Ebenezer #3: A job

Friday is my last day at Horizon, so it only seems fitting to tell you about how I got my first job in New York over 3 years ago.

When I made the official decision to move to the city, job searching was one of the first things I did. I sent out resumes to every advertising agency I had ever heard of. I stalked people. I cold called companies and tried to sweet talk their receptionists into giving me the name of the HR Manager. I also emailed a lot of friends. One friend of mine from college, Mitch, put me in touch with his girlfriend Jenny, who was living in New York and working at Carat. They weren't hiring at the time, but Jenny connected me with her friend Sheyna, who worked at Initiative.

A few weeks before I moved to New York, I came up for a trip and interviewed at five different agencies, including Initiative. I immediately fell in love with a position on the Infiniti account at TBWA\Chiat\Day, one of the swankiest, most creative, brilliant agencies around. I was dying to work there, and they rocketed to the top of my list.

Over the next week, I was blessed to get four job offers. That is an 80% success rate. Guess which company didn't offer me a position? Yep. TBWA\Chiat\Day.

After some deliberation, I decided my second choice was Initiative, where I would be working as a Media Planner on the CBS/Showtime account. I was excited, but still a bit disappointed that the other job hadn't worked out.

This shred of disappointment blows my mind now, because I loved that CBS/Showtime job at Initiative. I worked in Entertainment, which is one of the most fun categories you can work on (I had no idea at the time). Through my job, I got massages and manicures and went to concerts and plays and restaurants and games. I gained amazing career experience. I HAD SO MUCH FUN at this job, and I worked on the exact same team, for the exact same clients, for almost three years.

However, the best part of this job, far and away, was the people. I had amazing bosses who I loved working for, one of whom I still talk to almost once a week. I made great friends who helped acclimate me to the city... people like Megan and Jessica, who are truly outrageous, Joanie, who is the sweetest soul in the world, and Lauren Spina, a dear friend who shares with me a love for John Krasinski that few can match. But most of all, this job led me to these two people, who not only worked as the Assistant Media Planners on my team and sat right next to me for those three years, but also became two of my best friends in the entire world:

Look how adorable they are. They're fun. They have blonde hair (well, Bethany does sometimes). They listen to country music. They say y'all, because they're from Texas. They love reality TV. They write cute blogs. And they love Jesus.

Seriously. In this crazy city, the odds of these things cannot be higher than 1 in a million.

Lauren was one of my very first friends in New York. We go to church together at Gallery and have been in a Bible study together since fall 2006. Bethany arrived a year later, and the three of us were in a Bible study together this past summer.

We have been on trips together. We hang out on the weekend. We go on spy missions. We've had birthday parties together! We make puppets. We go to Kenny Chesney and So You Think You Can Dance concerts. We camped out for SNL. We wear sparkly pumpkin t-shirts. We sit in each others' offices all day, every day...because in God's great provision, when Initiative lost the CBS/Showtime account and we needed new jobs, all three of us were hired at Horizon.

And now, looking back, I'm so thankful that I didn't get the job at TBWA\Chiat\Day that I wanted so badly. If I had, I might never have met Lauren and Bethany (a thought that causes my eyes to well up with tears). But instead, God closed a door, and in his divine providence, opened another one that led me not only to a job I loved, but to people I love, who love me, and remind me of how much God loves me too.

"By yourself you're unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped."
Ecclesiastes 4:12 (MSG)