*Does* everything happen for a reason?

I don't believe in a higher power.
I think shit happens.
And sometimes it doesn't happen.
And that things work out.
Except when they don't.

Since there's no way of knowing what would have happened if we didn't take the left turn that led to the car accident or who we'd have married if we hadn't gone to the party and met that great guy, I think it's just our need to have order to things that leads us to believe there's some sort of plan in place.

I think everyone can point to experiences that happened that later led to something good, but I believe those are coincidences.

But consider the following...

I applied for a job at the end of July.
 
My friend Stephanie contacted me after I complained here on my blog about having to go downtown and how very much I disliked the idea. She drove me from my door to the door of the office building, collected me at the door of the office building and brought me safely back to my own door. We were able to catch up a little and I didn't have to worry about traffic, navigation or walking a couple blocks on my recently-surgerized ankle.

I really appreciated the ride and the moral support.

Anxiety is not a rational creature, and it's sort of nice to avoid him, especially when he's gleefully rubbing his hands together in anticipation of watching me as I fall apart internally. I cheated the monster!!

We made a 'sometime in the future' lunch date. Haven't managed that yet, but I haven't forgotten.

The interview went well. They had asked me to come with ideas for lesson plans and be ready to talk about how I've handled various issues with children.
Having just written four weeks of curriculum for the Fluffy the Horrendous Bitch's summer program, I had a pile of it.

So I brought the unit on Insects/Arachnids with me. They seemed impressed. The interview was over an hour long. We went over all sorts of things. I asked them questions, too.
I thought the job would be a good fit. And a few days later I got an email saying that 'it had been a hard decision but they offered the job to someone else'. It was a mass email, there were a few email addresses in the field. Okay.

No explanation. (not that one is required).
My guess was that I was too old.
Not that I look my age, but you can see a bit of arctic blonde in my hair (more of that all the time) and the people conducting the interview were pretty young. Also, I am not a small woman. Of course no one would ever *say* they don't want to hire a person because of either of those things, it does happen.
::shrug::
Doesn't matter anyway, I didn't get the job.

I've been watching the ads on Craigslist. Because I do that. That same organization has advertised three times since the beginning of the school year that they are hiring site directors for their before/after school programs. Huh. Guess they have a high turnover.

Ran into some people I used to work with today.
Other people who've been shit on by Fluffy and her cavalcade. (You and I know that the list grows daily).

Erica is now working for the organization that rejected me. We had a long conversation. She said that the company is very regimented, everything is on a very tight schedule with zero leeway.

They have her writing curriculum even though she told them that she doesn't really know how and would rather not and they said no problem, that she would have to write 'minimal' lesson plans, and she's very tired of all of it. The senior staff is unfriendly, she feels sort of lost and unsupported.

They have weekly site staff meetings that last at least an hour and a half. Weekly! Holy crap. The kids are divided into two groups after their snack and except for 30 minutes at the very end of the days, there is no free play time. I think that's sort of mean, personally. And the group she has is mostly K aged kids. So after spending a whole day in school, they're being directed/herded/bossed around. Very little opportunity to just unwind or decompress.

So I am glad they didn't hire me.

I don't love the company I'm working for right now, but at least I'm not stuck in a regimented place. And I'm not stuck going to meetings all the damn time. Once a month is more than enough for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and ran into Mark, who used to work where I did. He was fired because he told the former manager in his area that he was 'twice as good with kids as you are'. She was a twit, and one of the more condescending people I met while working there. She didn't have the nerve to fire Mark herself, she called the big fish and had him do it. And she really was awful with kids. Can't imagine why she was even working for the company, as she really didn't seem to like children at all.
She has moved on now, too. And good riddance.

It's funny to me.
The company hires a lot of assholes as management.
They pat themselves on the back over the amount of money they make as an organization, the 'great' programs and how well they take care of their employees. I recently saw a copy of the email sent out by the CEO in which he laid out all this wonderful stuff. To a person on the outside, it looks lovely. But the intended audience for that email is already ON the inside and I'm pretty sure he's fooling no one.

So, do you think there's a reason for everything?
And if you weren't religious, would you still think that?