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"This was my first, non-internship job out of college, and it was around spring 2009 — when everyone was losing their jobs in New York. I didn't realize during my internships how hard it would be over the next three years to get good money and good work at good companies, but I went forward anyway because I really wanted to work in media.

"The job was at a radio station in the Midwest and I would wake up at 4 a.m., start the day on air, and then spent the rest of my day as a reporter. I basically had two jobs and sometimes I'd stay until midnight. There were benefits but the hours were insane and I was treated like shit on an emotional level — being yelled at and stuff like that.

"The first salary offer they made was $20,000. I was 23 and had a mentor at the time who told me I had to negotiate. I was like, I don’t know how to do that… but their offer sounded horrible; I needed more money just to live. It was a naïve way to go about it but I did the math on my expenses for that year and thought: What do I need to have X amount of groceries, buy gas for travel, and move? I told them all I needed was $4,000 more to make it work. They did reimburse my travel and gave me $1,000 to relocate. I didn't live paycheck to paycheck but I did live on credit cards — I think I walked away $6,000 in debt.

"I was paid $24,000/year and if you break down the number of hours I worked, I was making under the poverty level. Once, I did the math and figured out I made less than a McDonald's manager in the same town. I also wasn't paid overtime. I was out there hustling in a small town but it was the best time for my career because I could make mistakes and no one was paying me enough to punish me for them. I did it for a year and a half and then got out."