B: Hello and welcome to another episode of Not Without My Sister. So this is the second part of our careers series – if you can call two episodes a series. In the last one, we talked about my career trajectory, to get to where I am today, and today we’re going to talk about Rosemary. And so I am going to ask some very insightful questions of my sister, designed to get to the bottom of what social media actually means, and we’re going to discover that, despite the fact that she has worked for some epic names like The Irish Times and other things she’s going to mention that I forget the name of, she nonetheless considers herself not yet to have achieved the full heights of her potential. And I would just like to say that is because she is really a very big complainer. And with that, let’s go.
[music plays]
B: You were that successful! So Rosemary, on that note – you were that successful!
R: I was, and now I’ve no job!
B: It’s just now that you’ve no job. [laughter] You were – and you’re highly educated, much more educated than I am, although I do read much more intelligent books than you now. Right? Isn’t that true? Don’t roll your eyes. Your eyes are literally gonna pop out of your head at the end of this. So you went to college for . . . ? English.
R: I . . . No. So I had kind of a messy end to secondary school, because I basically . . . did Transition Year, which was optional in our school, loved Transition Year, hated going back to fifth and sixth year and kind of the formulaic, box-ticking of, you’ve to do your Leaving now. Hated going from Transition Year where our school – and I think this was very, very bad of them – but they gave us a certain amount of freedom. We didn’t have to ask to go to the bathroom any more, in Transition Year, we were just allowed to go. And then I suddenly went back to Fifth Year and hated having to ask to go to the loo, hated being told what to do . . . I remember one day one of the teachers stopped me in the hall and told me to pick up a tissue that was on the floor, and I went, ‘Oh that’s not mine.’ And she went, ‘I didn’t ask you whose it was, I asked you to pick it up.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not picking up someone else’s dirty tissue.’ And she was like, ‘Pick it up!’ And I was like, no. That kind of shit, that I then just got into loads of trouble.
B: That’s actually gross, in fairness.
R: It’s so gross! I remember when I got my Leaving Cert results, our Year Head came up to me then and went, ‘Now – are you surprised?’
B: What?!
R: As in, surprised that you did so well, and I was like, no! I always knew I was clever! I was just being a dickhead!
B: Oh, I thought you meant, are you surprised you did so badly!
R: No no no! He was going, like, you know – what was . . . my biology teacher, as well, kept trying to get me to drop down to Pass biology. She was like, ‘You’re never gonna pass honours.’
B: You just must look really stupid! [laughing]
R: No, it was just because I got really bold and I kept coming back late from lunch cos I was off in my boyfriend’s house snogging him. I was just a total brat in sixth year.
B: You had a much more exciting tendon than I did, I have to say! I literally was like, I mean . . . Nash asked me, the other day, ‘Mom, how many times did you mitch’, or whatever, what’s the, ‘bunk off school?’ And Don’s like, ‘Oh, so much! I barely went to school’ and I was like, ’n-never.’ I literally never, ever, ever did. I was so boringly good. Ever. You did, multiple times! You smoked behind the shed in school . . .
R: Oh yeah, no no. I totally smoked. I went . . .
B: You bunked off down the local field.
R: I went drinking in the fields and got caught by the guards.
B: Oh, my God.
R: I used to go down the village at lunchtime when I wasn’t supposed to, like, sneak out of school, which was mad, actually!
B: I remember that! And do you remember one of Mum’s friends saw you and reported back to Mum . . .
R: Yes.
B: And Mum said – what did Mum say to you?
R: No! It wasn’t actually . . . I told you! And you reported back to Mum!
B: Oh yeah! [laughing] It was me!
R: And then I thought, I was like, ‘Oh my God it was Brona, wasn’t it.’ And Mum was like, ‘It wasn’t Brona.’
B: Oh my God, I was such a dick! What a crap older sister!
R: It didn’t even occur to me that it was you! Anyway, so after I did my Leaving I was really all over the place, didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I applied for Arts in Maynooth, only because if you got over 500 points and you got accepted to Maynooth, you got a thousand euro.
B: [laughing] You’re such a knob!
R: I know! So anyway, then when it came to it I was like, oh I don’t really know if I want to do this, so I took a year out then, while I was kind of figuring it out, and I worked in Urban Outfitters, and then I worked in Zara for six months.
B: Oh Mum was determined that you were going to become the shop manager in Zara !
R: Well, I was! But then she was also determined that I was going to become a civil servant and get a nice pensionable job.
B: She was actually obsessed with getting you into the civil service!
R: She was, cos I had applied – you know they do these applications, you can apply to go into the pool to be a clerical officer. So I had applied for this job the minute my Leaving Cert exams were over, and then I finally got offered a job the following, I think, March. Or April. And I was working at Zara at the time, which I actually quite liked, and the pay was really good.
B: You were very good at it! Because you were also really, like, people are going to be surprised to hear this – very honest.
R: [laughs]
B: You know, it’s so annoying, you know when you go – and that’s why you were good in Brown Thomas, as well – you know when you go in and you’re like, Is this nice on me? And they’re like, oh my God you look gorgeous, and you’re like, I – I look . . . Go away if you’re not gonna give me decent feedback.
R: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas I was always kind of going, hmmm, that’s nice, why don’t you try this one? And I would bring them something else that basically I wanted to buy but couldn’t afford. Yeah. Cos I worked in Brown Thomas – I think . . . did I work in Brown Thomas, then I worked in Urban Outfitters. I hated Brown Thomas. Then I worked in Zara, then I got a job in the civil service cos I left Zara because . . . I don’t really know why I left Zara, cos I did like it. But the bosses were kind of maniacs.
B: You hated the bosses. You’ve a problem with authority.
R: The higher managers. Yeah, I do.
B: Do you actually know what I just realised, as you’re talking? And this is going back to episode 1 and now I’m in a rage again. Mother is trying to craft a tiny Claire Mac Cabe out of you! She worked in Brown Thomas and loved it! And talks all the time about how they took the Brown Thomas label and sewed . . . no, it wasn’t her.
R: Sewed them into their Penneys clothes!
B: Well, I don’t think Penneys existed but yeah, they’re regular clothes. And! Then she worked in the civil service! Literally . . . She has never . . . I swear to God, she saw me off at the airport to Milan and just went, ‘Bye pet!’
R: [laughs] You know what? Despite the fact that I have the patience of, like, I dunno, a very belligerent cat, she seems to always on at me about how I should have become a primary school teacher. Always, she’s like, ‘Oh the holidays would be great.’
B: [laughs]
R: I’d be crap! I’ve no patience.
B: I think you’d be good, you’re good with the kids.
R: Aw, no. No, no, no. I just – I don’t understand, after you tell them something once, I’m like, what are you not getting? I already told you that. I don’t – I’m not. No. Anyway.
