Humans of New York is an arts project where photographer Brandon Stanton takes a photo of someone in New York and captions it with their story, and this woman’s story went viral in less than 24 hours, for all the right reasons.
The woman (who remains nameless) told her story of how she got pregnant at 16, was ostracised by her friends and family and still went on to become the controller of a company.
Her first job was at a sporting goods store, and then she got a job as a receptionist at a tax firm where she learned how to do the taxes. She continued to work hard and got a job in a new company where she was responsible for all the books, and when the controller of the company left, she filled his shoes. When they couldn’t officially call her the controller because she had no college degree, she sorted that out too:
“I finished my degree five months ago — just to make it official! So after having a child at 16, I made it all the way to controller of a company, without even having a college degree. Can you believe that? Honestly, I’ve been waiting to tell that story so long that I told it to a customer service representative on the phone last week. She was nice about it and pretended to care.”
This truly is an inspirational story of success in the face of adversity – it looks like hard work and dedication really do pay off in the end.
