Chance encounters, strokes of luck, the turn of a friendly card… Are these sorts of happenings, like say bumping into someone you haven’t seen, or heard of, in a decade in a country you’re visiting for the first time, really the long shots they seem to be?
An analysis then of chance, probability, and coincidence, such that it actually is:
The simple question might be “why do such unlikely coincidences occur in our lives?” But the real question is how to define the unlikely. You know that a situation is uncommon just from experience. But even the concept of “uncommon” assumes that like events in the category are common. How do we identify the other events to which we can compare this coincidence? If you can identify other events as likely, then you can calculate the mathematical probability of this particular event as exceptional.
Originally published Tuesday 27 August 2013, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
Doing nothing is hard work. Constantly maintaining the pretence of looking busy is a full time job in itself, and for one American worker has virtually become a career.
Nine years later, someone calling himself the “forgotten employee”, still occupies, and is paid for, a role his employer apparently abolished very early into his tenure with the company.
So I arrived, acquired a large office in a remote corner of said facility, and continued with my march towards greatness. Then, something strange and wonderful happened. In outlook, an EMail appeared with my name in the “Courtesy Copy” field. Apparently, a new Vice President had decided to delegate the responsibilities that once were mine to another department. Immediately frightened for my job and my well being, I was tempted to scream out —yet, thankfully, I remained silent. I continued to come into the office on time every day, picked up the random pieces of my old job that were left scattered in the transition, and waited for the word. That, my friends, was 4 months ago to the day. After 30 days, I became convinced that I was a forgotten, non digestible entity in the corporate stomach. No man ever comes over to ask me for anything — although I am but a Manager, and Directors roam the hallways like rabid hyenas, I am much too senior to all of them for them to attempt an attack. Every once in a while, the phone will ring, and an old acquaintance will ask for help solving a problem — I gladly comply. Sometimes, I let the phone ring… but the voicemail light never comes on. They move on to the next target, under the false assumption that I am much too busy to be bothered.
I don’t know if this is for real, though I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it were, but there has to be a screenplay in it. The more you read, the better it gets.
(Some language possibly NSFW.)
Originally published Thursday 1 August 2013, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