B: I did actually say to my kids yesterday, I said, to my poor six-year-old, ‘Which part of ‘pick that up’ did you not understand? And I was like, oh my God I’m turning into Dad. I need to really watch it. So mean to talk to my little poor six-year-old like that. And he’s really bold, I have to admit, so only after I gave him a slap around the head did he cop on. No, no, no. That’s a joke. That’s a joke! [laughing] As if!
R: Certain things you shouldn’t joke about.
B: I know. Sorry, sorry.
R: So I took this year out, I worked in the civil service, fucking broke my arm . . .
B: [gasps]
R: . . . and then ended up having to . . .
B: Oh my God, was that when we went on the holiday with your broken arm?!
R: Yes!
B: Do you have that picture?! [laughing]
R: Yes! I actually have a photograph of the two of us sunbathing, and I’ve no top on, cos I was fucking obsessed with going topless that summer in front of our Dad and our uncle.
B: Maybe you were just trying to make sure that the amount of coverage you normally would have, that was already taken up by the cast on your arm . . .
R: I’m basically covering my tits with my book, which I’m sure is some terrible . . . If I only zoomed in I’m sure it’s some terrible, damning indictment of my intelligent levels. And then I have my cast, hanging limply beside me. So anyway, I broke my arm on the neighbours’ driveway.
B: Oh no, sorry – sorry. That’s not the story. So, in the sea . . .
R: We’re going to get to that in a minute!
B: Oh. Okay.
R: But I just wanted to say HOW I broke my arm.
B: Okay, okay sorry. [laughing]
R: I broke my arm on the neighbours’ driveway, as I had been dispatched over to fetch a menu for the Indian takeaway that Dad and I – Mum was away – that dad and I were going to call and have delivered to the house for our dinner. And I slipped . . .
B: Are you seeing a pattern here?
R: Dad’s trying to kill me?
B: No. No! Didn’t Mum break her arm getting your Indian takeaway recently?
R: [gasps] She did! Listen, Beatrice, when you eat five Indian takeaways a week, one of them is bound to coincide with an accident.
B: [laughs] Poor Mum! Mum doesn’t eat five Indian takeaways a week.
R: No, I do. I do.
B: I’m quite genuinely sure that Bombay Pantry, fi they follow you on Twitter or whatever, when they heard you were leaving, were like, ‘Pack it up lads! We’re going out of business!’
R: Honestly, they never offered me a single thing! Probably because they were like, this one doesn’t need a freebie, she can pay for it four times a week, she’s grand. I . . . So, oh yeah, Mum and Dad were going to France, for two weeks, and you were meeting them there, from Paris, I think, and I wasn’t meant to go, cos I had this job in the civil service and I didn’t have enough holidays. But then I broke my arm, and I couldn’t drive the car, and I couldn’t get myself to work, and I also couldn’t work cos I had a broken arm. So then I had to go on the holiday, and then Mum was like, ‘It’s dishonest to go on holidays while you’re off work on sick leave, so you should hand in your notice.’ Right?
B: Mum’s actually nuts.
R: So anyway, I handed in my notice, went on the holiday to France, had very many lols at me with my cast.
B: Wasn’t this the holiday where Mum threw the croissant tantrum, do you remember that?
R: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
B: There was the local boulangerie . . .
R: Was out of croissants.
B: Every single morning they’d be out of croissants, and one morning Allen got on the local bike – the house bike. The local bike, that sounded really bad. [laughs] He didn’t get on the local bike, he got on the bike that was in the garage – ha, ha, ha – and he cycled at the crack of dawn down to the boulangerie. Like, it’s France, you know! They’re serious about their croissants and their bread. If you’re not there first, they’re gone. So he cycled down, and he came back – and like it must have been 7am. You were probably – you were actually still in bed, I remember because you weren’t part of this.
R: No, I wasn’t. I missed it.
B: He arrived along and he laid out his fare on the table, and Mum came down, delighted, and then she goes, ‘Where are the croissants?’ And Allen goes, ‘Oh, they’re right there, they only had chocolate croissants.’ ‘I HATE chocolate croissants!’ And it was like, just have one! And I remember, I took the croissant and I scraped out – you know in France they just have the sticks of chocolate, it’s not dotted with chocolate, so I peeled out the two sticks and I just remember that was the moment, honestly, where the baton was passed and I was like, Mum’s a baby. I was like, this is not my mature, wise mother.
R: Listen.
B: Mum’s immature too!
R: I have to say – I have to say. Mum is not the person you can scrape things off and then she’ll eat the rest.
B: Aw no, it’s true.
R: You know what I mean?
B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it literally – the chocolate came off perfectly. It was freezing cold, the croissant was perfect . . .
R: Beatrice, I know!
B: And she threw such a fit!
R: I believe you!
B: She sulked, she ate nothing, she wouldn’t drink her tea, and she recovered at about 11am and she will deny this story but we had about nine witnesses. Everybody was horrified by this.
R: Except me, cos I was in bed.
B: This very out of character childish behaviour from our mother. Very out of character. Relatively out of character.
R: Although very in character when it comes to croissants, to be fair.
B: Yes, and food. Correct.
R: So anyway. Sorry – this is literally going to be the longest, most boring story about my career.
B: No, no, no it’s brilliant! And then! We went swimming!
R: I thought we were just going to get to skip over that!
B: And our uncle Niall, who is very funny . . .
R: Hang on. I would just like to point out, when you’re in a plaster of Paris cast, you can’t get it wet!
B: [laughs]
R: And it was very hot! So when everybody was going for a swim in the sea I wanted to go for a bit of a dip, so I had walked out to about my nipples, in water, and I was holding my cast . . .
B: Please tell me, did you have a top on? In this picture?
R: Oh, I fucking – probably didn’t. No, no, no! We don’t have a picture of me in the sea!
B: Oh my God, I wish we did.
R: Listen, everybody can imagine. So I’m there, up to my nips in water, cast diligently held aloft, cos the doctor had instructed me not to get it wet, when Niall shouts, from the shore . . . Go on!
B: [laughs] I . . . can’t . . . ha, ha, ha.
R: He had started, that summer, calling everyone gobbers, short for gobshite, but I think he thought it was slightly more polite. So like the whole time . . .
B: Hands up if you’re a gobber!!!!!
R: Yeah. Hands up if you’re a gobber.
B: And Rosemary’s there with her hand up!
R: Everyone else’s hands shot under the water, and I’m there, with my cast in the air, in an absolute fucking rage.
B: Oh, it was so funny! [laughing]
R: Oh, my God. That was also the summer that he just called me Chunky the whole time. ‘Oh, there’s Chunky!’
B: Oh, I forgot about that! [more laughter]
R: I love how you’re laughing!
B: It was soooooo mean! It was so mean. [laughing like someone who doesn’t think this is mean]
R: Sometimes he still calls me Chunky, I think! Like, I’m 35! Have some respect!
