Good luck not realized

Good luck not realized: Did your recognized good luck go untapped?

I was offered an Air Traffic Control job!

Good Luck Job Offer

Have you ever had good luck happen to you and you not fulfill its promise? What about what you feel is good luck, but you are not ready for it? We never hear about such circumstances, but they surely happen, and to the best of us.

I’d be curious to know who reading this had toyed with the idea of essentially rejecting good luck that has come their way. Of course you may not have recognized good luck when it presented itself, but I’m not talking about such times. I mean when you realize there is good luck facing you smack dab in the face and yet you still refuse to take action, the action the good luck is beckoning.

Yes, one never knows what is really good luck until sometimes well after the fact, but other times one had a strong feeling of good luck present or a good luck opportunity just waiting for you to take some action.

Well it has happened to me, and more than once, but here’s the one time I recognized good luck and had to make a decision whether to take advantage of it or not.

I was twenty-two and would be getting out of the Army shortly. A few weeks before, or maybe a couple of months previous, I had visited a relative in Chicago some eleven hour’s drive from where I was stationed in the 101^st Airborne.

My job at the Army Post was a communications operator where I had my own secret communications truck, secret in the sense that I was one of the two or three enlisted persons in my battalion that had a secret clearance. As such, being “privileged” I handled the secret messages for Headquarters Company.

It was great for me because I was isolated from my previous sergeant who disliked me and had made me hate the military, at least once I saw how unfair my sergeant was to me and my friend. I had been fortunate to know electronics and communications and somehow with good luck had finally been able to transfer to Signal Platoon.

Back to my relative in Chicago who had a cousin that had a good job as an Air Traffic Controller (ATC). He was making big bucks back then, several times what my father was making. My father had an ok job, not a big salary, but acceptable and about average for the times.

My relative’s cousin, whose name I have forgotten during the forty or so years since I got out the Service, convinced me to apply for ATC job. I was pretty darn sure I had no chance because I read the Federal bulletin about the job and the requirements. I didn’t meet them and certainly did not have the military experience handling airplane traffic that they wanted. It seemed like the only real candidates would be those in the Air Force, Navy, or Marines who had been an air traffic controller or worked directly with guiding planes upon takeoff or landing for the military. The only experience I had with airplanes was jumping out of them! Oh, and riding in them as a Civil Air Patrol person who operated radios back before I went into the Army.

Air Traffic Controllers monitor/ guide passenger planes

Nevertheless, I was coached into applying for the Air Traffic Controller job. After filling out the application and mailing it I forgot all about it. I just knew I had no real chance. I had not one iota of experience like they wanted.

I was discharged from the Army and went to Chicago to look for a job. I looked and looked, but no job was to be found. I applied for an electronics related job with Western Electric and wasted a week of interviews only to be turned down as being overqualified. Several other jobs I was turned down as being overqualified. Mind you, that was only the second job I was applying for. My first job as a 17 – 18 year-old had been part-time with the Post Office.

I moved on to Detroit where I was sure I’d get a job with one of the auto companies only to strike out there too. I was really discouraged. I had had two years of college and still could not find a job. I had been hoping to work full-time and go back to school part-time to get my four year degree. In fact I got out the Army three months early so I could go back to school.

After the no luck situation of finding a job in Chicago or Detroit I started thinking of the dreaded idea of going back to California which I really didn’t want to do. One of the major reasons I joined the military was to get out of California.

Things didn’t look good so I resigned myself to driving back to Pasadena California where my family was. I was fortunate to find a family that wanted to take a vacation in California and they offered to pay me to drive them there. I obliged them and drove back home.