It All Worked Out: Your Stories of Good From Bad

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So a friend and I met for lunch to catch up. It had been several months since we’d really talked, so there were lots of “Melly Moments” to share. As we were talking, I realized that the last 3-4 stories all had a stressful moment and then a happy ending. And I thought, dangitall, we need to share these kinds of stories with each other this week.

So if you’ve got one, share it!

Here’s my first one:

My SO and I decided that our Christmas present to each other would be a long weekend away for New Year’s Eve. So back in early November, I slaved over dozens of websites and looked at 100s of rentals trying to find the perfect cabin in the woods. After long, arduous, mind-searing searches I stumbled on one that looked perfect. It even had some of the items that I wanted but that they hadn’t posted about in the header (like an indoor hot tub).

I called the rental management company, we signed the lease, and gave them our credit card number. We got back a confirmation email that all was received and we were set.

As we grew closer to the date, we realized we hadn’t gotten a hard copy of the lease, so I shot the manager an email along with a few other questions. But I didn’t hear back. It was a crazy time though, so it was a while before we thought to check back again. Still no reply. Now we are about 3 days away from our vacation and we have no lease, no security code to access the cabin, and no return phone calls or emails. I turn in to stalker chick and still no replies.

My SO checked with his credit card provider, and we hadn’t been charged or anything. So now we were back to ground zero, 2 days before we were to leave. As I began to again pull up all the sites, I inwardly crumpled at the daunting task of weeding through ahead of me.

But almost immediately I stumbled on this rental I had seen before and could have sworn was unavailable. I called the owner, and evidently the couple who had previously rented had just backed out due to illness and she had just reposted it.

The cabin was 2 hours closer than our previous choice and about $100 cheaper. The cabin ended up being just great, and we were even able to book in-cabin massages one day - something we couldn’t find previously.

It couldn’t have been much better - and it was the best vacation I’ve had in a long time.

2

My girlfriend and I drove to Spartanburg, South Carolina, last month; it’s a 150 mile round trip, give or take. One of her brothers was having a birthday and the husband of a friend of hers was in the hospital, so we had a lot to get done. Money was really tight for both of us, but we decided to go and just not be extravagant in our spending.

We went to the hospital first, and my plan was to pull in, let her out, then go find parking. As I pulled up to the entrance at the hospital and slowed down to let her out, she said, “There’s smoke coming from under your hood.” Indeed there was, and by the time she said it, because I had my vent on fresh air, there was also smoke coming into the cabin of the car.

A call to AAA and a tow to the local Toyota dealer ensued, followed by the friend with the hospitalized husband giving us a ride to the restaurant for the birthday party, as if she didn’t have anything else to do. After the party, another of my girlfriend’s brothers drove us to fabulous Greenville-Spartanburg International Heliport, where we picked up the $40-a-day rental car that would get us back to Charlotte. (I realize that I have neglected to mention that all of this was on a Saturday, starting around 5 p.m., so my car was going to sit, parked in front of the Service entrance to the Toyota dealership until Monday morning.)

Tuesday morning the dealer called to say that my car was ready. A hose with the power steering had been leaking p.s. fluid onto the exhaust manifold, hence the smoke. $500.

I took the afternoon off work and drove the rental car back to Spartanburg, the car rental place (Enterprise) dropped me off at the Toyota dealer, and soon I was back on the road to Charlotte. By the way, if you’re in Charlotte, and are considering a pleasant drive for an afternoon, look elsewhere. The drive to Spartanburg and back via 85 is a sleep aid.

So, my little car and I get home. I check my mail, and there’s an letter from my mom. This is odd. When I open it, there’s a check for $1,000 in it.

I have said nothing to her about my car, or money being tight, or anything. It turns out it was, to keep the story simple, “just because” money.

:eek:

It sure came just when needed, that’s all I have to say.