B: Oh, my one stomach muscle’s really hurting! Oh, I don’t think it’s a muscle. Oh, Chunky. [laughs for 30 seconds]
R: You absolute weapon.
B: [more laughter] I think it’s time for a break.
R: So anyway, after that summer of great humiliation, I went to college and I had decided to go to Galway, and I studied English and Italian, because my sister was in Italy – and I was like, it’d be really handy if I learned to speak Italian! Of course, you were only there for another two months or something, and then you moved to Paris. I could have done English and French!
B: Oh! But you’re good at the Italian! And you came and you stayed for a full summer and you used your Italian.
R: I did, I did.
B: So I must have been there for longer than that.
R: Yeah, I think you were there until about . . . third year of college. So, as part of my course in NUI Galway we were meant to do Erasmus, which I didn’t do because I basically had a boyfriend and was like, ‘I don’t want to go to Italy for a whole year.’
B: I remember that! You’re a serial boyfriender. That’s another podcast, where we talk about Rosemary’s inability to be by herself, ever.
[silence]
R: There’s nothing wrong with that, Beatrice. Some people are just better in couples than other people, my therapist told me that.
B: 100%! We’ll just talk about it. We’ll analyse it.
R: Okay.
B: [laughing[
R: Listen. This episode is never going to be over. I did my degree in English and Italian – oh, because! I really wanted to be a journalist, and Mum was really good friends with Marian Finucane, and I remember asking Marian, at the time, what her advice would be. Should I study journalism, should I study – you know, broadcast journalism. Should I do creative writing, what should I do? And she said, if you’re going to do journalism, do not do straight journalism as a degree, because there’s no point in being a journalist if you’ve nothing to write about.
B: That’s an interesting perspective.
R: Yeah. So she was like, do something else first so that you have education in something other than just journalism. Do you know what I mean?
B: Yeah. That’s interesting.
R: Yeah. And I mean, when I went to NUI Galway I initially studied English, Soc & Pol which was sociology and politics, Psychology and Italian. Kind of thinking that, either, Psychology or Sociology & Politics would end up being the one that I would pair with English, thinking they’d be good for journalism, and then I hated them!
B: Oh, did you? I was going to say, did you hate Psychology?
R: Oh my God, Beatrice, Psychology is very dull! I thought Psychology was going to be very exciting and I’d come out of every class, going, ‘That’s why I’m like this!’ Because I’m a narcissist. I thought every class would be about me.
B: [laughs]
R: But literally you’d do a class and they’d be like, ‘This is the amygdala.’ And I hated biology!
B: The a-mig-dah-la!? I have watched enough Criminal Minds to know that it’s the amygdala.
R: I haven’t watched any! And I didn’t pay attention in Psychology. AND! I’ve heard loads of people say, Jesus, it’s really hard to fail Psychology. I got 41%! I was 2% off failing!
B: God love you!
R: in first year. Disaster. Disas – I think I actually had to repeat part of it cos I failed part of it. Anyway, terrible. So after I finished my degree, I then did an MA in . . . jour . . . well, I had applied for the MA in Journalism in DCU, and in DIT. And I didn’t get accepted to DCU the first time and I was absolutely – as Mum would say – I had absolute bunny on bum bum, I was in a rage about that, I was like, ‘How dare they! I’m brilliant!’ I got accepted to DIT, and then on the second round, I got accepted to DCU but at that point I was so thick with them for not accepting me the first time, I was like, ‘Not going there.’
B: Dead right! Their loss.
R: I was like, absolutely not! I won’t be anybody’s second choice! [laughs] So I went to my second choice, DIT. And they had started a new course in International Journalism, so when I got accepted to the regular journalism course, they were like, ‘I don’t supposed you’d consider doing the International one . . . ‘ And they did a really good sales pitch on it. It’s gonna be a much smaller class, we’re including Peace & War Reporting, and Conflict Journalism, and . . .
B: Is that when you decided you were going to Syria? Cos Dad was in bits, and I was like, ‘She’s not going anywhere. Literally, she hates going into town. She’s not going to Syria.’ [laughs] And I remember I called him, I had to really talk to him, he warlike, ‘What am I going to say to her? I need to tell her this isn’t a good idea.’ I was like, Dad, seriously, have you met Rosemary? She loves being at home. And he goes, ‘oh you’ve made me feel so much better.’
R: Oh, I do love being at home, and I’m so lazy as well, I come up with these big plans and then I’m like, I don’t want to do that now.
B: I pointed out these realities and he was like, oh I feel so much better.
R: I would just like to make one correction. I think it was Iran and not Syria, because I’d just read The Bookseller of Kabul. Syria wasn’t really on my wavelength at that point. It was Iran.
B: You could be right. Sorry, sorry. So what was the difference between Journalism and International Journalism, then? Was there a difference?
R: The International Journalism course doesn’t exist any more. I think it was their way of adding another course, so they could take on more students. The International Journalism course, the point of it was to prepare you for being a foreign correspondent maybe, or working in a war zone, or you know, just going to a conflict zone? I guess? But . . .
B: Can I ask you a question, Rosemary? How many years ago was this, now?
R: Eh . . . thirteen? I think. Twelve.
B: So, do you think that journalism has changed significantly, like? Would you still do journalism? Was . . . the internet existed, right? But was Huffington Post . . . was journalism so online? Was there all this conversation around the death of the newspaper, the death of the broadsheet etc? Had that happened yet?
R: No, no. And we didn’t have any modules that focused on online journalism. Cos it wasn’t . . . at that point yet, do you know what I mean? It was all talking about newspaper journalism. And I actually think, I think it’s really difficult to prepare someone to be a journalist, and by that same token I think it’s impossible to . . . the idea of doing a course to show someone how to be a journalist in a conflict zone is very bizarre to me, because I’m like, there’s no way you could prepare someone. That’s someone who has worked in news reporting, and then works in, maybe, like, a bureau in Paris, and then goes to a conflict . . . You cannot prepare someone out of college to go, ‘I’m gonna go to a conflict zone!’
B: I think that’s a really interesting point, because even, if I think about fashion, right, which is nothing to do with a conflict zone, just regular day-to-day conflict, I think that college, certainly the course that I did – and I’m sure it’s different nowadays – but, did nothing to prepare me for the world of working.
R: Yeah.
B: Did not explain to me, in any way, hey, when you work in fashion as a designer, these are the teams that surround you. This is how the business will be structured. There was no business aspect at all, and honestly I often think, that if I had known how companies were structured, I likely – even though I love design – would not have done design. I would have done merchandising, because being a merchant, you work your way up to a senior enough level, you can, in many companies – not all companies, and not as much in Europe – but in America certainly, as business-focused, as business is the primary stakeholder, you can run design. Whereas it’s very rare for design to run . . . for it to work the other way. You’re creative, oh, here, let’s let you run the business. That does happen in Europe, but I didn’t even know merchandising existed. Now I’m like, am I . . . Was that me, just being super uninformed? But there was no conversation about that, ever. So I think, to your point, it’s teaching you something but it’s not necessarily preparing you for the actual world. Or the application of it.
