A cure for lame-duckitis
A few people in the ad department have approached me about my leaving, asking the usual "when's your last day?" "where are you going to live?" questions, but there's another one in there too. "Are you going to still write your column?" I said that I'd love to, but no one has mentioned it to me. Many people said I should go mention it to them. This after Stephen told a fellow choir member we were moving and her final reaction was "No more Benjamin in the paper?!?!?!?"
So I brought it up with my boss today and told him that many people have suggested it to me and I'd love to, so what did he think? He said that it occured to him too, but he wasn't sure whether people would still want to hear about us once we didn't live here. I agreed that including local references (like the library and the mall) have made my column more approachable, but that people read national columnists all the time. I said that if I wrote from somewhere else, I'd just focus more on the home stuff and not be like "We went to the Seattle Public Library today" or whatever. He thought about it and asked me what I thought about compensation and I said I didn't know. I wonder how much stringers make? Is $30 per column too much to ask? It's more than they pay me to write them now LOL! But it seems cheap and lame to suggest anything less because then I'd have no negotiating room.
He still wasn't sure when we were done talking, but I think we left it at my writing a goodbye column and telling people to write in if they enjoyed Mama Talk and wanted to continue reading it even after I didn't live in the area anymore.
Cross your fingers for me OK? I'd love the extra income, plus keeping current clips would be nice too, just in case I go back in to this stressful profession sometime in the future ...
So I brought it up with my boss today and told him that many people have suggested it to me and I'd love to, so what did he think? He said that it occured to him too, but he wasn't sure whether people would still want to hear about us once we didn't live here. I agreed that including local references (like the library and the mall) have made my column more approachable, but that people read national columnists all the time. I said that if I wrote from somewhere else, I'd just focus more on the home stuff and not be like "We went to the Seattle Public Library today" or whatever. He thought about it and asked me what I thought about compensation and I said I didn't know. I wonder how much stringers make? Is $30 per column too much to ask? It's more than they pay me to write them now LOL! But it seems cheap and lame to suggest anything less because then I'd have no negotiating room.
He still wasn't sure when we were done talking, but I think we left it at my writing a goodbye column and telling people to write in if they enjoyed Mama Talk and wanted to continue reading it even after I didn't live in the area anymore.
Cross your fingers for me OK? I'd love the extra income, plus keeping current clips would be nice too, just in case I go back in to this stressful profession sometime in the future ...