Everything you will read here is real. All names have been changed so that people focus on the lessons rather than the individuals involved.
In Leo’s apartment, he had a small setup for working. He had a little desk with a monitor and I had my MacBook Pro. Every morning Leo would leave for his job and I would stay behind focusing on my mission to find employment. Part of my routine was also exploring the city. I would go out into Manhattan, walk around and get a little lost. I would wander through the streets, making my way toward Times Square. Those walks helped clear my mind and inspire me. Seeing the energy of New York, the lights, the people, the hustle, it reminded me why I had come there in the first place.
After those walks, I would return to the apartment with a clearer mind and open my MacBook to continue the job search. Every day I sent out an enormous number of applications, 100, even 200 emails a day. I applied everywhere: LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor and other job boards. And during that process I encountered scammers. The scam worked by you filling out what looked like a normal job application on a simple website template. After submitting the form, a few hours or a day later you would receive an email saying that you had advanced to the next stage of the hiring process. Then they would tell you they were going to send you money like $1,000 to buy equipment for the job. It sounds almost too good to be true.
But they actually sent the check.
Because part of the application process required you to provide your address, something that is in fact completely normal when applying for jobs, they used that information to mail the check directly to you. When I received one of these checks, I thought maybe it was legitimate. I looked up the nearest place on Google Maps where I could cash it and walked about fifteen minutes to get there. I handed the check to the cashier. She looked at it for a moment and began processing it but then suddenly paused. She examined it more carefully and asked me where I got it. I explained that it had been sent by a company that said they were hiring me and that the money was meant for equipment.
She called her manager over.
After reviewing the check, they told me it was fake. They explained that this was a common scam. If the check had gone through the system, the scammers could potentially gain access to banking information and financial accounts. In other words, it was a way of stealing money from people who were simply trying to find work. Over the next few months of applying to jobs, I received two or three similar checks from different scammers. After the first experience, I knew exactly what to look for and avoided falling for it again.
I started getting some real interview opportunities. One of them was for a small church organization. The pastor who ran it was a man from Nigeria, probably in his sixties. When I arrived for the interview, his secretary, a woman around the same age, opened the door and greeted me. She had a very strong accent, a mix of African and New York tones. While we were waiting for the pastor to arrive, her phone rang. I happened to notice that the contact name for him in her phone was “Daddy.”
At that moment I thought the situation felt a little strange. When the pastor arrived, they began asking for my personal information, including my Social Security number, saying it was necessary for the hiring process. That immediately made me uncomfortable. I told them they could scan my ID if necessary, but I wasn’t willing to hand over my SSN. The whole situation gave me a bad feeling, so I left. After that, I continued attending interviews and talking to potential employers online.
Eventually I did land a job but I lasted 1 week. The office was located in the Paramount Building in Times Square called Ellsworth & Luxor, on the 12th floor. The company rented a single room where they operated their business. The team was made up mostly of young salespeople, many of them fresh out of high school or college. They wore suits and nice shoes and were trying to make careers for themselves in sales. The job involved selling government-supported cell phone plans to low-income individuals, particularly recent immigrants who had just arrived in the United States and had little money or access to communication services. The idea was that these individuals could receive free cell phones through a government program. In exchange, they would provide personal information and documentation so that the government could track participation in the program.
The sales team would go out into the different boroughs and busy street corners, set up a table and a flag, and wait to find potential customers. I was assigned to work in Brooklyn near the Hoyt–Schermerhorn station. My supervisor was a guy named Leslie. It was just the two of us working together in that area for 8 hours. Leslie was actually a good person. I liked him. He was just another young guy trying to work hard and build a better future. But the overall environment of the company felt questionable. The owner of the business was a short man, barely five feet tall, who also seemed to be from Nigeria. He ran the operation and it felt sketchy. I realized this wasn’t the type of job I had come to New York for. In the end, I only worked there for about one week before deciding it wasn’t the right place for me. My search for a real career opportunity in New York was still far from over.
