The other day I was going over my expenses and admiring my low transportation costs. How have I have gotten so lucky that my transportation costs are only 8% of my household monthly expense? That’s pretty good considering how much it costs to commute out here in the Bay Area. Tracing back my path to this point, I realized that it’s sheer luck that my transportation expenses are so low. Okay, maybe not 100% luck, but it definitely feels like 75% dumb luck.

Good luck certainly, right? Well, no, not really. Actually bad luck. Bad things happened and forced me to take new paths in life. Paths I otherwise would not have considered.

When bad things happen to us, or people we know, it’s impossible to imagine that this might be a good thing in disguise. Bad events force us to go down paths we wouldn’t normally choose. Or they turn paths into dead ends, and sometimes we have to go backward to find another path.

Is there really such a thing as bad luck?

Of course, there is. There are tragedies and sadness in life and we feel unlucky when bad things happen to us or our loved ones. That’s unquestionable. I don’t mean to make light of bad luck events that may cause lingering trauma or constant pain of a lost loved one. Those things are bad and there’s no way around that.

But I propose that bad luck and good luck are not two distinct things.

Here is some (bad) luck of mine that fermented into good fortune. In concert, these two bad luck incidents lowered my transportation costs by $540 a month and delivered a salary increase of 57%.

At it’s most expensive, our monthly transportation cost was $1,520 a month ($690 combined car payments/$190 insurance/$400 gas/$240 tolls). Or 30% of our monthly expenses back in 2015.

Transportation is now +/- $510 a month. It’s 8% of our monthly expenses. Both cars being paid off took this expense down a few notches.

Car Accident

One morning in 2016 while driving to a job in Foster City, I was rear ended on I-880. Traffic came to an unexpected slow down and the truck behind me slammed into me. We pulled over to the side of the busy freeway and exchanged information under the eyes of thousands of commuters crawling by us, likely blaming us for the slow down. At first glance the damage to my 2011 Honda Civic looked extremely minimal. A sliver of a crack in the bulbous fiberglass bumper, some swapped paint, and that was it. No broken tail lights. The trunk opened and closed fine.

Was it even worth reporting to the insurance company? I owed about $8K on it at the time. If the car was paid off I wouldn’t have reported it–I hate dealing with insurance companies–but owed on it, so I reported. Should be a straight forward process to get the fiber glass bumper replaced, I thought, being rear ended and all.

To my surprise, when the insurance adjuster came out to inspect the car, he totaled it. He unclipped the carpet that lined the trunk and showed me how the metal was crumpled in accordion like. A look from below the car revealed a bent frame.

They valued the car at $9k, promptly paid off the balance, and wrote me a check for $1k. Then they asked if I wanted to keep the car for a fee of $200 dollars. Hell yes I wanted to keep the car! And I was able to get it registered as salvaged.

This Honda Civic is now a daily commuter for my wife. 35 mpg and the engine is perfectly fine nearing 200k miles, minus the cracked fiber glass bumper, its a perfect car. Luckily, we were able to lose the $140 monthly car payment, by an unlucky incident.

Getting Fired

This took place before the Honda incident, but the luck fermentation process took a bit longer reveal its bounty. The outcome wasn’t immediate like getting a check from an insurance company, but it was 100 times better and changed the course of my life.

In early 2015, I was transferred to a 40-something story high rise that was experiencing serious problems. This was when I worked doing structural concrete. I was told I needed to put my bags back on and help the guys in the field by laying out the building (reading the drawings and marking out locations for the carpenters and other trades to build to). I wasn’t too happy about it, especially after being recently promoted to a general foreman, but like a good soldier, I obeyed. Layout was my specialty.

This was a good young company. I’d risen fast in the two years I’d been there. A few months earlier they’d shook my hand and told me they were going to start to transition me into the office as a superintendent. It was an exciting time and I really thought I was on the threshold to the promised land.

