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In reply to the discussion: Update on my treasure hunting, HOLY SHIT! [View all]DFW
(54,372 posts)In college, one of my two roomies and I used to play chess (not for money) and it nearly got me killed once (not by him). Long story. They had (with the best of intentions) invited me to a party where people of my pigmentation were apparently not welcome.
My wife, who is German, and I took great pains to purposely raise our daughters bilingually. It turned out to help one of them slightly when looking for a job, and with the other one, it turned out to be her key to some serious (now mid to high six-figures yearly) earnings. She got her first taste of how valuable a commodity it can be when combined with a decent degree. She graduated magna from what is considered to be a "second tier" law school in the States. She is plenty smart, but her English wasn't quite good enough to understand every word on the LSATs, and that is apparently the only thing law schools look at in the USA. The "top" ones told her to fuck off. After three years of law school, she knew every word in the law dictionary. She graduated at the end of the Cheneybush recession, and there was no work to be had in her field (international law) in DC, NYC or Boston, so she went to a job fair in Frankfurt to try her luck. She liked the Frankfurt arm of a British law firm, but they said they were only looking for someone with specific qualifications. They needed someone who was fluent in English and German, had EU working papers but a US bar exam. She said, "here I am." They started her at 85,000 and she never looked back. Head hunted at 29 by a New York firm for THEIR Frankfurt office, and became their youngest partner ever at age 31.
All that--inspired by a chance meeting with a German lawyer in Washington who was willing to pay $25 an hour for a skill that wasn't easy to come by. That was one sweet gig indeed.