Double 'jobs' coincidence across countries.

In 1966 my boyfriend and I got jobs in Geneva, mine as a radiographer in the main hospital there. We had to leave the country for a while to sort out work permits. When we returned he was able to start work but I was told that as we had come back a week late my job had been given to someone else. I was quite mad about this as I had been persuaded to go to Geneva from another part of Switzerland where I had been working and unlike other parts of Switzerland at the time there were not that many jobs. I would have had to go to another part of the country to get work but he would have been unable to as his permit was job specific. About 6 months later and after we had married we decided to go to England for a while and see if there was work there. We were in London and when looking through a magazine with jobs vacancies I saw a summer job in Barnstaple Devon in the local general hospital. I rang the hospital department but was told that the job had been just taken by someone else. We went back to Switzerland and found jobs there. Some years later we thought of going to Italy to live but it looked, when I went to ask, like it was going to be very difficult for me to get a permit (this was pre the UK being in the EU). I went back to Switzerland where he still was and went to an agency to ask about jobs. I was persuaded to take up a temporary job in a small hospital outside Zurich. There were normally two people staffing the department there. One had already left and the other one was due to leave any day then. They had taken on an Australian man who did not speak any German. I was persuaded to go there for what was thought would be a few months possibly until he could get enough German to work with - he would only have needed the basics. I started there and the woman already working there only stayed on a few days to show me the department and how it functioned. The Australian had not been able to communicate with her as she spoke no English and he no German. When I spoke to the Australian we swapped notes about where we had worked and I was amazed to find that he had been working for several years in the UK - in Barnstaple; he had been the one who had been taken on that time when I had asked about a job - and the summer job had turned into a permanent one. The odds of our both turning up in a small hospital in Switzerland seemed pretty large. He soon decided that Switzerland was not for him and he went back to Barnstaple as although he didn't then have a job there he had a girlfriend still working there - I think it had been thought she would follow him to Switzerland. I was then left holding the fort in the small hospital. This meant that I was either working or on call for 24 hours. To temporarily solve this the hospital found a radiographer (Swiss) living near who had given up work as she was pregnant and they persuaded her to do the occasional day. At first coffee break we were swapping notes about where we had worked and I mentioned what had happened at Geneva and how I couldn't understand it, even given there being fewer jobs in Geneva. She said that she had once taken a job in Geneva but had cancelled just before she was due to start. When we worked out the dates it was obvious that what had happened was that after the hospital had taken me on they had been asked about a job by a Swiss and decided to find an excuse for not taking me on. This was understandable as I was a foreigner and could only speak little French but I was still pretty aggrieved about it as I was used to radiographers being like gold dust in Switzerland. I almost forgot the being aggrieved though when I started thinking about the odds of my meeting up with two people in a short time who had come into my life previously in such a way. Barnstaple is hardly a metropolis and the hospital we were in in Switzerland was very small and in a small town. The odds on us all coming together there seemed pretty incredible. One thing that was really satifying all those years later was to realise that as she had not taken the job in the end the hospital in Geneva had been left without anyone as they had already turned me away - for no reason as it turned out - and the puzzle as to why this had happened was solved. I really began thinking about fate and wondering if I just hadn't been meant to be there - or in Barnstaple at the time - particularly as there was an odd sequel to all this. Some 4-5 years later we again decided to give England a go. This was still just before England was in the EU and it was difficult for my husband to get a job prepared to wait for him for the months it would take him to settle everything in Switzerland. The only job he could find was in Devon - near Barnstaple! We had had no intention of going there and had tried for several different areas but when it was clear he could get work there I asked about work at that same hospital I had asked at all those years before and got a job. By that time the Australian and his girlfriend had moved on so he was never to know that somone he had worked with for a few weeks in Switzerland years before had ended up back in Barnstaple. There was to be a further (normal?) coincidence. The doctor in the department turned out to be somone with whom I had worked many years before when I had done a temp job in London. This seemed unusual but after the string of coincidences I had had in Switzerland I was beginning to wonder if coincidences were the norm! Best wishes, Margaret