Sometimes the door someone slams in your face ends up being the one that pushes you exactly where you’re meant to go.

So, what would you do if your department chair encouraged you to apply for a position, but it was canceled at the last minute, and he told you to “figure something else out?” Would you be upset and push back? Or would you take his advice and find something better?

In the following story, one college student finds himself in this situation and gets the perfect offer. Here’s how it went down.

Was I in the wrong for rubbing it in to the department chair?

I was a PhD student at a respected university, teaching while completing my degree.

The department chair approached me and asked me to apply for a newly opened Visiting Assistant Professor position.

He stated that they needed me to teach specific courses I was comfortable with in the upcoming fall semester.

It was pretty late to apply for positions.

Then May arrived and told me they had canceled the position and that I should “go figure something else out.”

Keep in mind, I am an international scholar who was counting on this position for my OPT (Optional Practical Training). I had even renewed my lease for another year. At the time, I also had a wife and a one-year-old son to support.

May is extremely late to apply for faculty positions. The majority of the 60+ universities I applied to emailed me stating they had already filled their positions.

Luckily, he did receive a few offers.

Somehow, I got lucky and received two offers: one in Mechanical Engineering (ME) in the same state, and another in Aerospace Engineering (my specific field) that was quite far away.

I decided to accept the ME position, paid a hefty fee to break my lease, and moved.

Recently, I ran into my former department chair at a conference, and he asked how I was doing.

I told him I was fine—better than fine, actually. I had secured a tenure-track Assistant Professor position, rather than a visiting one.

The guy probably didn’t know what to say.

I explained that while my current school previously only had Mechanical Engineering, we are launching an Aerospace Engineering degree this upcoming fall.

He replied, “So, you will be our competitor?”

I said, “No, not just competitors. I know your university is struggling with the courses I used to teach. Since your institution is private and expensive, and we are a public university, I plan to recruit all those students to my program instead.”

Finally, I thanked him for getting rid of me.

Wow! That’s a great ending!

Let’s see how the people over at Reddit feel about what happened in this story.

This person thinks his new job is great.

It might have been too long now.

This person seems upset about the topic.

Here’s someone who would’ve done the same.

Those tables sure turned.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.