I was twenty minutes early for the most important interview of my life, standing outside a glass office tower downtown, going over my answers one last time. The receptionist on the fourteenth floor looked at me strangely when I gave the company name. "I'm sorry," she said, "nobody by that name works in this building." My stomach dropped.
I checked the address again. I had copied it correctly from the email, but somehow I had walked into the wrong tower — there were two buildings with identical names on the same street, three blocks apart. By the time I realized my mistake, I had exactly six minutes to get to the right one. I ran the whole way, arriving out of breath, my shirt sticking to my back, my carefully rehearsed answers scattered somewhere in my head.
The actual interview was a disaster. I stumbled over basic questions and could not stop apologizing for being late. I left certain I had ruined my only chance.
What I did not expect was a phone call two days later — not from that company, but from a small design studio on the fourteenth floor of the wrong building. The receptionist there had mentioned my visit to her manager, who happened to be looking for someone with exactly my background. Would I be willing to come in for a conversation, no interview required?
I took the job at that tiny studio instead, and five years later I still work there. Every time someone asks how I found the place, I tell them the truth: I got hopelessly lost, walked into the wrong building, and somehow ended up exactly where I was supposed to be.