When I spoke with him, I explained to him that my background was in design and marketing and I can help him with that. He looked at me and said something that immediately bothered me. He said, “The thing is, I don’t trust you. Everyone starts in sales first. Then, if they prove themselves, they move up.” I had studied for years learning everything about design and multimedia and now I was being told that the only way forward was to stand on a street corner selling phones.
So I tried it for a week.
I stood on that corner trying to sell government cell phone plans to people passing by. You see every type of life walking past you, different personalities, clothes, struggles, social classes. People going to work, people coming out for lunch and around the corner there would be long line of homeless people waiting outside food distribution centers. Near where I worked there was also a small bagel shop where I sometimes grabbed something to eat.
Standing there day after day became a wake-up call for me. It was a humbling experience. I was trying to communicate with people who didn’t speak English. Many of them were immigrants who had just arrived in the United States, while others were struggling with homelessness or addiction. I could see the hardships on people’s faces and made me reflect deeply about life, all the blessings I’ve been given. At the same time, I kept thinking to myself: This isn’t where I’m supposed to be.
My place was behind a computer, creating things, not standing on a corner selling phones. After about a week of doing that job, I got sick. At first I started feeling chills and body aches. Then the symptoms became stronger and I realized it was COVID. During those first days I was scared. I remember lying there thinking, I came all the way to New York to start a new life, and now I might die here in less than a month of me arriving.
But I refused to give up. I had come to New York for a reason. I wanted to build a future. I wanted to create video games, fall in love someday and do something meaningful with my life. I wasn’t going to COVID kill me.
And during this time, Emily showed me kindness. Despite the fight we had in the past and the harsh things I had said to her, she helped me. She brought food and checked on me while I was sick. She spent time in the apartment making sure I was okay. That act meant a lot to me. She showed compassion when I needed it. For that, I will always be eternally grateful.
After 2 weeks, I recovered. For a while, I still had lingering symptoms, a cough and phlegm but eventually my strength came back. During that period the world was still dealing with COVID. People were scared and everyone was trying to figure out how to move forward. But life in New York slowly started returning to normal. People went to work, the streets filled again and the city kept moving. I did the same as there was no other option.
I quit the phone job and once I recovered, I returned to my routine of sending applications, walking through the city and continuing the search for a real job. I sent hundreds more applications and kept pushing forward. Living in New York meant walking miles every day. In a strange way, those walks helped rebuild my health and resilience. The experience kept teaching me something important: Life’s hectic. Some people who were extremely healthy still lost their lives during that pandemic. Surviving it made me reflect on how fragile and how lucky we are when we get another chance to keep going. That survival became another reason to keep fighting for the life I wanted to build.
The next morning I woke up around six. When I turned around, I saw Leo lying on the couch. His eyes were wide open. I had never seen him like that before. He looked completely shaken, like someone who had just witnessed something terrible. I asked him, “Dude, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?” He looked at me and said, “I need you to leave for the day.”
I understood. I knew not to continue asking questions so I got ready. I took a shower, packed my laptop and left. I went into Manhattan and found a café where I could sit and work. As I drank my coffee and worked on my computer, I kept wondering what had happened. Around noon, Leo called me. He said I could come back home and he said he needed to go buy a new television.
I asked him what he meant. He explained that he and Emily had gotten into another fight and now she’s gone back to her mother’s place. He said he would explain everything when I got back. So I packed up my things and when I arrived, he told me what had happened the night before. Apparently, Leo had suspected that Emily might have been seeing someone else. After she came home drunk and passed out, he checked her phone. He looked through her messages and found conversations between her and her best friend on WhatsApp.
In those messages she was talking about another guy. She admitted that she had feelings for him and that they had slept together. Finding that out made Leo physically sick. He said it felt like his entire world had flipped upside down. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. Leo himself had spent months going out with other women while he and Em were “on a break” but discovering that she had been with someone else hit him much harder.
