My love affair with New York City
October 1st, 2006 by Sarin
New York City, it’s not that I can’t quit you, it’s that I don’t want to quit you.
March of this year was a pretty rough time. I was finally home from the Peace Corps and Cambodia, but yet I had no plan for the future. In some ways, I knew I had to find a job and get moving on the real world, and I knew I couldn’t stay at my parent’s house long. A part of me believed that I was to go back to the developing world and get back to interesting work abroad a la ‘Peace Corps’, But after spending all those months abroad in harsh conditions, I didn’t feel the need to leave my high speed internet as of yet. Since I was in transition phase between jobs and places to stay, I knew it was now the best time to try and fulfill a goal I have had for years. After living out of 2 backpacks for the past 8 months, now was the best time to move to the greatest city in the world, New York City.
My love affair with New York City happened sometime during senior year of college, ironically at the same time I was doing my thing with Peace Corps. I had been to New York in years past, but it wasn’t until now that I really started to recognize and enjoy it for what it was. In the US, this is the city that never sleeps, and never does anything slow. Two qualities that I truly respect and two principles I enjoy following as well. Even going further back, before I fell in love with the city, I never quite saw the big deal. Whereas most people get overwhelmed with New York on their first time (there is simply too much going on and the hectic pace is too much for first timers, so used to their suburban lifestyles) I never had a problem with the lifestyle but I did have a hard time trying to see why New York was as busy as it was. Was there some charm about NY that I was missing?
Eventually I found the big deal. After a few trips to the city, it was obvious reflecting back that New York City is the standard in which to compare other cities. I found myself comparing New York City to everything I had been to at the time and frankly New York City just does it better than everything else. It is the most diverse place in America and maybe the whole world, and it is a place where dreams are made and realized. I made a couple visits to the city before I left for abroad, but it was these trips that finally made it stick to me. After getting really acquainted with the city, I felt that I couldn’t enjoy living anywhere else. I was excited to move in the city and enjoy all the cultures and lifestyles that only New Yorkers get to enjoy.
However, back to the present. After getting back from the traveling, I was… tired and jetlagged. It took a little over a week to cure my jetlag that had me flying from the other side of the world in less than 24 hours. And until then was not able to do much of anything besides stare at the television. My body felt useless and my mind couldn’t think through all the reverse culture shock. My recollections sat in the journal untouched and my digital photos sat on the memory card, unnamed and not yet uploaded onto Flickr. Between days of 15 hour sleeping sessions and TV marathons, just the idea of looking for NYC jobs was exhausting. Considering I had just gotten back from the longest vacation I might ever take, looking for a job was the last thing I wanted to do right away. Luckily there was a season of LOST to catch up on, and the endless amounts of satellite TV at my mom’s house. Rather just for another case of the ‘back home blues’.
As far as being social, considering I saw most of everybody back in January, it wasn’t a big welcome back in some way. I did get to see more people I didn’t see the first time home, and eventually managed to join the cult and get a new cellphone fairly quickly. There were some gatherings in which I made the popup, but nothing too dramatic then. It was like the adjustment was already made and everybody has settled me in for the long term. Even I was too, because after a certain time I was more interested in myself than my friends.
On the job front, immediately upon getting home I got an offer to work for my previous employer back at school for a full time benefits position. The pay was reasonable and the time off during the summer was key. However, it was way too soon to pass up on anything, anything from New York, so while I had a chance to return to the land of where I studied for 4 years, I really had no desire to go back.
My first plan of action was just to start applying in masses. After editing, cleaning and spiffing up my resume to my liking, I hit up www.indeed.com and started applying to jobs on average of about 10 an hour. As fast as I was home settling in, I was even faster applying to jobs that will send me out fast. I became obsessed, obsessed, and straight up dedicated to staring at the computer screen and applying to jobs en masse. I don’t know the exact number of applications I have submitted, but at the end of one week it was close to uncountable. Pretty soon the act of looking at a computer screen was enough to hurt my eyes from the stress. A 3 hour session of applying to jobs in the morning would require 5 hours of lounging around the house resting up my eyes from the abuse. My mom started wondering how far I was going to take this. And while I just kept quiet and doubled up on the visine, what I didn’t tell her was how far I was willing to take this.
Somehow in between resume submittals to job openings to NYC, I managed to get an interview and get accepted working for an AIDS activist organization in Providence, RI. The job purpose was fulfilling, and the office location was literally a stone throw’s away from my parents. However, the position wasn’t having me on the front line and more of a backend support for the group. Since the job didn’t seem too enriching on my part and the fact that I would be willing to do worse in NY, I passed on the offer in hopes I could still make it in New York.
After going through a week of no replies and dismissals, I was short of throwing in the towel of getting a job in New York City. I faced the facts I had in front of me, mainly being, I was a very inexperienced after college graduate, and that I required some time to move into the city and not be able to start right away. Going the way of applying jobs over the internet was probably not the best way especially since I don’t even live close to the area yet.
At a trip to Barnes & Noble, in between sips of coffee, I had that ambitious urge to buy a book that I have been holding off on buying for months so far. The book is simply called ‘Relocating to New York City’, and gives you essential information for making your move and full neighborhood descriptions of the busting metropolis. However even though the book as useful in helping me understand the neighborhoods better, it did nothing to help the job search. At least half of the temp agencies listed in the book closed up shop and I have already had bad luck with everything the book mentioned before I even got my hands on it.
I had started to entertain the idea of moving into New York City right away and hopefully temping my way up the ladder. Of course, finding a place to live without having a job is fairly difficult and the only places I could find were already starting to sound like a crackhouse.
It was inevitable. I was slowly losing grip on the idea of moving to New York with just a backpack. I could live in a crackhouse, I have nothing against crack, but the breaking decision that told me not to, was the fact that I didn’t have a slush fund that could help me bounce back had I not found a job in New York. I would have to ask my mother for cash to pay my deposits to move into the city and there is no way she would do it knowing that I don’t have a job in hand. I knew it was possible to temp, as long as I had a place to stay. Hence, no place to stay, no way to get money to stay, and I had to end my job search there. I had to stop trying to move into New York and be reasonable.
In the end, it was close to 2 weeks of constant no replies and denials when I realized my resume was both not strong enough and obvious that I was not living in commuting distance. I became so good at job searching I decided to try my habits to jobs in the Boston area. For the more obvious reason, I was getting finally getting phone calls. In fact the phone calls came so much, they became harder to sleep through. There may have been 5 companies that passed me up because I sounded like I was still in bed, which in fact I was. The phone calls made it clear though, that if I wake up everyday early and man my phone, I will soon have a job on my hand.
The big picture: New York, over 100 applications and nothing close to an interview. Boston, 9 sent, 5 calling the next day.
Since I was broke, I was able to return that book mentioned above for a full refund. As most of you know by now I settled on a job in Boston and will write about it here soon. However, I still have New York on my mind.
Oh New York, big city of dreams. You weren’t there when I wanted you to, but be warned. I have NOT given up.
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