An Author and A Young Woman - Chapter 6: New Job and Moving to New York
Chapter 6: New Job and Moving to New York
She walk-passed ‘Broadway Dance Studio’ and headed to ‘Espresso Yourself’, her favorite coffee house in Upper West Side. As she reached the coffee house, she ordered smoked salmon sandwich and latte; the sandwich used homemade bread. It had robust taste and it went well with smoked salmon; lettuce, sliced onions and cream cheese accompanied perfectly. She sipped Latte and took a bite of the sandwich, and then her memory lane forwarded and started replaying “Divya ‘Diva’ Virk 1998”.
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Six months before her graduation, Diva started looking for a job in US. She’d spend four and a half years in US by the time she graduated; most of her friends already graduated but she needed to go to the coming summer quarter and Fall Quarter 1998 because she had a couple of classes left to take in order to graduate. In one quarter, she did very badly and failed a couple of classes.
When she came here, she was only thinking about getting a university degree, but at this point, she felt that she wanted to explore this country more. She had not made the definitive decision to spend the rest of her life here, but she definitely wanted to spend many more years. Also she wanted to start working because she was slightly tired of being a student; she enjoyed the last four years and it was actually a very fulfilling period of time, but she needed a change.
She had to admit that going to a graduate school was not realistic at all though. Her grades in her senior year were quite horrendous; she was barely passing required classes and her GPA (Grade Point Average) kept dropping. Not many graduate schools would accept her because of her low GPA; she was getting a degree from one of top universities in the nation, so if she tried hard, she should probably find a school that would accept her. But even if she managed that, she would not get grants or scholarships, which meant that she could not afford to pay her tuition or living expenses. If she worked almost full time while she went to the graduate school, maybe she would be able to pay her tuition and living expenses, but the option did not appeal to her, nor did it seem realistic. Business schools and law schools often did not care much about grades if the candidate had work experience, but she did not have any real work experience; she was not particularly interested in getting MBA or law degree, either. There was another major obstacle; she had to take a test before she applied to a graduate school. She had to take GRE, GMAT or LSAT; she obviously had to get a decent score. Was she prepared? No. Was she motivated enough to study for the test while she studied for remaining classes in college? No. The more she thought about going to a graduate school, the less realistic the option seemed.
There was yet another option, but she did not give it a serious thought; she could go back to India and think about what to do next when she got there. This barely crossed her mind; her spiritual foundation was established here as she spent the last four years from when she was 18 years old to when she was 22 years old; her heart really belonged here.
She decided to look for a job in IT sector; since she was getting a degree in math, IT was a closely related field. Also even if it turned out that she did not have a good aptitude to become an IT professional, she could definitely apply skills that she’d acquire later on. IT skills were essential in any industries including banking, finance, insurance and accounting. The more IT skills she had, the better. She decided to start looking for a job locally initially and she asked one of her friends to help her create a resume to get started. Her friend, Rosario, worked at a local computer software company, and she’d been working in IT sector for the last four year or so. She took a Taekwondo class a year ago out of curiosity; she wanted to do some exercise also. The class was open to anyone; this was why quite a few like Rosario, who weren’t USCB students, were in the same class. That was where she met her. Rosario advised her to stretch as much as she could. For example, Diva took a programming language class in college; she wrote the name of the programming language in ‘Skills’ section of her resume. She did not write ‘proficient’ because that would be false information, but she did not use any of the following phrases ‘entry level’, ‘beginner level’ and ‘intermediate level’. She also wrote, “B.S. Degree in Theoretical Mathematic, strong emphasis in Software Engineering”; this was not entirely accurate, though it was not false information. After Rosario and she met several times, she made a presentable resume; she then started sending it out to many companies locally. Within a month, she sent out over 100 copies.
She did not get many responses, but one local independent software developer responded her; the software developer, Elias Hoenig, wrote computer software for engraving machines and he was looking for someone who could develop algorithms to analyze surface areas of variety of objects. He figured that, since Diva was getting her degree in math, she might have a good aptitude. After the first interview, she spent some time studying programming and came up with an algorithm to analyze the surface area of a simple object. He found that it was actually quite useful and he gave her several assignments; she got her first job as a software developer though it was just a part time job.