R: Yeah. There was very little logistics in terms of, the majority of working journalists, even just in Ireland now, are freelance, right? So are working as journalists, from the comfort, more or less, of – well, we’re all at home now – but are working from home, are pitching to different publications, are writing maybe a feature for this magazine, and then a news piece for this paper, and then are doing a property piece for this supplement. You have to kind of be a jack of all trades. And there was no – there was nothing in my course about pitching to a newspaper, about how to format a pitch, how to make contacts, how to reach out to somebody – like, I kind of would have thought that I almost would have emailed the editor of The Irish Times, to go, ‘I have an idea for a piece.’ They didn’t teach us that there are actually all these different editors, and this is the person who’d be responsible for this, and here’s how you go about this. And that’s one of the things that I always say to people, now – the most important thing to learn is how to do a pitch. But, if the question you originally asked was, would I do journalism again? If I was to go back . . . I don’t think I would. I think, after I’d done my BA, if I could go back now, I would do something like an MA in Gender Studies. Or I would do something that I’m really interested in, and go, I would love to be better read on this topic, I would love to be better informed on this topic, and I would love to be able to write more informedly about this thing.
B: It’s interesting to me that you say, you’d write a piece about property, or a piece about . . . And I’m thinking to myself, these are not all topics that somebody is necessarily passionate about. It sounds very much like, this is me earning a living. Is that how you – because I imagine people think they’re getting into journalism to write about the topics they’re passionate about, you know? Not necessarily to execute to a list of topics that need to be covered for the paper tomorrow. You know? Do you think that you saw it differently? Do you think that it is different to how you imagined it would be?
R: Oh yeah! I mean, I think I just thought that the very rare jobs were not rare. So I thought that I might get a job writing a column, or working in features, or writing opinion. But I never realised that, if you write a column, you might get paid €150 a week, for this one column that you do every week, and Carrie Bradshaw has a lot to answer for.
B: I know, exactly.
R: – in that sense. But yeah, I kind of thought that I would be able to do what I love doing, which was writing, about things I’m interested in, do you know what I mean? Now that I think about it, I’m like, that’s very lofty – the idea that I would be making a living out of that, but that is what I thought.
B: But part of the problem is – not part of the problem, but part of the irony of that is, you did do that, for the first couple of years, right? You did get to write about the things that you were interested in.
R: Well, yeah. Ish. For the first – so, while I was doing my Master’s, I got a job in The Irish Times, through our cousin’s friend who worked there, and had said to her, ‘The Irish Times is looking for sub editors, do you know anyone?’ She said, ‘Yeah my cousin is doing the MA in Journalism in DIT at the moment. I’ll get her to get in touch.’ So again, it was somebody who knew somebody, got me in the door. And I went in for a trial day, and I did a trial day as a sub editor, and then I got kept on. So I did two days a week, while I was doing my MA and while I was writing my thesis, and then after that I went up to kind of two or three or four, and I was always a casual sub editor, but the very first piece that I wrote for The Irish Times was a piece for a commercial supplement about something to do with the EU, and the piece that I wrote was about how . . . something about EU rules about fruit. And about how certain, like, certain bendy bananas didn’t pass EU . . . like, bananas had to be at a certain bend. It was something about bananas, I swear to God!
B: [laughing] Actually stop! So when, Rosemary, and this is not to do necessarily with your career as much . . . But it is. It’s all tied together, I think. When did you start feeling . . . When were you diagnosed with depression, if you don’t . . . if that’s okay to ask as part of this conversation? Because I feel like that impacted everything in your life.
R: Oh yeah, em . . . I had started going to see a therapist when I was in doing my BA, in Galway. I had gone to see a therapist then, because I was like, feeling really low and I’d been feeling really sad for an extended period of time, and I went to see a therapist, and I was just like, she was crap. She kept telling me – I dunno if we’ve talked about this on the podcast before but she kept telling me to imagine my feelings as a big ball, and imagine handing that ball to someone else. And I was like, why . . . like, there was something that felt really malicious about it, like, why would I want to give it to someone else? I don’t want anyone to have it! You know what I mean? I was like, why am I giving my feelings to this person?!
B: Why didn’t she just tell you to throw it into the sea?
R: Why was it a ball to begin with? She even drew it on the whiteboard! A big circle! I was like, I know what a ball is, you don’t need to draw it. She was like, ‘Imagine your feelings in a circle.’ Like, are you really gonna draw that right now? Then I went to another therapist in DIT, but it wasn’t until – it was while I was at The Irish Times that I started to go to regular therapy, I started to see and talk to my GP about it more regularly, and she kind of diagnosed me with a generalised depressive disorder I think, and then that was when I started going on medication, while I was at The Irish Times. I was there for about five years in total. I think it was about two years after I finished my MA.
B: And why did you leave The Irish Times?
R: So, I was at The Irish Times, I was working as a casual sub, so I was still doing two or three days a week, and I’d started doing more and more writing, so I was writing features and I was writing opinion and I had started doing a weekly fashion column. Oh, that I got because I started doing the fashion blog for irishtimes.com. And then I got asked to do some fashion pages in the paper, in the weekly, I think it was every Wednesday or every Thursday. Then I did that for a couple of months, and while I was doing that I started getting asked to go on more radio, and to go on TV3 and to do more styling stuff. And I basically couldn’t – I kind of couldn’t balance everything, and I was like, the thing that I am enjoying the least, really, was the subbing, was the office, the production work, at the time. And I also felt like, while I was there I was seeing loads of people who had been there, for 15 or 20 or 25 years, and they were career subs. And I was like, I didn’t really want to do that. You know what I mean? So I kind of felt like either I needed . . . I needed to concentrate on one or the other. So I stopped doing the subbing. And that was kind of the beginning of the end of the Irish Times for me, because once I wasn’t in the office every day, I kind of just got more and more detached, if that makes sense.
B: Yeah.
R: I started doing more and more TV, I started doing more radio, and then . . . I think I had stopped subbing maybe about six months when my column got dropped. The fashion page that I was doing once a week which, at the time I think I got paid €250 a week for it, so €1,000 a month, a little bit more, and it basically covered my rent and made sure that everything else that I did was, you know, obviously living expenses, but was kind of a plus. And when that got dropped I was just like, oh fuck. Because there were definitely some weeks where I wouldn’t be getting a lot of other jobs. And that would be, kind of, what I was depending on. That’s guaranteed and I can always pay my rent because I always have that. So then that stopped, and then I was freelance and I was, kind of, styling shoots for the odd shoot for magazines, I was styling stuff for TV3, for Xposé, I was doing the odd Midday, which was the panel chat show. And then my friend Kirstie was editor at Stellar at the time, and she asked me if I would have any interest in interviewing for the deputy editor position there. And so that’s when I went into Stellar, when I kind of went, ‘You know what? Freelancing is really hard . . .’ And I think, at the time I was kind of struggling with my mental health, but I was also struggling with my finances, story of my life – that I absolutely love to spend money and, eh, well I just love to spend money.
