“That thing about ‘Canadian experience’ became an issue in our lives. I came to hate it! How am I going to get Canadian experience if they don’t give me a job?” María recalls.

When she realized her credentials were considered nothing more than a piece of parchment in Canada, she decided to go back to school. But while she spoke Parisian French, she first needed to improve her English to get a job in Vancouver. She completed those classes in 2002, then began retraining in computer-aided design with the hope of going back to working in architecture.

The year after she finished her courses at Vancouver Community College, María went to more than 20 interviews. But no one hired her. She worried she wasn’t interacting with employers in “a Canadian way.” So she started writing possible questions and practicing the answers. After school, her children sat down with her to listen and teach her customary things. “You shouldn’t say that you prefer to work in the mornings. You have to say ‘yes’ to whatever they ask you to do,” her son warned.

María ended up settling for “whatever.” After a couple of temporary jobs, she joined a kids’ footwear factory as a seamstress, even though she had little sewing skill. The philosophy of “saying yes to everything” eventually led her to the quality control division. Being the only employee in the afternoon shift, she dared to ask if she could put her professional skills to use. “I told my boss that our area was a little bit disorganized and that if he’d let me, I could make it spatially functional,” she says.

After she heard “go for it,” María got home and opened AutoCAD on her computer; she had barely used the software in a year or so. Still, she quickly remembered how to handle the program and started to work on an area plan. Originally, the tables and shelves in the 140-square-metre quality control room were aligned in a row; María turned that distribution into an equilateral cross. “I thought we would be more interconnected like that,” she says.

In her new configuration, employees just had to turn their chairs and walk counter clockwise to move from the station where the leather pieces were being evaluated to the table where the components of the shoes were assembled. María left the central area opened to facilitate that movement and to be used for additional tasks.

When her boss realized that the new configuration worked and that María was proficient in AutoCAD, he involved her in projects where she had to determine the maximum, minimum, and median measures of the shoes’ materials. “That is, for example, how flexible a spring has to be,” she explains. Eventually, María was asked to design the shoes’ specifications manual.

But her manual went to waste. In 2009, the factory moved to China and everybody was laid off. María’s self-confidence was crushed. By then, she says, “I was older and who knew if I was going to be lucky enough to put my knowledge into use again.”

She was right to worry. Not even with the help of settlement agencies was she able to get a second chance, so she started applying for “whatever” again. When the pharmacy offered her a stock clerk position, she didn’t hesitate. That was four years ago.

María says the work makes her joints ache. She avoids passing by the store during her days off. She barely socializes with her co-workers. Still, she is resigned to doing the job, even beyond retirement age.

It’s not just about having an income; it’s also about staying active. “I need this,” she says. Yet, keeping busy hasn’t helped María to stop taking antidepressants, as it did back in Mexico. “I start feeling anxious again and I say, no way! I don’t want to feel that thing ever again!”

María reads. She reads a lot. She reads about many things and her condition is one of them. After reading Overcoming Anxiety for Dummies, she tried keeping a notebook. “I wasn’t capable of rereading it because I was afraid of all the negative thoughts I was having. At the end, I could reread it but I didn’t burn it, which was how the therapy was supposed to go,” she says. Her biggest fears ended up ripped in the garbage. “I didn’t set them on fire because I was afraid of ending up in jail,” she jokes.

For María, information is power, and reading about depression helps her keep control over her life. “Reading allows you to know a little bit more about yourself,” she says with a smile. That’s why, too, she reads about history and political psychology. “Knowing what has happened provides you with the right perspective to make better decisions.”

This approach, she says, has allowed her to stop asking “Why me?”

“The better part of the world”

Rajesh has never asked himself “Why me?” He has tried to remain positive even in the darkest times. “When you dream big, you get big hurdles,” he says.

Since Grade 10, Rajesh wanted to move from Calcutta to “the better part of the world.” But before doing so, he thought he should have a degree and some work experience. After three years practicing accounting in his hometown, he researched the steps needed to move to the U.S. But he soon set his sights on Canada, because it “was open to all professions.” He applied as a skilled worker.

Immediately after arriving in Vancouver, one of his relatives connected him with an engineering company and he started to work. But when the company downsized, the newest workers were fired.

Soon, Rajesh learned how important it was to have Canadian qualifications. But figuring out how to pay rent was a higher priority than going back to school. Still, he applied online for as many jobs as he could while taking temporary positions — “in whatever.”

The contacts he established through the Internet led him to London, Ont., and then to Ingersoll, an industrial and cheese-producing town of some 11,000 residents by that time. There, he wore more hats — and safety goggles — than he can count: labourer at a food processing plant, mechanic coating rotors with anti-rust products, cheese maker after being told he was going to do accounting. “Ugh! If you love cheese, never work in a cheese factory!” Rajesh says. He recalls the strain of juggling two or sometimes more jobs at once — an experience that reflects more than half of skilled immigrants to Canada, according to statistics.

By scrambling for pay, he was able to rent a bachelor suite and have a car. But the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis hit, the rotors company downsized, the temp agency he was in touch with wasn’t able to get him any more gigs, and he had to ask for EI.

Rajesh doesn’t remember the year, but says “it was when GM Place became Rogers Arena.” Being a huge Vancouver Canucks fan, he connects many dates with important events related to his team.

After the layoffs, Rajesh moved to Victoria and found a bag-boy gig at a Safeway. He was embarrassed to find himself carrying groceries and arranging carts. “That’s a job that’s only meant for bad boys, because all you do is carry bags for other people; it’s punishment,” he says with a chuckle.

For the next seven years, he took any job he could, from heavy lifting to selling second mortgages, artificial lawns, cellphone plans, and credit cards. Finally, he decided it was time to have his accounting credentials assessed and to start taking the prerequisites to get the CPA certification with Thompson Rivers University. He registered and promised to himself he would hit the books every night, after his eight-hour shifts.

But his home life proved not conducive: he had a girlfriend who was a heavy smoker and who was trying to raise her two teenagers. “The whole scenario was against the study,” he says. So he just kept throwing in the towel.

He broke up with his girlfriend and moved back to Vancouver, determined to not let another survival job become more important than his final goal. “I had to do it for myself, I had to do it for everyone who knows me, including my parents,” he says.

He started taking courses at UBC Robson Square. Everything seemed on track. He didn’t care when his boss at a 7-Eleven fired him and told him that accounting was a dying industry. He also didn’t care when he had to take tests on Saturdays and couldn’t be at his new position as a customer service representative in a cell phone company. His mind was set.

But then came the string of events that landed him in the all-night McDonald’s. His new application for employment insurance took two months to be approved, and while he waited he was thrown out from the room he was renting. He found himself lining up at 6 a.m. at the Belkin House shelter, where he slept for 15 nights in the same room with men he had never met and whom, honestly, he feared. “If someone comes and asks me how much my computer cost and what do I have on it...” he says.​