The Working Woman - PART ONE

When I came to NY last April, I had spent a lot of time alone in the city. During this time, I was really given the opportunity to spend a lot of quiet time with God. I went to serve at a few places here and God kept presenting different opportunities to me. One day, I went to take a walk with God and ended up at the Manhattan Mall. God’s a fun God, and just like any daddy desires to fulfill the desires of his daughter’s heart, God took me shopping! As I walked through the mall, I found nothing. Not thing to try on, nothing to buy, nothing worth spending my time and money on. On my way out, I saw one of my favorite stores. Aeropostale. I always described it as A&F styles, with Old Navy prices. So I walk in with the desire to buy something cause I love their stuff, but instead I ended up talking to one of the sales associates. I can’t even remember how we got to talking, haha- well I’m a talker so I can only imagine it started by some random comment that I probably made. Anyway, I was talking to her about the desire that I’ve had to work for their corporate office, but considering I lived in Cali, I never pursued. Shortly later, she told me that their corporate office was located right across the street. Not even sure where that conversation ended, I left in a day dream. My dream is across the street and in the palm of God’s hands.

When I moved here, I was making a list of places I desired to work. This list consisted of working in the fashion industry as a personal assistant, working for a magazine company, doing visual merchandising or working for Coach’s corporate office and of course working part time for Starbucks. I had completely forgotten about Aero! How could I have forgotten? So I called their corporate office a few times and got nothing. Aero’s HR didn’t return my phone calls and their website wasn’t updated, so I couldn’t apply to any positions. By this point I had applied to a gazillion jobs and was “over it!” I actually thought to myself and even verbalized, “I’ve tried! I’ve applied everywhere and nobody wants me! This might be it! Maybe God just wanted to test me and to see if I’d truly let go of everything and leave for His sake.”

After some time of frustration, I started to think of all the places and full time positions that I had applied to. God reminded me that I had to think outside the box. Knowing that He had a plan, I had to trust Him. Here I was pursuing all these full time jobs, but what was wrong with finding a few part time jobs? Nothing, so that’s just what I did! Everywhere I went, I’d look and ask if they were hiring. I’d check on Craig’s List for even the small jobs. Again I started sending my resumes and applying to a gazillion places.

Knowing I had to apply to Aero, I made it a goal to do last week. Game plan was to pursue Aero, and the restaurants in Times Square. Last Wednesday I had originally made plans to go to Aeropostale to apply to their stores, but I didn’t because I was dressed for interviews at restaurants and not Aero, so I went on Thursday instead. My roommate invited me to go to Anthropologie to apply, and so I thought, “Well I’m already going to be out, and it can’t hurt to apply to another job.” So we went and it was great. It was fun interviewing together with my roommate. It totally could have made for an awkward situation, but it was great. I left the interview feeling positive and on my way to Aero, I think I walked into Verizon Wireless to speak to a manager about my application that I submitted online. (I’m telling you, I applied everywhere!) So anyway, I got to Aero and asked to speak to the manager. I let her know that I was fully available for any position that she had. I really wanted to tell her that I wanted to work full time across the street in their corporate office but I held back. She gave me an application and asked me to come back at 2PM for a group interview. I left really excited, and stressed our to for a second that I only had a had a half hour to get refreshed and fill out my application. As God had it, I got back a few minutes early and joined about 5 others for a group interview. At this time, she asked us a series of questions and was getting a vibe for who we were. One question she had was “why Aero?” This is where I shared my desire to work my way up to corporate. She seemed really excited and I was definitely proud of myself for boldly stating my goals. Once the interview was over, she asked me a series of questions and really had an interest in me working for her store. Turns out she wasn’t the store manager, she’s the District Manager. She mentioned that corporate is definitely hiring and said she’d try to help me get a hold of someone in HR. She said she’d try to get me higher pay because of my degrees and experience and then said that she’d give me a call once she did my background check. Less than a half hour later, I was offered the position! Her offer was great coming from a retail position, but won’t be enough to pay all my bills so I have to find another part time job.

PRAISE THE LORD! He totally knows what He’s doing!

www.aeropostale.com