B: But freelancing is really hard, right? Because it is really hard to not . . . I think, you know, I always have thought about the idea of going out and having a consultancy, or doing something like that, but the idea of always having to go, like, it’s not just – it’d be great if you just got to do your job, but so much of your job is the hustle of, what’s the next job? And pay me for the last job!
R: Yes. So much of it is admin, is chasing up invoices, is sending invoices, and then is also pitching, and when you’re freelance, everyone kind of says it very glibly, like, you just have to get used to rejection. And you do, but imagine if you went for five job interviews every single week, and say two of them, you got and three of them you didn’t. It kind of grinds you down after a while. You have all of these disappointments, or not just disappointments but you just have loads of people not emailing you back, and it would get really disheartening.
B: I think also, you’re not pitching – especially if you’re freelancing, writing – you’re not pitching for a big six-month pitch. So everything is, I’m just pitching for a two-hundred dollar, three-hundred dollar, five-hundred dollar, well, euro, job, you know?
R: No. No – you’re pitching for €70 to independent.ie, €120 for a small feature . . . up to maybe €150.
B: Then you think about the time that you spent doing that, by the time you pitch it and get it and negotiate it and then chase it and then actually write it . . . How much are you even getting an hour, you know? It’s one thing if you were saying, I’m pitching for a long-term project. Because if I was pitching a consultancy, I’d be pitching for a one-month or three-month or five-month, you know? But even that, that’s hard because companies don’t want to . . . it’s hard to get companies, they have, they’ll reach out looking for somebody, in fashion certainly, looking for somebody that they want to do a certain project, but the idea of having your own consultancy where you’re pitching to them and hoping that they’ll find the money . . .
R: You’re selling it to them.
B: . . . for an idea they didn’t even have, yeah, and they’re not even sure they want. It feels unnerving to me.
R: It would be hard.
B: I think a lot of people who work freelance in the fashion industry, they’re considered freelance and they call themselves freelance, which basically means that they don’t have benefits . . .
R: But they have clients.
B: Well it’s more that they could work in-house with somebody for three days a week, but they’re still freelance, d’you know what I mean? Yes, they have one or two clients, ongoing.
R: They have regulars, yeah. So basically I was just, I was finding freelance difficult, for a whole load of different reasons, and then not knowing where your money’s coming from . . . and I had always wanted to work in magazines. And you know what? At the exact same time that I got offered the Stellar job, I had pitched to Dunnes Stores to come in and take over their social media, because at the time I was like . . . yeah.
B: I mean, I don’t want to derail the conversation even further, but I also remember another one that Mum really wanted you to do – she really wanted you to do the buying course in Penneys, and she kept trying to tell you to go back to do that. Every single time you’d say, I don’t know about my job or my career, Mum goes, ‘You know that Penneys has an amazing buying training programme . . .’
R: Well, you know actually at that exact same time, I went for the trainee buyers’ thing in Penneys, at the exact same time, and didn’t get it!
B: Ooooh. That’s embarrassing.
R: I know. And I went in . . . But like, I just wasn’t . . . I went in for what I thought was, like, an interview and they were like, ‘Prepare a . . .’ It wasn’t really a presentation, but, y’know, a small project. And I went in with very basic – and some girls had made decoupage of their project, d’you know what I mean? I was like, WHAT. And they had just come out of a two-year buyers’ diploma, whereas I was just like, ‘I just have really good ideas and I love clothes . . .’ But I had also been this fashion journalist, and then I’d had this online presence, and I think they just were a bit like, yer one’s a loose cannon.
B: [laughing] Dead right!
R: Yeah.
B: D’you know what? You would have hated it. This would have been back to, pick up that tissue. You pick up the tissue!
R: Oh, yeah. And there was actually a girl that I kept in touch with afterwards who did it and I think stayed for about three months and was like, it was awful. Absolutely hated it.
B: But, I mean . . . Probably for her own reasons.
R: Yeah, but I think she just said it was a LOT of Excel.
B: Oh, yeah. Okay.
R: which I hadn’t anticipated.
B: No 100%! And it’s maths, right? It’s all about . . . what inventory levels . . .
R: Numbers, numbers, numbers. Yeah. So I had pitched for this social media job at Dunnes and they offered that to me at the exact same time that I got offered the Stellar job, and I think I was like, you know what I’ve always wanted to work in magazines so I’m going to give journalism one last go, and work in Stellar.
B: And I will tell you that you had very colourful stories from that time in your life!
R: I did. I worked with some very interesting characters, some of whom . . . I cannot wait until they die so I can talk about all of the things that they said.
B: [laughing]
R: That is all I’ll say.
B: But you also loved working with your friends! That was nice.
R: Oh my God, I loved working with Kirstie, I loved working with Linda, who was the fashion editor at the time, I loved working with Katie, who was and still is the designer at Stellar. Like, it was so nice – and, you know what, to what you said earlier, it was really nice because it was such a female-focused and female-run environment. It was so nice to be surrounded by so many women and to just have these people to bounce ideas off, which was something that I had obviously really missed, because I think I had been freelancing, fully freelance, for about two years at that point, and I’d really missed . . .
B: And that goes back to – I’m sorry but that goes back to the collaboration and teamwork that you made fun of me for in my presenters’ voice. Collaboration and teamwork! You can’t create ideas in a vacuum. It’s that idea of throwing out all the stupid ideas. I’m not saying this is a good idea, but what if . . . and somebody else builds on it. You get to the good ideas through everybody . . . you know, just throwing out the stupid ideas!
R: Yeah. So I stayed there, I think I was there for about a year and a half . . .
B: Is that all? I thought you were there for much longer.
R: No. No.
B: Oh! So many stories! People should be quaking in their boots! In their tiny trousers! Just saying.
R: [laughing] In their tight jeans. Yeah, I was there only a year and a half, and I left basically because the culture there . . . the culture from the top down, I found, really challenging. And unpleasant. And, you know what? At a certain point as well, I just really realised that I am the kind of person who resents making money for someone else.
B: Oh, I’d say many people probably would identify with that. It’s not everybody has the luxury of . . . acting on it.
R: Oh yeah.
B: But I mean, it’s good if you can, right?
R: Yeah. So basically it was at the point when journalism was kind of shifting from, you know, regular – we’re writing the story and this is about the public interest . . . and kind of good, meaty stories, and it was like, we need to get commercial partners to work with us on this story, because people were buying less and less advertising, and also people were buying less and less magazines. So it was like, how do we work with different brands to bring a story to life? I would try and pitch things like, I want to interview these six musicians, these six female musicians about the industry in Ireland, and we’ll dress them in your clothes, and so it’ll be a branded partnership, but it’ll just be the clothes and the rest of the story will be the story.
