Hello hello!
In today’s Letter I thought I would give a little “behind the scenes” glimpse of my day-to-day. Which is a polite way of saying that I’m shamelessly going to use this venue for my own personal rant.
[Sorry it’s not the Iceland-content you signed up for. We’ll return to our regular programming shortly.]
The thing is, right now I am pissed.
See, there is this prominent and allegedly reliable media outlet that asked me to do an interview on their radio show and offered me payment for doing so, and now that the interview is done, they refuse to answer my emails about the payment they promised. I’ve sent three of them, and all have been ignored.
Times Radio—seriously?
Behind the scenes:
I routinely get requests to do interviews. In fact, I get asked a lot. People ask me to comment on anything from an imminent volcanic eruption to the Christmas book flood, the tourism boom to elves, gender equality to þetta reddast. Whatever: if it’s Iceland-related, I am asked to comment on it.
I also routinely get asked a lot to meet up with people who are travelling to Iceland, so they can pick my brain, get me to sign a book they bought, or just to chat. Some people follow me on social media and feel like they know me. And just to be clear: I have met people through social media who have become friends, and I always enjoy meeting them when they come to Iceland. But when complete strangers want to meet … well, I’m flattered, but I have a busy life. I can’t just drop everything to go meet folks I have never met before for coffee.
I used to be super accommodating, and often went out and met people who asked for my time. This was definitely true when foreign journalists got in touch because they were writing stories about Iceland and needed information. I wanted to be helpful, and also wanted to provide accurate information so they wouldn’t just make shit up that was inaccurate or, worse, harmful.
But after a while it became too much. I was giving away my time and energy to help others, but was getting very little in return. Sure, it was cool to be quoted in some big media outlet, or to appear on some major TV station, but it didn’t do anything for me except signal to other media outlets that I was a good source. Consequently the interview requests multiplied, but I saw no difference in book sales or social media followers, for example. At the time I was working as a freelance translator, and the time I was spending to help others make money off my expertise meant less time to make my own living.
So I started saying no. I had no choice. It didn’t matter if it was the BBC or someone contacting me about a school project. Occasionally, depending on how the inquiry caught me on a given day, I would say yes. The yes was generally made a little easier when I was offered payment as compensation for my time, although let it be said that the offer of payment is never a deal clincher, because it is nominal—just a nod to the fact that I am giving up a chunk of my time. Some places refer to it as a “disturbance fee”.
Yet it’s the gesture that counts. The offer of payment—or me requesting payment—communicates that my time is valuable, and valued.
Because the fact is that I was—and still am—constantly strapped for time. I am a self-published author who also operates as a traditional publisher. I run a business that requires me to stay on top of a dozen or more things on any given day. I doubt the CEO of a big corporation has a heavier daily workload than I do as a one-woman show. Aside from the admin things I do, I also need to carve out time to write, and to find peace and quiet so I can listen to and hear my own creative impulses. And then there are the other myriad things that make up a life: walking the dog, shopping for groceries, exercising, cooking dinner, doing laundry, taking care of my health … all the things we do.
Fast forward to …
Last October 24 , which was the day of the Women’s Strike here in Iceland, and which was getting a lot of international attention. As I was heading into town I was contacted by a producer named Khadijah Hasan from Times Radio in London, asking if I would be available for an interview later that day. It would be 6-7 minutes, and would cover what things were like “on the ground”. I was feeling a bit high on the excitement of the day, and was inclined to accept. I asked about payment and they said they could offer 30 pounds. I thought, “sure, why not”.
Now, these “only seven minutes” or “only half an hour” or “only an hour” are never “only” that. You’re not just deeply absorbed in your work, then switch into interview mode for seven minutes, then switch back into whatever you were doing. Nope. The imminent interview commands all your attention for at least an hour or two beforehand. You go over the questions. You do research if you need to. You review your answers over and over, knowing that you will only have a short time to get your point across. If you are going to be on camera, you do your makeup. If you are going to be live, you take 10-15 minutes beforehand to calm your nerves. A seven-minute interview is at least two hours of your day. To say nothing of physically going out to meet someone for “only” half an hour or an hour.
My exchanges with Khadijah happened mostly via my phone while I was downtown at the demonstration. Afterwards, some women I knew were going to a café together, but I bowed out because I needed to head home and get ready for the interview I had agreed to.
Long story short, the interview was terrible. It was live, and they asked me to be on Zoom, though they did say I could have my camera off if I wanted, but being the accommodating type I decided to keep it on. That was a big mistake. For some reason I saw myself on the screen rather than the presenter, and to make matters worse there was a lag in the system, so not only was I seeing myself talk, there was also an “echo” i.e. I saw myself a couple of seconds after the fact. It’s like when you are speaking to someone on the phone and hear an echo of yourself, only live on camera. It totally threw me off and messed with my concentration.
That basically set the tone for the interview. The presenter was a white, middle-aged dude, and I got the distinct feeling that he found this little “women’s strike” over there in Iceland rather amusing, hoho, bless their little girly hearts. He asked me things like whether I was on strike today, and what sorts of things my husband would be doing for me today since I was on strike, and if he was a good cook. To be fair, also about public opinion and how widespread it was, but nothing about why we needed a women’s strike, or about the wage gap, or the emotional labour done by women, or the other things the strike focused on.
After I got off the call I felt icky, and remembered another reason why I am so reluctant to do these: it is virtually impossible to get the truth across in a soundbite. There is no space for nuance or complexity, and things wind up sounding trite and one-dimensional—especially when there seems to be no real motivation to understand on the other end of the line.
Anyway. I shrugged that off the best I could and got on with things. But then I remembered: hey, they were going to pay me, and I hadn’t heard anything back.
So I emailed the producer, Khadijah. She did not respond. A week later I re-sent. No response. A week after that, re-sent. No response.
Are they blowing me off? It sure as hell looks like it.
It’s not that I give a toss about 30 quid, of which there won’t be much left once my bank applies its foreign transaction charges, and taxman takes half. No. It’s about the disrespect. The discard.
The egregious entitlement.
And ultimately, it’s about the irony—of being interviewed by a major news outlet about a women’s strike that focused on equality, and respect, and fair compensation for the work of women … and I get flicked off like a piece of dust on someone’s sleeve.
Honestly, I expected better from The Times.
So f*cking rude.
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At a complete loss for words. What the actual fuck... And from a woman to top it all off!
Love your realness! Let it out and keep using "shit" when it feels good. Your writing voice makes me smile.