Posts Tagged ‘second chance’

With so many out of work these days, employers can practically sketch their ideal employee and find someone to perfectly fit the image.

Not many would sketch Nic Schoonbeck.

A decade of drug abuse had left the 24-year-old with a felony arrest record and bedraggled appearance. But as Rhonda Abrams explains in her book Wear Clean Underwear: Business Wisdom from Mom, the owners of Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, prided themselves on looking beyond externals when interviewing prospective hires. So instead of being put off by Nic’s unkempt ponytail, torn t-shirt, and spotty résumé, they welcomed him aboard and assigned him sandwich duties.

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Screwed up much in life?

Welcome to the club.

Sometimes the biggest mountains we have to move are the consequences of our own mistakes. We assume whatever we’ve done is so HUGE there’s no getting past it. Maybe we’ve gone bankrupt, destroyed a marriage, ruined our credit rating, damaged our reputation, alienated our children, wrecked our health, or committed a crime and wound up in prison. And we can’t imagine how we could ever put the Humpty Dumpty of our lives together again.

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