B: I think that’s interesting. Isn’t that – you told me the other day, about, what’s Kirstie’s job now?
R: Yeah, Kirstie’s now working in – and I don’t want to speak for Kirstie because I’m not 100% sure but she’s now working in content or in the content studio at The Irish Times. So, similarly, those kind of advertorial has now moved from, ‘This is an advertising feature about Penneys’ to, ‘This is a feature you actually want to read and it just happens to be sponsored by Penneys and everyone’s wearing Penneys clothes’, you know what I mean?
B: Yeah. I thought that was really interesting. Did that job even exist 10 years ago? There are so many different jobs within journalism that I don’t think you’d know about.
R: Within media, and this kind of crossover between journalism and sales.
B: But it’s almost social, everybody’s really focused now on storytelling, you know? Nobody wants to be sold too. We see it everywhere. Everybody . . . It’s all very wrapped up in this idea of storytelling and branding, you know? It’s not any more, like, hey, here’s this thing, do you want to buy it? It’s like, not enough any more.
R: Yeah. People want the story. But we were starting to do those kind of sales-y things with contacts that you’d have in PR or contacts that you’d have in brands, and I just started getting really pissed off, that I was like, ‘Why have I just signed this fifteen grand deal or collaboration, when I’m getting paid like €34,000 or something?’ I’m not getting anything from this, and I wouldn’t even get a thank you, d’you know what I mean? So I was getting really pissed off.
B: Did it never occur to you to go and be like, ‘Hey, can any of my salary be based on a percentage of this?’ Did you have that conversation? You’re making a face that suggests that was not a possibility.
R: I would like to invoke my fifth amendment right to not incriminate myself. And move on from that question.
B: Okay, okay!
R: It is your fifth amendment, right? Or is that guns?
B: Yeah. What’s the spousal one? No, your fifth amendment is . . . the first amendment is your right to bear . . . the second amendment? You know what? Ssh. Ssh. We’ll post the amendments. Ssh, as Fox would say.
R: Those will be in the show notes. Anyway – at that same time, right, I had started a Snapchat account, I had started to get, kind of, popular by Irish standards . . .
B: That thing where you just walked around, as Mum would say, you walked around Stoneybatter . . .
R: Chatting into my phone!
B: Yeah! And I’d be like, ‘What the hell is this?!’
R: Yeah!
B: She doesn’t have time to have a phonecall with me, but she’s walking up and down the streets.
R: I was busy!
B: And you always started every sentence with, ‘Eh. . .’
R: Oh! Stop annoying me. I was busy making a name for myself. And you know what, I used to get messages from people going, oh my God, I can’t believe you’re going into Fresh again. This is so boring! I was like, what?! You’re literally – it would be like having a stalker, who’s like, ugh can we NOT go here for lunch again? Just – I’m just . . . like . . . it was so stupid.
B: I think what they were trying to tell you, Rosemary, was that you were not engaging them.
R: I was not entertaining them in the way that they expected.
B: For free!
R: Just go follow someone else! For free!
R: So anyway, I had started to get popular on Snapchat . . .
B: This free content is boring, isn’t that it? This free content is boring me.
R: This free content is not what I’m paying for!
B: [laughs]
R: Exactly. So I started getting offered brand collaborations. I think the first one I got offered was maybe from Lidl . . . I can’t remember.
B: You’ve got some great stuff shipped to your door, I have to say.
R: Aw yeah!
B: Did you not get . . . a load of condoms, or did I just make that up?
R: I got condoms. I got condoms in a box, when you opened it up it made sex noises I think. It went like, ooooh, uuuuuh.
B: Oh my God, this is literally Mum’s nightmare.
R: Very entertaining.
B: Mum’s like the opposite of an influencer. Mum’s like . . . I don’t even know, she’d be so horrified.
R: What’s the opposite of an influencer? A dampener?
B: [laughing] That’s inappropriate!
R: And I also got an entire box of vibrators, once!
B: Oh, yes! That’s the one you took pictures and told Mum, right?
R: This company was like, we’d like to send you a vibrator, right? And I was like, great! Love a vibrator! Then they sent me 12 of them, and I was like, I think you’re misunderstanding my anatomy. But it was basically an accident. And then they made me ship them back! It was really annoying!
B: What?!
R: I could’ve just given them to my mates!
B: What else did you get?
R: I used to get loads of makeup. I did a collaboration with a prune company once, for three grand, it was amazing.
B: Oh, I remembler that! You cooked every prune recipe under the sun. But I remember you got a lot of makeup because I remember for Christmas you pretended to me that you’d bought it!
R: I did not pretend!
B: Yes! You did!
R: Listen! You used to pretend to me that you bought me things that you got from the shop near the office!
B: I absolutely never pretended! That was Dad! That was Dad. And I wasn’t . . . it wasn’t til I was 20-something that I realised the shop near the office was, like, an aphorism.
R: We will talk about Dad’s shop in Dad’s episode.
B: Right. Right.
R: We really need to get on with our lives now. So, I became an influencer . . .
B: [whispering, mockingly] I became an influencer.
R: Basically, I started taking money from brands and thought, I can give up my job, this is great. Happy days. Take €500 and talk about something on Instagram. But it was actually shit!
B: Why?
R: Because the money never felt like enough for the shit that you got from people for it, if you know what I mean.
B: What do you mean? Your language is deteriorating here. Mother will have a problem with it.
R: Oh sorry. So basically, I would sign up to do a job for a brand that might be, like, five hundred quid, right? And you’d go, okay I’m gonna post a story to my grid, I’m gonna do a blog post and I’m gonna do three Instagram stories. And I think a lot of my problem with it was also tied up with my mental health, because at the time I was very up and down and I didn’t really know what things were gonna be like tomorrow, or what I was gonna be able for tomorrow, if you know what I mean? So I would have said to a brand, okay on Tuesday I’m gonna do these six Instagram Stories. And then I’d wake up on Tuesday and be like, oh my God I want to die, I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to leave the house, but I would have to go – get on my bike and go around and be like, ‘Hi guys! Here I am, doing X, Y, Z’ and talking to my phone.
B: But I also feel like – isn’t this true – and I do think this is, I mean the market has moved there, like . . . the industry has moved to this place where these sponsored ads, etc, nobody really likes them any more? Things . . . You know, it was a trend of, like, oh it’s really authentic but that’s kind of why the micro-influencer is happening. And also, like, nobody wants . . . the minute you see, sponsored or “ad” or whatever, everybody just kind of goes, ugh. Because there are so many people talking about it – and it just doesn’t feel authentic! Especially if you’re talking about millions of different things, you know?
