When I asked whether a newcomer like me would be able to find work, though, they quickly shot me down. “The strings are all taken,” one said definitively. Laura, the only woman in the group, did not contradict her colleagues in the moment, but she pulled me aside before I left. “I don’t know what these guys are talking about,” she said. “There is plenty of work to go around. You should move here and give it a try.” Looking around, she grabbed a cardboard coaster out from under a beer and wrote down her email and phone number. “You can totally do this,” she said as she handed me the coaster.
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