In his anger, he had smashed his television. That’s why he needed a new one.
So the two of us went to Best Buy to buy a replacement. The new television he bought was actually impressive. It was a Samsung model that had the Xbox gaming software built directly into the TV, meaning you could play games without owning an actual Xbox console. Being a game designer, I was amazed by that. They were running a promotion at the time. Each purchase came with a free Xbox controller. When we got back to the apartment, we unpacked everything and set up the TV. Despite the drama that had caused it, the new setup ended up being pretty nice. Still, it had been an expensive lesson. The television cost him around a thousand dollars.
By that point it was already the end of January and I continued working for my new job. During those months since I moved to New York, I had repeatedly postponed my return flight to El Salvador while I searched for work. Eventually I delayed the ticket one final time until the 31st. I told my new boss that I needed to travel back to El Salvador briefly to take care of a few personal matters before returning.
So I packed my things and I left New York. After five intense months, the scams, the job search, getting sick, the chaos, the growth, the friendships, the fights, I was finally ready to go home. When I boarded that plane back to El Salvador, I felt a sense of closure. That chapter of my life, adventures of living in New York and finding my way, had come to an end.
Being back home felt comforting. I was able to see my family, spend time with friends and most importantly see my mom again. After everything that had happened in New York, it felt incredible just to sleep in my own bed and enjoy being home. By the beginning of February, I was working remotely and finally earning a decent salary. Life started to feel stable again without the chaos.
The original plan, however, was still to return to New York or New Jersey. Since my job was based there, the idea was that I would save money for a few months while staying in El Salvador, then move back and get my own apartment. I went on a few dates. I met one woman, she was beautiful and kind, but she had children and our lives were simply in different places. We dated for about two weeks before realizing it wouldn’t work long term. Then I met another woman. That relationship also didn’t turn into anything serious, but we ended up becoming good friends to this very day.
During this time, though, there was someone else I had been thinking about for years. Her name was Sharon.
She was someone I had always wanted to date but never had the chance before. Now that I was back in El Salvador, with a job and some stability in my life, I decided it was finally the right time. Around April or May, I asked her if she would like to go out with me. During this period I was still working for the company in New Jersey. I ended up still traveling various times back to the United States for work. When that happened, the company would often cover the travel expenses. They would pay for plane tickets, hotels, and sometimes even transportation. I would stay in New Jersey or New York for about a week at a time, complete my work there, and then return home. Life was pretty good
But then I was told something that hit me hard. My salary would be cut in half while I live in El Salvador. It was a set back from all that I had been striving for. I still wasn’t living in the U.S. as originally planned and come into the office at least twice a month. By the middle of the year in July, I still hadn’t found an apartment in New York or New Jersey. Hearing it painful but it made me realize that I still needed to find a way back to New York or New Jersey if I wanted to keep growing with that company.
But things had changed by that point, Sharon became an important changed in my life. After we began dating seriously, I realized I didn’t want to rush back to the United States anymore. I wanted time to build this relationship properly and hopefully get married. We started seeing each other more frequently and as we spent more time together, the connection between us grew and on October 4th, 2023, we officially began our relationship.
For the first time in my life, I was with the woman I had always dreamed of being with. Everything in my life suddenly felt aligned. I had a good job doing work I enjoyed, even though I was making less. I was living at home, close to my family. I could spend time with my mom, play golf, go to the beach and enjoy the beauty of my country. I felt happier than I had ever been before. It felt like everything I had worked so hard for was finally coming together.
My relationship with Sharon marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I loved her deeply and she loved me too… or so I thought.
When I left New York that year, Leo eventually got back together with Emily. They had started therapy again and were trying to repair their relationship because of that, I could no longer return to live in his apartment. Their relationship continued to struggle as well. They tried once again to have a child and lost the baby within a couple of months. It was another devastating moment for her. After everything they had already gone through, the loss pushed her into another period of deep sadness. Juan was also beginning to worry if he was sterile.
