It’s been a whole year since I left off from our How God Brought Us to NYC story [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]. The big story wasn’t put off on purpose. As we’ve discovered during our first year in the city, life gets a lot busier as a 1-year-old becomes a 2-year-old and many of life’s conveniences are no longer available to us (car, cheap groceries, in-house laundry, personal space).

So it’s been a long enough cliffhanger. Not even LOST leaves us hanging that long.

Previously on How God Brought Us to NYC — Now that we were getting used to the city and the idea of living in other peoples’ apartments, I started pounding the pavement for a job. Craigslist was a jumble of poorly written and sometimes disturbing headlines. Somehow, I got my first-ever real job interview, which I whiffed on so hard that I think I pulled a shoulder…

As I said before, I left the stink bomb of an interview with my pride hurt, but slightly relieved because I realized that I didn’t want the job. I had nowhere to go but up from there. Well, I got a little lost on the street and saw my interviewer on the street a couple of times, but THEN I had nowhere to go but up.

After days of more fruitless searching on Craigslist, I hit upon a promising lead. It was an unpaid 3-month internship that involved blogging and editing for a large social network. Clever longtime readers will remember from long ago that I’m actually half-OK at those things. Unpaid, yes, but it was finally a toe in the door of the kind of career that I wanted.

This, my second real job interview (though it wasn’t for a real job), was a success. Unlike the other jobs that I’ve had in life, I didn’t have an inside connection that guaranteed me the position. However, God still showed how head-scratching marvelous He is. The young lady who interviewed me

1. went to the University of Florida, just like me
2. knows some of my good friends
3. and has seen my band play before at her church.

This is all from me responding to a seemingly-random Craigslist ad. I got my 3-month unpaid part-time internship.

Not content with just partially hitting the big time in NYC, I kept searching for something a little more permanent. I soon scored an interview with another web company. I was on a roll.

It was a startup, and when I walked into the small office, it was filled with young geek-cool types with DJ headphones staring at monitors and deftly rapping on their keyboards. The place was devoid of human interaction.

I interviewed with the startup’s young Indian CEO. It was a smooth conversation, and he liked me. So much that I was offered the job via email about a day later. Unfortunately, the salary was a tad lower than I needed, with a Cool Family to feed and all. When I asked about the possibility of higher pay, I never heard back.

Despite that little setback, I still had momentum. At my internship, it was great to work with new people in a whole new industry for me. I commuted to their Times Square office everyday. I had reason to fix my hair every day. I had a purpose in New York City.

I also had a mortgage and rent to pay, and I didn’t have any income.

Next time: Finally, the score

Related posts:

1. How God brought us to NYC, Part 5: No money to mo’ money
2. How God brought us to NYC: part 3
3. How God brought us to NYC: part 2
4. Tonight at 9:00 PM EST – Live interview with Brody Harper
5. How God brought us to NYC: part 1