A few weeks after throwing my bags on and working in the field like a regular carpenter, I got into an argument with the senior superintendent who’d been brought in to “fix the sinking ship”. The company was in the process of transitioning the entire project management team off the job for a more experienced one. I was brought in as a lower tier band aid and this senior super, who I didn’t know, was an upper tier band aid. I remember one Friday, 30 of our guys getting laid off in one swoop from this job; it was that kind of bad job. This super wanted to bring in his own guys, mostly family that he brought from job to job. So to make room he swung a heavy axe.

Our point of contention was that he didn’t want to pay me to attend the morning foremen meetings because I was too expensive. He wanted me to come in for free, and if I wouldn’t, he’d rather have “layout” represented in the meetings by a guy who was laying out curbs 10 floors down in the basement instead of me. He also started blaming me for concrete layout problems that happened before I stepped foot on the project.

In response, I told him I wouldn’t be a foreman for him anymore if he didn’t want me going to the meetings, politely handed him my radio, and said he could have someone else come and layout the building and land material with the crane up there.

“I’ll happily take orders from that person and be a regular carpenter the remainder of the job.” I told him.

He gladly took me up on this and gave me two checks the next day.

Up to that point in my life, I believed in company loyalty and being so good they couldn’t afford to fire you. I thought that stuff mattered. It doesn’t. Politics matter.

Being fired out of spite is devastating. I was so angry that I ignored calls from other supers who I’d known for years in that company asking me to return. I knew I had no future at that company if this guy was employed there. It was embarrassing as well to just be tossed to the curb after being supposedly one of their top carpenter foremen on the fast track. Previously, the owners of the company had taken me out to lunch, I’d been invited to the last few management only company Christmas party’s, given a computer and email address. I felt like I was a part of the company and helping them grow–not just a hired union carpenter in the field.

I got new work from a smaller company as a regular foreman and started putting my resume out for superintendent positions at every company’s website I could find. Then 6 months later, the very first company I started my career with called and asked if I was interested in becoming an assistant superintendent on the general contractor side. I’d sent my resume to them first and they interviewed me for a concrete super position, but they’d ultimately turned me down. They said it wouldn’t look good to the other foremen since I’d quit them to go to their rival and would be coming back in a higher role.

But they liked me enough to work on their general contractor side? I knew structural concrete, not being a general contractor on the job site. How much harder could it be? I just had to watch other trades/companies do their work and make sure everyone got along and stayed on schedule. Sounded easy…

Another caveat was they were offering me less money and I had to get out of the union. How much less? About $30k less than I made the year before. They said I could get the same hour rate as a union carpenter, but I’d be salary, no over time. Could I live on making $30k less a year? It felt like I was going backwards if I took this deal.

After much thought and helpful conversations with my father and wife, I took the position. The experience was worth the pay cut I figured. I convinced myself it was a temporary sacrifice.

So I took the job, and turns out I loved the general contractor side. I love starting buildings from the very beginning and handing the keys to the owners. I love learning about and working with other trades and their roles in building a building. It also now pays well, like 57% salary increase from when I started well. And 37% more than I was making when they’d fired me at the other company.

I ended up getting a company truck with gas and tolls paid. This saved me $240 tolls and $300 in gas a month. A total of $540 dollars a month in transportation.

Thank you senior superintendent for firing me back in 2015. At the time I hated you for ruining my career. But in reality I need to thank you. You set me down a course to become a general contractor with another company, a role I would have never considered for myself. I found it suits my personality well and I like it better than concrete. You taught me valuable lessons in life: how to be humble, how to handle sudden job loss, how to swallow my ego and take a job for less money. And if fate ever brings us together and you end up on one of my jobs as my concrete subcontractor, I will no doubt teach you the same lesson you taught me and return the favor by kicking you off my job.

Happily Disengaged

Now, what sort of luck will it take to eventually lower my grocery bills?

Have any of you experienced bad luck that surprisingly turned into good luck or maybe the reverse? Do you believe in luck?

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