I’d spent months searching the Internet for a job with no luck. All my applications seemed to be sent straight to a digital trash can. There were a few responses, but they were invariably rejections: We appreciate your interest in our company, but we have decided to move forward with other candidates. We will keep your resume on file, and we encourage you to apply for future openings. Thanks!

Most of the positions I wasn’t even that interested in, but every now and then, about every 50th application or so, I’d be genuinely excited about a position. Like when I saw that MakerBot was looking for a new technical writer. I instantly started my application, not really expecting to hear anything.

So when I received an email entitled “Request for Interview” from a MakerBot email address the next morning I nearly lost it. “I can be there anytime next Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday,” I replied. “Your interview is scheduled for Tuesday at 11am,” they told me.

Just like that I was saying yes to $900 of plane tickets and yes to $300 of hotel room and yes to $something of cab rides and food and whatever else it would take for me to get myself from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn and back on less than a week’s notice all just for a shot at a cool new job in a cool new city and, maybe even more importantly, an adventure and, more importantly still, a break, however brief it might be, from my house and what was beginning to seem like a never-ending job hunt.

And so I found myself one Tuesday morning gazing out a sixth-floor window at buzzing Brooklyn streets filled with New Yorkers bundled against the sting of February air while I, toothbrush in hand and on teeth, thought about how I could convince a stranger to hire me.