3

I lost my job in June of 2001. That was fine, I had some money saved up and I figured I’d start looking for work in September, thus giving me my first summer off since 1983. I whooped it up. Pool or beach every day, plus a nice beach vacation.

September rolled around, and so I started collecting unemployment while I looked for work. Work was sparse. Since the latest bubble had just burst about a year before, there wasn’t much. On the one day I got a call from a headhunter, I was in no mood to think about work, as I was busy shaking my fist at those damn terrorists.

September turned into April, and still no job. My benefits were getting close to running out. Then one morning I heard a clatter on my landing, and before I knew it, my apartment was filled with people. And me buck naked! It seems that some guy wanted to see my place, and the super thought that was a super idea. It didn’t occur to them to knock. Freaked me the fuck out.

I called my landlady to ask what was up, and she didn’t know. She had no plans to sell the place.

Through the summer, I started getting hints that the place was, indeed, being sold. And I still had no job. And that was one hot summer, which sucks when you live in a top floor apartment with no AC, and the electricity going out every Friday for six hours, and the public pool already closed for the season, and construction workers jackhammering in the adjoining unit.

I was in hell.

Then my landlord to be wanted to come over and talk to me. He essentially said that I was welcome to stay, but he was going to jack up my rent by 150%. From $600 to $1500. I was barely making rent as it was. My benefits had long run out and I was borrowing from my parents. There was no way I could stay, and I had nowhere to go.

My girlfriend said she’s ask her landlord if any units were opening up in her building. Nope, nothing. If it weren’t for the kind offers of friends’ couches, I would have been looking at homelessness.

And then came the eviction notice. A formality, I was told, but I had to be out on October 1st.

A friend suggested a few tweaks to my online resume, so I made them. A few days later, I got a call from a headhunter. They wanted to see me on September 4th. I wasn’t hopeful, because in the past 15 months my other two interviews went horribly. But hey, it was an interview.

The interview went really well. I heard back later that afternoon that an employer wanted to see me the next day. I called my girlfriend with the news, but before I could tell her, she told me that a unit in her building was opening up on the 1st, and it was mine if I wanted it. I did, of course. The next day my interview went really well. I got an offer at 5:00.

I’m still in the same job, and still in the same apartment!

4

These are great stories! Thanks for sharing!!

5

My youngest girl goes to sleep upstairs with her oldest sister. I forget the exact circumstances, thunderstorm, whatever.After everyone is asleep there is screaming and crashing footsteps down the stairway.

“Sue is not breathing” we are told. I carry a limp body downstairs while the wife calls 911. Sue is breathing but unresponsive.

The paramedics give oxigen to a now alert child. She is given a tissue to wipe her nose as the mask is held away from her face, and in a moment of comic relief she stuffs the tissue in the hissing mask that is annoying her.

The local neurologist is baffled. He proscribes some meds that do not help. Did you know that a doctor who is a geriatric neurologist will not tell you he has little pediatric experience? Fucker accused ( nay, insisted) my wife was not being compliant with the med schedule. Did I mention the wife is a Registered Nurse?

A trip to a Childrens hospital and she is diagnosed with a seizure disorder.She continues to have problems, trouble walking,later full blown Grand Mal seizures. More tests, meds proscribed, Cat scan.Lesions in her brain.Birth defect.

I remember one morning my little pumpkin is seizing on the bathroom floor, my wife is sobbing at her side, and I have to leave for work. Life is hard sometimes.

Fast forward to now. The doctors weaned her off the meds in her mid teens, she has been seizure free, and able to get a drivers license. Life is good sometimes.

6

My grandfather, a radiologist, was sick. Being a stubborn man AND a doctor, he refused to go see a doctor for his illness. I think he was in denial. Anyway, my mom (also a doctor) and stepfather and I went down to visit him one spring weekend when I was 12, and were horrified. He was this awful shade of gray, and couldn’t keep any food down at all. He tried to hide the fact that he was vomiting after every meal, but he lived in a very small condo and it was very obvious. Somehow, my mom convinced him to go to a doctor, and the resulting diagnosis of colon cancer surprised absolutely nobody. They said there was a large tumor blocking most of his colon, hence the inability to keep food down. The family all flew in for his surgery.

