirmatory email. However, I logged in to the website and saw my file was uploaded Thur evening. Friday morning I got paranoid and called the tech support. The guy confirmed they received it and manually sent me a confirmatory email for Q4-6. I received the automatic emails for the other files.

Anonymous said...

Best wishes GP,
don't worry about anything too much-
it is what it is.

By the way,
this and other things have forever confirmed to me that ad infinitum I will write the bloody Bar exam-
I don't care if they try to force people to do it by computer-
I won't!

Anonymous said...

I too had a problem with Q4-6. I did not get the confirmatory email. However, the bar instructions state that the email is not sufficient proof and that you need to verify the upload in your upload history (available by logging into exam soft's website).

It took a couple manual attempts Thursday night but I was able to get it uploaded and it appears in my upload history. Was definitely sweating bullets until that happened.

Good luck GP

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous 9:56.

I just think it's a preemptive excuse for failing, yet, again.

The guy was in "IT" before so you'd think he'd have the sense enough to log on to Examsoft's site to confirm the uploads.

Anonymous said...

Apparently "IT" guys and lawyers have sense enough to never make mistakes...learn something new every day.

Anonymous said...

@ 9:27. You're less liable to make "mistakes" when your career's riding on it. I wouldn't want my lawyer to make such a mistake.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, the license that you have been trying to get for 5 years is on the line and you don't check to make sure it was uploaded despite warning after warning to do so? Not a good sign.

That is a big frickin' mistake.

Anonymous said...

Oh No! Oh No! Say it is not so!

I am so sorry to hear this...

I guess that is why more people who do the exam by hand pass, than
those who use a computer...

Anonymous said...

If this issue is so common sense why do you think they would bother giving "warning after warning" -- it's called human error. If no one made this error, they wouldn't even bother giving one warning, let alone a whole bunch. Good trial attorneys (and IT guys for that matter) expect errors, and are more concerned about how to handle errors and issues as they come up. You don't stand there like a deer in the headlights when the judge is asking for documents your second chair forgot to bring -- you frick'n think quick on your feet and BS your way out of it.

Although I do have to agree that as far as mistakes go, this was pretty dumb. I still wouldn't hold it against him as a professional (unless he did the same thing next Feb :)).

The Grand Poobah said...

Agree. Kicking myself, I am. But see my latest post for a little more detail.