R: Yeah. Yeah. I actually think the only thing that works now – and this is something that I did try to pitch when I was doing it – but very few brands wanted to do it, because it’s kind of a big investment. I think the only thing that works is if you sign on for a year. You know what I mean? And also, in a way, and this is the pipe dream, but if the influencer approaches the brand, and goes, ‘I love, like, Diet Coke, for example’. Or, like, ‘I’m always wearing H&M’, or . . .
B: Spanx.
R: Yeah! And, like, you approach the brand and go, ‘Look – I love your brand, I wear it all the time, I would love to become an ambassador and, in exchange I will post two posts to my grid each month, in which I tag you and I mention that I’m wearing you and I mention that it’s an ad, but otherwise I’ll just carry on my everyday life using your product, but I will be there to be a spokesperson’. I think that’s the only thing that works because it’s the only thing that feels authentic.
B: But it’s hard then, as well, because you know, every company has their own strategy, too. So you could say, I’ll do this, and they’re like, okay – but we’ll re-evaluate in two months, and if you’re not garnering enough . . . If it’s not effective enough for us . . . Because you can have people, as you have shared with me and as I have since learned, you can have influencers who have loads of followers, but who aren’t – who don’t have a very engaged base. But you can have, like . . . So they’re talking about H&M all day but it doesn’t incentivise their listeners to actually purchase.
R: It doesn’t translate. Yeah. And then also, like, from the influencer point of view, if that’s going to work, it needs to be that you’re only doing that with a maximum of three brands, across three very different . . . you know, lines or very different areas. So then they all need to be really lucrative.
B: Yeah, yeah.
R: And so very few brands want to sign up, or are willing to sign up for a year, at a price that would make sure that you would never talk about a competitor. You know what I mean? And that, you know, with somebody it feels natural . . . it’s hard.
B: Here’s what I wondered the other day, though. I was actually wondering – what is the, you know, you and I were talking about my career. Sorry. You were listening and I was talking about my career, and I was saying, I don’t see – I don’t know a lot of older designers, you know? People tend to . . . you see a lot of older merchants. You see a lot of people who are responsible for the P&L, for the money side of the business. You don’t see a lot of . . .
R: What’s P&L?
B: Profit and loss, so the financial side of the business. You don’t see a lot of designers, you know, they end up . . . at the helm, in design houses. In their fifties, in their sixties, you know, because what’s cool and what’s – who have their fingers on the pulse, etc, are the younger generations. You know? And I mean that’s normal, right? I mean it depends on the company. I don’t want to over generalise, but in general, but in general, I don’t want to generalise but in general . . . When you get to that older era, you’re consulting or you have your own line, to your point. And I wondered the other day, I suddenly had this thought about influencers. What if you build your entire career as an influencer, right? And you’re not necessarily a mega influencer, you’re not . . . and I’m not talking about you, but I’m saying, people who truly only have their income coming from brands, coming from the advertorial that they’re doing for brands. What happens when you’re suddenly older? Is there that same . . . Is this a career path? Or does it branch into something else?
R: Yeah, well see we don’t really know, because obviously it hasn’t been going on long enough. You do see a lot of women in their forties and maybe in their very early fifties, who are doing brand collaborations because I think what also happens is, people trust women who are a little bit older? A little bit more now than they do women in their twenties. And maybe it’s like, a chicken/egg thing as well, that I think, when you’re in your twenties and somebody offers you two hundred and fifty quid to do an Instagram post, you’re like, oh my God, great, yes, but I think then when you’re a bit older, and maybe you have had more of a career behind you, you might be more inclined to go, you know what, I’m not sure about that, let me think about it. This might be a better fit for me. You might be a little bit more discerning, so you end up being more trusted because you have that experience and – you know what as well? Loads of these girls in their twenties, and I feel really sorry for them, that like they’ve come straight out of school, they’ve got really popular on Instagram, or they’ve come straight out of college, right, and they’re really popular on Instagram, they suddenly become this influencer, but they have never had a serious full-time job, or a serious career. And then all of a sudden they’re kind of beholden to these followers who expect them to understand journalistic ethics and expect them to understand the morals of taking money for something, and expect them . . . like . . . I remember there was this one girl I follow who was a really big influencer in Ireland, I think had become an influencer, left school maybe worked on a makeup counter for a while then became an influencer. And she had a baby, and she was talking one day about formula feeding and, in Ireland, it’s against the law to promote formula because our breastfeeding rates are so low, right?
B: Oh, I didn’t know that.
R: But she obviously didn’t fucking know this, right? And there was this uproar and people went mad, you know what I mean? At her, for doing this. But like, she hadn’t been paid by the formula brand. She was literally just talking about her own experience, but she didn’t know – that you’re actually not supposed to do this. Do you know what I mean? And I felt really sorry for her, because I was like, your followers like you because you’re just this normal girl next door who’s authentic and doesn’t have any airs and graces, but then on the other hand they’re expecting you to have this wealth of knowledge and experience that you clearly don’t have! Do you know what I mean? So anyway. Sorry! To answer your question – we obviously don’t know. I do think that brands like, you see in Europe, brands like Marks & Spencer, are very good at working with older influencers, and I think it probably works very well for them.
B: Yeah, that’s a good point.
R: And I think as the audience on Instagram gets older, there are definitely more women in their thirties and forties and even fifties now than there were even two years ago. As the audience gets older there might be more of an appetite for an older influencer. But I don’t know – like, a lot of them end up starting their own brands, or writing books, or . . .
B: I think that’s it. I think when you said as well, having a collaboration, it becomes more product-based. There’s a revenue stream that isn’t just reliant on you, literally every day, doing your own version of QVC. So, Rosemary, moving on – so you’re now at Stellar, when you left was it in a blaze of glory? Or did you just . . . did you throw a massive fit and leave? Or did you just hand in your resignation and leave?
R: No. And, you know what, I actually really wish I had.
B: I do too!
R: In hindsight. Because, like, I handed in my notice. There was a very civilised conversation had, there was a . . . Is there anything we could do to entice you to stay? It was very nice. And I was like, no, it’s not even about the money – I just, I think I was freelance for too long and I really miss that independence, blah blah blah, instead of going, let me LIST the reasons that I’m not staying! Like, let me list them. I was like, No, no, I really think . . . Handed in my notice, left the office, worked my four weeks notice, was never spoken to again by my boss.
B: What do you mean, never spoken to, during those four weeks?
R: In those four weeks, was never addressed, was never spoken to, was never . . . hello, was never goodbye. There was not a single word spoken to me in that four weeks.
