Apologies for the ambiguous title, I wasn't sure how to condense it properly. I'm being blackmailed by a girl I met online a few weeks ago. We exchanged photos and she initially blackmailed me for a little over $2k. I thought that was it, but she just reached out again and I tried ignoring her but it made her upset and she demanded more money. I sent her my remaining ~$200 and told her that's all I had, but she's still threatening to send compromising photos to my employer.
I very recently moved to a new state, by myself, for this job. No safety net, no network, no ability to move back. I'm relatively Jr. so getting a new job quickly is still challenging. Assuming she did send those photos and I got fired tomorrow, my next paycheck may cover the rest of this month - but not next month at all. I just recently had an emergency expense that drained my savings and I'm in a bad situation financially.
I'm unsure if I should file a police report or tell my employer. I don't know for certain if she will or will not actually expose those photos, but if I file a report then once she found out her last act certainly would be to send them out. I also fear that being a new employee, the company may not want me due to the PR risks associated with even the possibility of this happening, so telling them before the events unfold could be self-sabotaging should they not unfold at all.
What should I do? I'm an anxious mess right now. If I do need a new job, are there any ways in which I can accelerate the job search process? I've worked fast food and retail before, and will again as a stop gap measure if necessary, but I'd prefer to hop straight into another dev job if possible. I know the common sentiment is that the market is hot right now, and perhaps it is but I still found that before this current job I got many denied applications and the few companies that did respond typically took weeks to do so. I can't afford to wait that long this time.
Any advice is welcome. Apologies for the lack of details, I'm trying to limit anything that IRL acquaintances could use to identify me.
I very recently moved to a new state, by myself, for this job. No safety net, no network, no ability to move back. I'm relatively Jr. so getting a new job quickly is still challenging. Assuming she did send those photos and I got fired tomorrow, my next paycheck may cover the rest of this month - but not next month at all. I just recently had an emergency expense that drained my savings and I'm in a bad situation financially.
I'm unsure if I should file a police report or tell my employer. I don't know for certain if she will or will not actually expose those photos, but if I file a report then once she found out her last act certainly would be to send them out. I also fear that being a new employee, the company may not want me due to the PR risks associated with even the possibility of this happening, so telling them before the events unfold could be self-sabotaging should they not unfold at all.
What should I do? I'm an anxious mess right now. If I do need a new job, are there any ways in which I can accelerate the job search process? I've worked fast food and retail before, and will again as a stop gap measure if necessary, but I'd prefer to hop straight into another dev job if possible. I know the common sentiment is that the market is hot right now, and perhaps it is but I still found that before this current job I got many denied applications and the few companies that did respond typically took weeks to do so. I can't afford to wait that long this time.
Any advice is welcome. Apologies for the lack of details, I'm trying to limit anything that IRL acquaintances could use to identify me.