ICYMI - Is $55K Enough To Work At Your Favorite Podcast?
ICYMI
Slate Podcasts
3.9 • 800 Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay talk about the backlash surrounding The Cutting Room Floor, a fashion podcast you may know from its Leandra Medine Cohen episode or its viral Steve Madden interview. Last week, host and creator Recho Omondi went on TikTok to hire a full-time staffer who would be an office administrator, bookings coordinator, and personal assistant. Fans were intrigued until she dropped that this role would pay a salary of $55,000 with no healthcare benefits. TikTok reacted strongly and immediately, taking issue with the low salary and bringing up the privileged candidate who could afford to take a job like this in New York City. Omondi responded by going on TikTok Live and posting a short Patreon episode she titled “$55k Gate,” but doubling down seemed to triple the discourse.
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This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Say hello to the next generation of Zendesk AI agents, built to deliver resolutions for everyone. |
| 0:05.3 | Loved by over 10,000 companies, Zendesk AI agents easily deploy in minutes to resolve 30% of interactions instantly. |
| 0:11.9 | That's the Zendesk AI effect. Find out more at Zendesst.com. Hey, I'm Candace Lim. |
| 0:29.9 | And I'm Kate Lindsay. |
| 0:31.7 | And you're listening to I see why am I. |
| 0:33.8 | In case you missed it. |
| 0:35.0 | Slate's podcast about internet culture. |
| 0:45.4 | And Candice, I don't think I've ever asked you this, but I want to hear about your first scrappy, like out of college job. |
| 0:47.9 | Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Basically, I think I would consider my first out-of-college job as an intern, or I guess we could consider it like a production assistant for how I built this, the podcast at NPR. |
| 1:10.6 | That was a very fun time. I honestly think it really, |
| 1:16.0 | it really felt like I was in my early 20s, hustling in D.C., like running from studio to studio, |
| 1:21.6 | passing by, you know, all these people I loved at NPR. But I will admit, definitely not well |
| 1:27.3 | paid. Definitely overworked, |
| 1:29.2 | definitely too scared to ask for overtime. I remember that very, very clearly. And I do remember |
| 1:34.0 | the best day of my life during that time was when I got promoted from intern to like temp. |
| 1:41.8 | And I remember someone was like, oh yeah, the best part is you finally are going to get paid more. And I was like, oh, my God, how much? And they said, $21 and $25 an hour. And I truly was like, everyone drinks on me. Yeah, I am Elon Musk. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yeah. What about you? Do you remember? Yeah. So I weirdly, I basically cobbled together a lot of gigs right out of college |
| 2:02.9 | because while I was in college, I started writing for a website for, speaking of I Am Rich, $25 an article. |
| 2:09.5 | Yep. |
| 2:10.0 | And I would churn those out and, you know, dine like a queen at the one bar on campus. |
| 2:16.6 | And then when I was doing that in New York, I got an |
| 2:18.9 | internship at a different website. Both of these websites, by the way, don't exist now. And I was also |
| 2:23.9 | working at a yarn store. And so at one point, my weeks looked like I think I had Thursday off. |
... |
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