“The job I’ve been the most successful at since graduating is the one I never intended to have…”

Is that true or am I being shortsighted? When I look over my entire work history, as it turns out, it is almost 100% true. A few examples:

2000

I was 17 and it was the summer before my senior year. I’d spent that entire summer looking a job. Any job. My first job. No one wanted to give me a chance. (You’d think I was looking for a prom date.) Finally, defeated, I gave up. My mom bought my ticket for me to go spend August on the east coast with my dad and his family. My last week in LA, I decided to call a girl I’d gone to high school with just to catch up and she offhandedly mentioned that she worked at her parents’ coffee shop and yes, come to think of it, they did need someone as another girl we went to school with would be leaving in a couple weeks for college.

2006

Reconnected with a friend I’d had in high school, a guy this time, on Myspace. He posted a lot about this band so I decided to go out one night and see them. My friend was really overwhelmed that night with merchandise and networking so I offered to help him out. It went well. Really well. I became merch girl and eventually assistant manager.

2007

Stage managed a show at the National Comedy Theatre in Hollywood for one of the writers of How I Met Your Mother because the existing stage manager, another girl I went to high school with, was going out of town. (Fun fact: She was going to spend Passover with the family of one of the guys in the band that I’d played a little “matchmaker matchmaker, match me a match!” with.) Though I was with the show a fraction of the time that she was, when the cast went to present the check to the charity they donated their proceeds to, they asked me to come along instead of her.

She called me again to work another show of hers a couple months later.

2007

Assistant stage managed a breast cancer benefit at the Avalon because the choreographer–someone I knew from college–called me up.

2008

Sent résumé after résumé out trying to get a job in the action sports industry, got nothing. Finally did get to work a Red Bull event because one of my friends used to work for FUEL TV.

2008

I’d quit my job (that I hated) in April to go work on a pilot that got cancelled before I worked a day. I spent the entire summer sending out résumés, for a variety of job types, not just entertainment, without any response. Couldn’t even get an interview and was starting to completely lose my mind. Then I got a phone call and, before I knew it, tutoring, this thing I’d always done on the side since I was 17, became my full-time job.

Of course there were times when I did try to get a job and actually got it like the restaurant I worked at or the musical theatre company I worked for–it’s not all dumb luck. It just does seem to happen a lot.

And it’s not just work.

• I never intended to have Brazilian friends; I tried to have Canadian ones.
• My best friend from high school I met by saying something bitchy to her and she calling me on it.
• I joined and went on 2 events with a singles group in Vancouver and met no one. I go to the grocery store and walk down the street on the other hand…
• (Omg, just completely had an epiphany right now about a related topic but I’m not going to write it down because I am neurotic cryptic but OH MY GOD THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH!!)

Anyway. It’s this weird thing. I don’t know. I don’t get it. (Well, aside from the educational connection I’m now noticing.)

I just hope luck doesn’t forget me this time around.