A Miracle

Throughout our life, we might encounter something which we found hard to explain how it could be happening to us, and if it benefits us, then we tend to call it 'a miracle'. In my 17 years of living in New Zealand, I had this 'something' happened to me 6 years ago, and because it came to me when I was desperately in need of it, so I called it 'A Miracle'.

To tell the story, it has to be started from mid 2002.

June 2002, my mother left this world. Not long after the 49 days of mourning period was over, in August, the owner of the company where I had worked for 9 years, decided to put and end to his business. So no new stock would be coming in for sale, and two other staff would have to leave immediately. I and another colleague were to be kept till the remaining stock was sold up or till the end of August 2003, whichever came about first.

I was greatly shocked upon hearing the owner's announcement. The reason unemployment was so dreadful to me was that my two children were at their teens' stage in schools, and I was then already 51 years old with no outstanding specific skill. Although I would be still get paid to do my job after the announcement of shutting down in one year time, I knew it was very short. So I had numerous nightmares since then.

A couple of interested businessmen approached my boss to assess the possibility of buying our business. I put a great deal of hope on the prospective new owner but they discontinued the talk after a few meetings. My mood during that stage was like riding roller coaster. I had been a voluntary telephone counselor for Chinese Lifeline since 1994, and now I became their client.

I sent out my curriculum vitae to about 10 different companies to apply for jobs such as call center staff, accounting staff, receptionist, store person and etc. None of them was returned with an interview confirmation. But that was not surprising me.

In March 2003, I came across a recruitment flier of Stagecoach Bus saying they had a program which helped to put the interested applicant on the bus driving seat. I was confident with my driving skill, I could do it. "Why hadn't I thought of becoming a bus driver before?", I thought to myself.

So after having talked on the prospect of becoming a bus driver with my wife, I launched on Stagecoach website and registered my application right away. A few days later, I received a phone call from Stagecoach telling me where to go to undertake an assessment on literacy and numerical skill. I went to the specified place as told, passed the assessment and was told that the depot manager would call me to set the time and place of the interview.

On 7th April 2003, I received a call from the manager of North Shore depot telling me the interview was set on the next morning.

I think I must have performed very well in the interview because they told me right after the interview that before they hired me they had to have a yes report from their designated doctor.

On 9th April, I went to see their doctor. On 10th April, the human resources officer notified me the success of my employment and that 18th April was the day I became an employee of Stagecoach. So I submitted my formal resignation to my boss, my heart felt totally relieved.

The training took off well. I drove the bus on the vast training field for the first two days. But from the third day I noticed my feces was very dark, and it was even darker the next day. I thought this could be the result of my long term stress and the dramatic change of my career style. The fifth day still saw the worsened symptom and felt a withering mental energy. On the sixth day I was sent to sit road test for passenger endorsement and I failed. But that was OK, that would not necessarily terminate my employment, however, I seemed to have a nervous breakdown triggered by the test result that after a sleepless night, I decided to quit my dream of becoming a bus driver. The next morning, I saw the feces turned to the normal color of light brown.

I went to see doctor, and was prescribed with antidepressant pills.

I was then a real unemployed dad. The feeling was acutely painful. My previous boss was kindly taking me back but I knew there were only two months away from the shut-down date of 31st August.

I think this was when the miracle began to cut in. On 18th July, when I was preparing to leave the office, my friend called me asking if I would be interested in teaching new immigrants the basics of everything about New Zealand. She told me she was already involved in that job, and she knew the company was still taking in more program advisers to meet the rapid growing enrollments. "OF COURSE I AM INTERESTED!" I yelled into the phone. So she gave me the contact phone and e-mail address of the head of education of that company.

After I came back home, I went straight to the computer instead of having tea first after work. I brought up a blank e-mail compose page on the screen and started typing a proper message stating how I got his e-mail address, what I intended for, what I could do, and why I should be granted an interview. Also attached my CV. Checked spelling and then clicked SEND. I felt totally relieved when I came to the dinning table for dinner, and also could not believe that I had asked for an interview in an aggressive way in the e-mail.

It was Friday night when I sent that e-mail, so I did not expect a reply during the weekend, actually I anticipated it would just be ignored. I had a pessimistic thought then.

After work on Monday, 21st July, the first thing I did was opening the computer and checking e-mail. Out of my expectation, among several mails was one with the name of that manger whom I asked for an interview.

I hesitated a moment thinking what would his reply be like; "yes, we need you immediately!" or "regret to advise you that we are now fully staffed."?

Click! The mail popped open. "....you seem to be lacking of teaching experience....we would consider if you could elaborate more on your educational qualification."

I was somewhat disappointed upon reading the message at first. But the second thought that arose was that I got to fight harder for the sake of my family.

I suddenly remembered I used to be serving as a political trainer for one and half years in the air force cadet training center when I was in Taiwan. So I edited my CV by adding this bit of qualification. Wrote a mail and sent them over with fingers crossed.

The next day, Tuesday, I came back home from work in the evening. Went straight to computer and saw his name listed with other mails in the inbox.

"....would this Thursday be convenient to you for an interview? We are at ....", the e-mail read. I could not believe what I read. I thought I had misunderstood the message. I read it at least three times before I was pretty sure I was given an interview. I came to dinner and felt the meal was particularly yummy.

On the appointed time of Thursday, 24th July, I walked to the reception counter to report my arrival. A moment later, I was in the interview room with the head of education. I later knew from other staff that normally if you are chosen, you will be interviewed by the managing director on another arranged date for the final decision to be made. But for some reason the head of education asked me to wait for a moment in the room while he went to get the MD to interview me. Then I was sent home to wait for the result.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon of 30th July 2003 when I was doing my office chores, the phone rang, and I quickly recognized it was the head of education who interviewed me the other day. In the phone he told me that I was employed as Program Adviser and the commencing date was 18th August 2003.

The new job came in time, 13 days prior to the shut-down date of my old one.

In retrospection of this episode of my life, I label it "A Miracle".