A couple of hours after the surgery began, the surgeon came out and talked to my mom, who had power of attorney. They had discovered a second tumor, even larger than the first, which the first had obscured. They gave my mom two choices. They could sew him up and make him as comfortable as possible, and he’d live for approximately seven days. Or, they could remove both tumors, give him a colostomy, and he’d have 3-4 months to put his affairs in order before he died.

Mom chose option #2. After he healed from the surgery, he went to a follow-up with oncology, where they determined that there appeared to be no sign of cancer anywhere else in his body. He went up to Columbus to see an oncologist at the brand new James Cancer Center, and they agreed–the cancer had been localized to the two tumors and never spread anywhere else in his body. When the surgeons back in WV had removed the two tumors, they had gotten rid of every cancer cell in his body.

Two years later, he got the colostomy reversed. He lived for 17 years after his initial diagnosis and surgery.

7

I worked on a project that was an analysis for a potential client. It turned out to be a bit of a clusterfuck of an analysis, though the potential client never knew that. I, on the other hand, got reamed for it by my boss. As a result, he turned against me and came down on me really hard. At the time, I was simultaneously honored for being an employee of the year nominee and was written up for poor performance. I was eventually demoted. It was a nightmare of a year for me.

Well, anyway, the potential client ended up impressed enough that they signed on with us. About a month or two later, they came in for a meeting and met one of the guys who headed up another department (he actually won employee of the year that year). He was a good friend of mine and had even plead my case to other bosses that I was being screwed (to no avail). His exact (more or less) words were “interface2x could paint a Picasso and asshole boss would find all kinds of things wrong with it.” The client was so impressed with him that they literally offered him a job during that meeting. It took a couple of months of convincing, but he did take a job with them. Even cited my treatment as the reason he wanted to leave because he felt that it was unfair.

About three months after that, he turned my resume into them and I was promptly hired on for waaaaaay more than I made at the old place. My four year anniversary is later this month.

So yeah - the project that turned my boss against me also got me the hell out of there with a much better job at a much better salary.

8

That is so awesome! I love that!

Drain Bead and FE3O4ENAIL - sounds like you’ve both had some medical hardships in your lives. Glad to hear that the initial prognosis had more positive results as time went on.

9

Drain Bead, for very personal reasons, I love the outcome of your story. :slight_smile:

10

My old company was go9ing through a period of offshoring, evaluating who was valuable enough to keep and who was replaceable by cheap labor. Before they ever announced who was which, I got put on a retention plan, and stood to make 30K in retention if I stayed past a certain point, payable in 2 installments (10K and 20K).

I hit the 10K installment, which was great, and still had a job, but in February I was told that my position was beign eliminated 1 month after my 20K point (I’d get severance and the like). Now, at this point I had already been looking for jobs for almost a year, to no avail, and my wife had quit her job a couple years earlier to focus on raising our daughter, so we had very little fallback, because we had been using some of our savings to supplement my income while she got her freelance business estabished. When she quit, our household incoke dropped by around 40%.
As I worried pretty hard about what would happen, an opportunity came my way. Though it would require me to give up the severance and over 20K of retention incentives, I would make up for that within a year or so with the difference in salary (it really was a HUGE jump in salary for me…not doubling, but easily the largest bump I have ever received). It also dropped my one-way commute to 7 miles from 25. Nearly 4 years later, our income is not quite back to where it was with both of us working, but it’s comfortable enough that we’re not worried about buying groceries, and the kids have activities they are invovled in like dance and gymnastics, and I am still enjoying working here.

Heck, this is the first place I have worked where there is no money incentive to recruit people, but I have recruited 2 employees and would bring in more without question.