Thread by @aaronreynolds

I was thinking about the most offensive job offer I have ever received, that I never tweeted about because they had me sign an NDA before we talked about it.

But I just went back and read the NDA and it says I was supposed to be paid for my time and I never was, so…

So I got a DM here on Twitter. An org that did not want to reveal who they were liked my writing and my social media presence. They had a pop culture positivity-centric project and they wanted to know if I was interested in writing for it.

I was definitely curious!

The project was secret-secret because the org wanted to keep it feeling organic and like it sprang fully formed from them. Thus the NDA.

Know what should have been a big red flag? The number of times I asked for a pay range for the role and got a dodge instead of an answer.

Anyways they keep pushing the NDA so we can talk more, and I sign it. Now suddenly a bunch more people are CCed on the emails and they all have things they’d like me to do.

One of the things is a lengthy writing test that requires the watching of multiple episodes of multiple TV programs.

I’m no sucker — this writing test is 100% the job they want done. So I circle back to pay.

I recognize that the main email chain is now filled with executives from this org, so I go back to the original guy who reached out to me and restate my interest and try to back channel a pay range discussion.

He CCs the execs on his answer, bouncing the question to them.

I get the kind of blowback I expected: an exec demanding to see my resume and acting generally offended that I’m making this about money.

I sent a really chipper “oh, I didn’t send you a resume, you asked if I was interested in this job because you liked my work!”

But whatever, I made the guy a resume highlighting all the relevant achievements and skills from my bizarre career.

Now that they’d seen my resume, they were ready to have me do the writing test.

No, I still need a pay range here. I’m not doing all this work without knowing if I’m interested in the role.

They really tried hard to not tell me about the money. It depends on a lot of things! We pay more if we like the ideas! You’ll be flown out to California sometimes for meetings!

I wanted to say “I can’t buy food with a trip to California” but I held my tongue.

Anyways at this point I’m relatively sure that I don’t want the job. If this is what it’s like to find out what it pays, how hard must it be to get paid, right? Who wants that hassle.

Finally, the pay rate comes through, and get this: it’s $200 a week.

They wanted 8-10 high quality pitches per week, two of which they would want expanded and fleshed out or even fully scripted, for $200.

This role would require watching seasons of television programs every week to generate informed, relevant pitches about them… for $200.

Anyways that’s the story of the time I ghosted Netflix

I dunno man, some highly paid executives are pretty sure I’m only worth $200 a week

Thing is, I was already driving that train! This happened after I got my US book deal and quit my day job. I was doing Effin’ Birds half the week and was creative director of a podcast network the other half.

I got to wondering what cartoon I wrote after I received the email with the $200-a-week offer (because what I always do to cope with frustration is make a cartoon). So I checked the date stamps on the emails and then looked up what I posted the next day.

Checks out.

holy shit my DMs from people who also didn’t take this job

I feel like Netflix thought there were people out there who watched a lot of Netflix and who were already tweeting funny things “for free” who would be thankful to get any money at all for what they were already doing.

And I think they missed that a lot of people who do this “for free” use those tweets exactly the way Netflix wanted to: to draw attention to other things that they are doing, as viral advertisements.

I went to Sheridan College for photography, and the most valuable part of that program for me was learning to value my time, in a professional sense. There was an instructor named Peter who drilled into us that the only thing that mattered was the cost of our time —

— and that if we discounted it we were not just screwing ourselves, but every other photographer out there by driving prices down.

Turns out they WERE lowballing me!