On Finding An Empty Coffee Shop Seat in NYC;

It's impossible. It's not fucking possible. Okay, well, maybe it's not impossible, but it's WAY too difficult. It's honestly one of the hardest things to do in New York, in my limited experience here.

I'm writing this blog from a nifty little Starbucks right at the corner of Lafayette and Astor -- the best bits of Corporate America surround me on all sides. We've got a KMart to my left (they have those here???), a CVS at my 12 o'clock, and a Chase branch to my right. It's beautiful. Basically, and unfortunately, I have found that if you do want to be able to sit and work (i.e. browse Reddit and occasionally visit a company's job site, but then decide that that job is DEFINITELY not for you and that you can find something better and more personally fulfilling that will also probably pay better and may have unlimited snacks in the office and PTO, etc) in a coffee shop, like any normal millennial, your only chance is in a Starbucks. This is utterly ridiculous. I came to this city expecting a never ending supply of trendy, comfortable coffee shops, where I could sit amongst my kind and pretend to be productive. While there are plenty of coffee shops in this city, none of them ever have space, so really what is the point in having them exist? Coffee shops are for sitting. Sometimes I think everyone in this city is unemployed and occupying seats in these shops, just like yours truly...The First World-ness of this problem just kills me.

Every Starbucks seems to have Mumford & Sons on repeat.... For the record, I don't even really drink coffee, mainly because it makes me jittery as hell, and browsing Reddit is tough when your fingers shake like Beyonce....

I think people can smell the unemployment on me when I inevitably walk into a Starbucks. What else would someone my age, wearing a down jacket and a Washington Capitals snow hat be doing in a coffee shop at 4 o'clock in the afternoon? I think the answer is pretty obvious. The good news is that I'm not the only one, and I do feel a sense of camaraderie amongst my fellow unemployed youth occupying these spaces. We're in this thing together. Unless you take my future job, in which case, fuck you.