While she worked for Elias, she sent our more copies of her resume; she enjoyed working for him, but it was just a part job. She needed to get a full time job at some point. She made sure that she added this job in her ‘Experience’ section though; there was no ‘Experience’ section before, but there was one now. Big, big difference. After a month, she started thinking about applying for jobs in other parts of US. Her main focus up to this point was to find a job, but she asked herself what she really wanted to do. As she grew up in Delhi, she was a city girl; she could not imagine living in the suburb. She was actually getting a little tired of living in Santa Barbara, a small town in California. She’d been to Los Angeles and she applied for jobs there, but she was not very fond of L.A., either; the city was spread out too thin and disconnected. She didn’t find energy or vitality; she loved watching movies including Hollywood movies, but the city was very unattractive to her. She then started thinking about going to a different part of US, preferably far from here. She also wanted to get a better idea of what this country had to offer. She thought, “Where do I want to go? A major city and a real city. East coast? Northeast US? Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.” She paused for a minute and said, ”New York is my destination.” She made a few changes in her resume and started sending copies out.
She was not following news closely, but the luck was on her side; it was 1998, and it was in the middle of ‘Dot com’ era, the greatest tech boom of the century. All computer software companies were looking for employees and they were glad to take fresh college graduates. Whoever wanted to hire her needed to sponsor her to get a business visa because she was not a permanent US resident, but this was when employers did not mind sponsoring people like her.
She started sending out copies of her resume to computer software companies in New York. That itself became like a job; she spent a couple of hours on it everyday for the next couple of months. In the end, she sent out about two hundred copies of her resume in total. She got several responses and got phone interviews. Interviewers were generally not very impressed because of her lack of experience but she was getting responses at least. After she had phone interviews and exchanged several email correspondences, she had a couple of employees who were interested in meeting her if she were wiling to travel to New York. She counted money she made from her part time programming job; she had enough to buy a round trip ticket between Los Angeles and New York. She stopped at a couple of travel agencies and checked ticket prices and flight schedules; she then bought a ticket. Her arrival date was set to December 14th, right after her final exams; she would come back here on December 21st. She also booked a hotel. After she made the arrangement, she continued sending out copies of her resume, but she slowed down a bit; she also had to study for her exams. Next couple of months passed rather quickly and she took her last final exam in college on December 12th. She packed her stuff the next day and took the flight to New York the following day from LAX.
She took a redeye flight and arrived in New York in the morning; it was snowing, and she saw Manhattan approaching as she took a cab from JFK. Skyscrapers and red stone buildings. Black, White, Puerto Ricans and Chinese. Graphite here and there. She could see trains running. It was presumably cold outside because so many people were wearing long coats, but they were walking around the city as if they didn’t care about cold weather. There was energy in the city and she felt vibe.
She arrived at her hotel; she unloaded her suitcase and checked in. Hotel workers spoke some eastern European language when they spoke each other; she couldn’t tell which language it was, but she could tell that she was in New York, a true melting pot. She did not have any appointment today, so shortly after she put her suitcase in her room, she went out to take a walk. She was just happy to be there. New York was more than half way around the world from India; she made it, though she didn’t know what’d happen in the future. She stopped at a coffee shop and had Latte; the coffee tasted so good for some reason. She wondered if it was the coffee that tasted so good or it was the atmosphere and her excitement that made her feel that the coffee tasted so good. She’d never been to New York before, so she wasn’t quite sure where in the city she was, but she loved every part of the city. Before she realized, it was dark outside; she just had a sliced pizza at a nearby pizza place and went back to her hotel. She wanted to get up early next morning, so she took shower, watched TV for an hour or so and went to sleep.
She had the first appointment at a recruitment firm in the city. She met a recruiter and told him that she was looking for an entry position in the city; he told her that a lot of people were getting hired this year. He also told her that, though she’d be in the city only for a week, he’d try his best to set up interviews with his clients, her potential employers. This never happened in the end.
Next day, she had a job interview at ‘Prince Software Development’, a computer software company in the city; the lead developer interviewed her. He told her flat out that she lacked skills though he thanked her effort to come to New York. The interview was rather brief and he told her that he’d get back to her in a couple of weeks.
She did not have any appointment the following day. She just went sight seeing in the city. She was not particularly interested in visiting typical tourist sights, but she went to the Empire State Building. She was not impressed by the building itself, but she was impressed by the whole atmosphere of the city. She felt that the city was calling her. New York met her expectations; she knew that it was the place where she wanted to be.
She had another job interview the following day at ‘FSD (short for Finance Software Development)’, another computer software company in the city. As she reached the company’s office, she was taken to the main conference room. Five minutes later, the interviewer came in, passed her a test and he told her that he’d come back later. She was taken aback; she was not prepared. He came back a couple of times to check up on her and he gave her many hints. In the end, she basically flanked; she could not answer any of questions in the test.
”Ok, so, you don’t know anything,” said the interviewer. He continued, “I admire you for flying out here though. It’s a long way from India. You’re originally from there, right?” She nodded and he continued, “I’m not afraid of taking beginners. I understand that you don’t know much about software development but you have strong background in math. This is a big plus.” He talked some more and he told her that he’d get back to her in several weeks. She didn’t do on her test well at all, but the interview itself went well.
