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I am all for taking risks and going for it when you have a dream, but this is a really, really bad idea. If she really wants to just take a leap and come to NYC with no real plan, she needs to save up some cash. This is not the kind of place where you can just show up and scrape by with part-time or temp work until you get settled in.
I would also note that the temp work she wants to get is also being pursued by a flurry of displaced professionals with degrees and very impressive business credentials.
Just getting around NYC is a money breaker, cabs are expensive, buses even trains, eating even in a dump would run at least $10.00 a day. This lady should sit down and really think this through, jobs are hard to find, and if she has no back-up she could get into a situation that she might not like and it could be risky.
She couldn't even get a hotel room for less than $200.00 a night. This lady better rethink her plans, she's heading for a brick wall. I hope that she does not go.
I am doing the exact same thing, come this January. It can be done, but she'll have to be willing to rough it. In my case, I'm just sick of waiting... I've always wanted to move to NYC, and after wasting away in Los Angeles, the land of no opportunity, I'm just going for broke, and making the move. I have nothing to lose.
I am going over there with a one-way ticket, and enough money to allow me to stay at a local hostel for about a month. I will use that time to find a job, and hopefully, more stable accommodations. But priority one is employment, for if worse comes to worse, I can hostel-hop, while I save enough money for a better place to live.
Your friend WILL have to rough it. That may mean staying/living at hostels, or the Y, as well as using those facilities to shower. Forget about eating anyplace fancy... she'll be on a McDonald's budget for quite a long time.
But there IS work to be done, to earn money, if you know where to look, and how to go about it. A strong will and determination are all it takes. If she gets discouraged, or loses focus... she WILL fail... she'll need to stick with it, until she reaches a set goal.
A lot of people think this up-and-go approach to moving to NYC is insane, and I can see their point. I'm not sure why your friend is doing it, but in my case, I've been to NYC three times, have already lived over a month there, and want to go back for good, because I hate California so very much. I am NOT joking, when I say I'd rather be homeless in NYC, then live another year in Los Angeles. So I am totally determined to make it work, when I get over there. I wish your friend all the best luck.
It's an insane idea. She should make cheap-hostel arrangements in advance and keep a list of homeless services and soup kitchens, or expect to run up major bucks on a credit card (and find some way to pay the minimum so the card doesn't get canceled).
I'm a native NYer, but I lived elsewhere for several years. On my return: I had a job in advance, plus decent savings and local friends. Even though I knew NYC well, I'd have tanked if I didn't have at least job or savings. If I'd showed up with $200 and no job, I'd even have worn out friends' welcome fast -- because you can't crash on someone's couch forever, job-hunting/transit cost money, even temp jobs aren't easy to get, it's hard to get or keep any job when you're clueless, anxious and frazzled, and you can't get real housing (even a share) w/o job + money.
I'd just like to add to my situation, that this IS a very good point... although I will be moving to NYC in January, I am already working with resources to help me find work, and a place to live, once the hostel situation runs out. At the very least, she should try and secure some form of employment, before moving, because as long as you have a job, you have money. It may not be much... just enough to pay the fee to live at a hostel, but at least then, she'll have a place to work AND a roof over her head. THEN she can begin looking for more, in her free time.
I would say for 30yrs. old,she's an idiot.Hopefully you have the resources to set her up with a one way ticket back within 3 days.The song goes,"if you can make it here,..... The song doesn't say,..."if you can't make it there,...it will work out here,....".If only it was possible to talk rationally and sanely,with an insane and irrational person.To the OP,you have your hands full.Good luck.Atleast 25% of my highly skilled friends are losing houses,apts,because there are no jobs.If you don't stop her this will end in a tragedy.On the other hand if she survives and comes home on the bus,she may have grown up a little.
Well, isn't that a big part of the whole point? She's 30. I'm 32. At that age, you're not a child anymore... she is an adult, and can make her own choices. My family is also dead-set against my making the move, and doing whatever they can do, to keep me here in LA, which will never, ever, happen. It may be a mistake, but it's my mistake to make. As an adult, she deserves the chance to try, and find out for herself.
Bruce,Why have you failed with family support? Why do you think something will change with a geographical move?NYC is in turmoil with highly skilled,highly motivated,long standing self sufficient people basically drowning on land.Geographical placement doesn't change not being self sufficient.Blue collar,white collar doesn't matter.There are no jobs here except for illogical thinkers.People with years of friends and contacts are unemployed with no port in this economic hurricane/sunami/storm.I am next.I will get any job you think you will,way before you will.This is reality and i welcome you to it.
My friend did that... just up and moved to LA. She happened to be really uber sociable, and crazy, and outgoing, and she ended up on couches until she squeezed her way into an apartment and some free school. Then again, she was from the northeast, a blackbelt, fluent in English Korean and Spanish, and very street smart.
New York is much less welcoming and much less friendly. I think she has a frame of mind that people are gonna be just as friendly as back home. Then again, I'm a pessimist, but she'll learn her lesson. Poor girl... I mean woman.
Bruce,Why have you failed with family support? Why do you think something will change with a geographical move?NYC is in turmoil with highly skilled,highly motivated,long standing self sufficient people basically drowning on land.Geographical placement doesn't change not being self sufficient.Blue collar,white collar doesn't matter.There are no jobs here except for illogical thinkers.People with years of friends and contacts are unemployed with no port in this economic hurricane/sunami/storm.I am next.I will get any job you think you will,way before you will.This is reality and i welcome you to it.
My family does not support me because my entire family followed my father here to Los Angeles, when he himself moved here. For some twisted reason, they love California, and don't want to leave. My father hates NYC, and does not ever want to go there, so he doesn't agree with my choice to move there. That is why he does not support me.
NYC is so different from LA, job-market-wise, because of the type of place it is. There are more opportunities there, than in LA. LA is for people like lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and rich people. There are NO opportunities to work on your own here. Everything here is far away, so you have to commute by car everywhere. But NYC because of its nature and turnover, has more choices. If you think someone from NYC will find anything in LA in regards to work, LOL... good luck. And try finding even a craphole closet of an apartment here, for less than $900 a month... it won't happen, unless you want to live in a crackhouse or meth lab.
What makes you think you can get any job I can, before I do? How do you know what options I have considered, or what ideas I myself have thought of? That remark indicates to me that you're thinking along the lines of what is offered to you... not what you yourself can offer. Perhaps I am wrong... so please enlighten me... what options would you have, that I would not?
There are other places I could move to, but none of them are where I want to live. I WANT to live in NYC. I am telling the truth, when I say I'd rather be homeless there, than live in LA. It may sound stupid, but it is the truth of how I feel. I am NOT some doe-eyed kid, wet behind the ears, coming to NYC, starry-eyed, and full of fanciful dreams. I have been there before, I have a lot of street smarts and common sense, and I am more than fully aware that at first, things will be more than incredibly rough. The city may indeed chew me up, and spit me out. But before it does, I'm gonna dig my nails in as hard as I can, and fight to establish myself. I'm a lot smarter than people think, and I KNOW I can do this... if I knew for sure I would fail, I would not even try.
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