The luck of the Dutch is on my side

© Warrengoldswain | Dreamstime.com

I know how lucky I am.

I may not have won the $656 million lottery last month, but I’m not surprised given that I didn’t buy a ticket. Those lottery folks tend to only give the winnings to people who hold a winning ticket. (Yeah, read the fine print. It surprised me, too.)

It doesn’t matter, though, because I wouldn’t have won anyway. By the time they chose the winning numbers, I had used up all my luck.

I drew down the first bit of it 14 years ago on a clear April Saturday when Karen vowed to spend the rest of her life with me. I made another withdrawal a few years later when Celeste came screaming into our lives, followed by her younger brother Gavin a few years after that.

I can’t imagine being much luckier, but I recently found a sliver of luck, perhaps from the shadow of a four-leaf clover, the smell of a wishbone, or an echo of the luck of the Irish.

Nah, it’s not the Irish. It’s the Dutch, for without those folks from the Netherlands I would still be unemployed. But yesterday I started work as the senior editor for the Dutch embassy in Washington, D.C. to help share its core messages to an American audience.

Who knew such a job even existed? I didn’t, at least not until I saw an ad for it on LinkedIn. I carefully read over the skills they were looking for, and could honestly say I was well qualified for nine of the 10, so I took a shot.

They contacted me for an interview, and I must have done well because a day or two later they gave me a writing test and scheduled a second interview.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited, or so it seemed. In reality, I didn’t wait long to hear if they wanted to offer me a job, but one day to the unemployed seems like a month.

I told myself during that time that I should continue applying for other jobs in case this one didn’t work out, but I couldn’t find the enthusiasm amid the forest of anxiousness in which I found myself.

I tried writing blog posts and working on my book about fatherlessness, but my mind wandered back to the interviews and the writing assignment to pick every nit I could find.

I had to do something mindless, so I played with Gavin’s Lego sets. No lie, I took his Lego Star Wars sets that were broken apart and strewn about in various places, and I rebuilt them. I even separated the blocks by color to make the smaller pieces easier to find.

The hours melted away like a snowman in June, but I found it relaxing to focus on something that did not require much mental energy instead of the consequences of long-term unemployment.

Then my phone rang one evening as I was preparing for baseball practice as the coach of Gavin’s team. Through the airwaves and cell towers I heard the good news: a job offer.

I hung up and thanked God for the good fortune. I may not have won the lottery, but I felt lucky nonetheless to have found a job in today’s tough market.

I’m lucky to have family that supported me during this time, people who never questioned my decision to voluntarily leave the company I worked for, for nearly 20 years.

I’m lucky to have friends and colleagues who reached out to me for lunch, forwarded job openings, said a kind word to a hiring manager, or offered a full reference for me.
I’m lucky my job search did not take long.

During my 10 or so weeks of unemployment, I met many people who measured their joblessness in months or years, not weeks. They all maintained a brave front, but I understood the fear and uncertainty they felt below their calm veneer.

While I tasted that fear, many of them have been forced to feast on it as though it were some sadistic scene out of a Tim Burton movie.

I heard stories of hiring managers receiving hundreds of resumes for one opening. No doubt some of the people applying for work were not qualified, and were merely throwing a plate of spaghetti at the wall to see if a noodle would stick.

But many of them were qualified and some hold degrees I did not know existed, let alone could ever understand, so I know how lucky I am.

The luck was not in my ability to write or the experience I earned during my 19 years in the news business—I thank God for the former and take responsibility for the latter—but in beating the odds of attracting the attention of the hiring managers at the Dutch embassy. As I navigated this process, I realized that understanding the intricacies of alabama hiring employees llc can be crucial for any business owner looking to expand their team and comply with state regulations effectively.

I was merely one in a crowd to receive an invitation for an interview, and figure I proved myself once I had an audience. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have a job today.

Still, I acknowledge feeling a little survivor’s guilt for having won the job, but I’ll say a prayer for those folks who did not land my job and wish them only the best.

I hope and pray they all find fulfilling work, and can one day say they are as lucky as I am.