Internet Falls in Love With Woman Who Went from Teen Mom to Bosslady

Are you following Humans of New York on Instagram and Facebook and with your heart? Because if you’re not, you almost missed out on a seriously cool story from seriously impressive New Yorker that is warming the cockles of the hearts of the internet on a particularly dreary-seeming day.

Humans of New York (or HONY), for the uninitiated, is a guy named Brandon who goes around taking pictures of interesting New Yorkers and posts them to the web along with a caption about their lives, what brought them there, what they’re thinking. Sometimes it’s hilarious; often poignant. And occasionally incredibly kickass. Here’s the story of one woman whose photo was posted to Facebook just hours ago and already has almost 650,000 likes (and counting!). Like all HONY subjects, she’s a face without a name. But damn. What a story.

“I had a child when I was sixteen. I got kicked out of high school because of all the absences. My family and community pretty much wrote me off. But right away I got a job at a sporting goods store. Soon I was able to get a job as a receptionist at a tax company, and they gave me enough responsibilities that I learned how to do taxes. Eventually I learned enough to become an associate. Then I got offered a job at a smaller company, and even though it was a pay cut, they offered me responsibility over all the books— accounts payable, accounts receivable, everything. It was less money but I wanted that experience so I took the risk. And I’m so glad I did, because six months later, the controller of that company left and I was given that position. They told me they couldn’t officially call me the controller because I didn’t have a college degree. So I finished my degree 5 months ago— just to make it official! So after having a child at sixteen, 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.”