She spent her last day in this trip walking around the city; she packed that night and left the city next day.
After she came back from New York, she spent rather uneventful yearend; she spent New Year’s Eve with Rosario and her son Aaron. She got her grades by then and she confirmed that she passed all classes; she had B.S. Degree in theoretical mathematics now. Her parents were generous enough to offer her a financial support for a period of time, but she insisted that she’d do without. Elias was paying her about a thousand dollars a month, so she was able to get by if she lived like a student. At the end of January, she received two emails from New York. One was from Prince Software Development; they did not offer her a job. They cited her lack of experience. The other was from FSD; they offered her a job; the email was to the point:
”Dear Divya,
We’d like to offer you a job. While we find that you lack experience, given your strength in math and science, we believe that you’d be able to make a great contribution to our team in time. The base salary is 36k a year, that is, 3k a month. We will pay you 80% of the full salary, $2,400 a month for the first two months, which will be your training period. At the end of the training period, assuming that you acquire necessary skills and become productive workforce, we will pay you 3k a month, the full salary. You will be reviewed once a year for a possible raise. You will also receive two bonuses a year. The amount of each bonus is unspecified at this time.
If you’d like to take this offer, please email me back and let me know.
Brian Saunders
President
FSD Inc.”
She took the offer right away and started planning to move to New York. A month later, she arrived in the city with her suitcase and started working in mid March.
While she received the relocation fee of $2,500 upon her arrival, she had difficult time finding an apartment. After all, she was in a new city; she didn’t know anyone. Also she was a bit tight financially; she typically had to pay one-month rent as deposit and the last month rent upon moving in. She was staying at a hotel now, so she had to pay for it, too. She thought about her monthly budget and figured that the rent needed to be under $1,000. But for that amount, it was very difficult for her to find a single apartment in the city. She also started looking for a roommate in addition to looking for a single apartment.
After about a month of search, she found a room on W. 14th Street. The landlady was a middle aged Japanese woman who spoke poor English; her apartment had 5 rooms and 1 bathroom. She had 5 roommates including her teenage daughters; one of them was moving out in a week or so, and she was looking for a new roommate. When Diva walked into the apartment for the first time, she found it a chaotic place. But she was a little tired of staying at hotels, and she wanted to move into an apartment, with a couple of roommates if necessary, as soon as possible.
She moved into the apartment 2 weeks later. Shortly after she moved in, she realized how messy and chaotic the apartment was. It was originally a small factory and it had a very rough interior structure; she saw pipes and wires sticking out. Rooms did not have proper doors; the floor was raw concrete. It was a livable place, but it was not a comfortable residence. However, what really made it messy and chaotic were her 5 roommates. Coco was the name of Japanese landlady. It was actually not a Japanese name; it was her nickname, but since her American friends had hard time remembering her real name, she told them to call her ‘Coco’. Coco had no job; she just collected rents and paid her expenses out of the sum. She spent more than she made, so she kept accumulating her credit card debt. She was very distressed and depressed; she drank beer and smoked cigarettes all day long. She was almost a chain smoker. She had two daughters and they occupied one room; they were 12 years old and 14 years old. Diva didn’t know much about these teenagers, but they certainly didn’t look like good students; 12 years old had green hair and 14 years old had purple hair. They pierced a dozen different places collectively and they both had nose piercing and tongue piercing; they looked like they’d stub their mother someday. They might be taking drugs and sleeping with boys, but Diva didn’t bother to find out. Other two were James, 19 years old from Texas who wanted to become an actor and Abraham, 29 years old D.J. James changed his jobs constantly; he said that he wanted to become an actor, but it seemed that he was preoccupied with scoring different drugs. It was not uncommon that he came back home looking like overdosed. Abraham, on the other hand, actually made pretty good money by working as a D.J.; he made about $300 a night, and he worked 4 nights a week on average. But he kept bringing different girls back to the apartment so often, and that bothered her. She was not jealous, but she just didn’t like seeing so many half naked girls walking around in the middle of the night. James and Abraham seemed to get along; they were good drug buddies. They also brought some strange guests often; most of them did not have regular 9-5 jobs and they looked like drug users. They came late and they stayed until early in the morning. Walls were thin, so she could hear their talking, and as a result, she had hard time sleeping. She didn’t dislike them; she actually got along with them fine and she often had chitchat with them. But she really wanted to have a nice quiet apartment. She saved some money before the end of the year, found a single apartment in Sunnyside, Queens and moved there a week before New Year’s Day.
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She finished her sandwich and Latte as she wrapped up her thought. She finished the sandwich faster than usual; she was hungry after the long walk. She looked outside, and at that moment, she found her solitude.