B: Well, was it like this? So, when I left one of my jobs, like I said, and I had to give a month’s notice. It was one of my European jobs, and I said, ‘I’m leaving – and I’ve got another job, and thanks very much’ and my boss said, ‘Are you going to Chanel?!’ And I said, ‘No . . .’ I was like, I don’t even know why that would randomly pop in your head. I was like, no. ‘Okay. Fine.’ Left the room, and from that good day onwards, for my four weeks, ‘Tell the girl in the corner I want this done like this.’ ‘Tell the girl in the corner I want this over here.’ ‘Tell the girl in the corner I want X for lunch.’ ‘Tell the girl in the corner . . .’ Literally, ‘Tell the girl in the corner this is a terrible job.’ ‘Tell the girl in the corner . . .’ Never spoke to me again. And it was so embarrassing for me, but for everybody. I dreaded that entire month, I think I probably cried every morning. It was disastrous. It was ridiculous. Anyway.
R: I mean, no. Like, I didn’t get addressed third-hand or, you know, at all. But I also . . . I wasn’t upset about it, I was in a white hot rage for the entire four weeks.
B: [laughing] You’re better than I was.
R: THIS. IS. RIDICULOUS.
B: Okay, so you went from Stellar to . . .
R: I went from Stellar to being an influencer, this is what I was talking about.
B: But I thought you were now, you say, a recovered influencer.
R: Now I am. I would still consider myself recovering, because I want to leave the door open that if somebody offered me ten grand I’d probably still take it. To do something.
B: [laughs] Such an idiot! I appreciate that. I appreciate that honesty.
R: [laughs]
B: Is that recovering, or is that just . . . an un-convinced influencer?
R: Or is that just like an unsuccessful influencer?! [laughing] No, you know what? Okay, so there were kind of a few back and forths where I was an influencer for maybe two years, and then I was like, oh my God, this is really difficult. Every bit of criticism I got for my work I took super personally . . . I began to really struggle with kind of having no delineation between myself and my work, if that makes sense?
B: I think it was really hard – because it wasn’t just that you took the work criticism, but like, people feel very free, as we all do, and I think there is a recognition or a realisation happening now, that people out there are also real people, whereas at the beginning of influencing it was like, ‘Oh you’re putting yourself out there, you deserve this.’ At the beginning of influencing there was a sort of an assumption that, oh you put yourself out there, you deserve whatever I say about you.
R: Yeah. You want to be a celebrity – I am your personal Now magazine, I’m going to write a horrible headline about you. But I think for me it was, as well, when everything you write about and everything you post about is about you, every time someone doesn’t like your work . . .
B: Yeah, it’s personal.
R: They don’t like you.
B: Well I do remember, when you came over, it used to drive me insane. But you were – it wasn’t enjoyable for you. You weren’t happy. You were over here and you were stuck to your phone and not in a, like . . . Now I feel like, when you’re on Instagram, you’re enjoying it. You’re looking, like, oh that’s funny, that’s funny, oh this picture of me is terrible, everyone’s enjoying it, it’s funny, I look ridiculous. It’s more light-hearted. Whereas there it was more serious and, I think, you were very stressed by it. You were always glued to your phone, whereas now the phone actually goes down. We can do a jigsaw and the phone goes down!
R: You know what, it’s so annoying to me now, when I think about it – because all of those things are true but I wasn’t even that successful! Like, the way you’re talking about it now you’d swear I had a quarter of a million followers and was . . . you know. But, like, by that same token, there was a point at which I was kind of sharing so much and posting so much, I think one day I counted it and I got something like 420 messages – like, on average, over the course of one week, each day. And I replied to every single one. Like, so that’s a huge amount of . . . you know, a huge amount of work, a huge amount of, emotional labour.
B: A huge amount of mental space.
R: Yeah. Yeah! So then there was a couple of months where I was like, oh my God, I want to get off the internet. I was starting to feel . . . I just wasn’t well, basically. I was really overwhelmed by everything. I started to get really paranoid, I didn’t really want to leave my house, because I felt like every time I went anywhere, I would . . . I would not see, but people would see me, I would not see people but they would see me, who follow me online and hated me. You know what I mean? I felt like there’d be people looking at me, from everywhere.
B: And, just to ask . . . did the balloons happen in the middle of all of this?
R: The balloons happened in the middle of all of this.
B: [laughing] Poor you. You’re not even . . . You’re like, I’m not even enjoying this any more, this is a terrible conversation.
R: No, no. Well just because that part was really hard, and when I look back now, it was really difficult and it was really sad and it was really . . .
B: Too much.
R: Yeah. It was just really bleak. Yeah.
B: But now you’re out of it! Now you’re out of it, a la Charles Dickens, and you’re out of it and you’re on the other side of it and you’re living your best life.
R: Now I’m on the other side . . .
B: In Fort Wayne, Indiana!
R: Well, the other side kind of happened because I basically decided I wanted to get offline, trained to become a personal trainer . . .
B: Oh I forgot about that!
R: Which we’re totally forgetting. Became a personal trainer, worked at that for about six months, realised, oh my God, nobody makes any money! You’ve to get up at 5am every day! To train people . . . You’ve to listen to people, some of whom you don’t want to listen to, all day. And there’s also so much counting! Like: five more, four more – no, three more, good, good just two more, last one! Oh – brilliant. So boring. You really have to be . . .
B: [laughing]
R: No, no – but you really have to be passionate about it to be a good personal trainer.
B: Yes, I’m definitely getting the impression you weren’t.
R: Well, I love chatting to people, right? So I’m passionate about chatting to people. I’m passionate about lifting weights and I was really– like I used to love showing people how to lift weights and watching people get better and get stronger, you know what I mean? And be like, oh my God, imagine, two weeks ago, you would never have thought that you could do what you’re doing today and it’s only two weeks later. I really, really enjoyed those moments. And I hated everything in between.
B: But it’s like our father said. Our own Dad told me not to do fashion design, recommended I didn’t . . . Now, never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do, but was like, ‘You really shouldn’t do this.’ And I said, why not? And he said, ‘Because you’re gonna make your hobby your job and then you’re never gonna want to do it again. Then you won’t enjoy it any more. It won’t be your hobby, it’ll just be your job.’ And, I mean, I don’t think he’s wrong – I actually really like my job and I still . . . But I don’t spend a lot of time drawing or being creative outside of my job.
R: Yeah, for fun.
B: Yeah, and I don’t actually spend a lot of time drawing and being creative in my job. I spend a lot of time working with people who are drawing and being creative.
R: Yeah.
B: I’m more managing and directing them, so I do see the point of, like, I don’t do a lot of that any more, and I think that was . . . You mixed up the same thing, right? You enjoyed it. So you thought you’d enjoy it as your job, but in fact then it also became probably a chore to go and do your own workout. You’re like, oh for gods’ sake now I’ve got to go back and do my own workout on top of this! So, Rosemary, so – you did your personal training in the middle of all of this. So that was, I mean, at least a good skill learned, right?
R: Oh yeah. Yeah. And, like, I feel very smug now when I work out and I look at people doing it wrong.
B: Oh.
R: Love that.
B: Good. Good.
R: Big plus.
B: I think that you should probably question your use of the word smug, how often you use it and what that says about you. But, another topic. So. Now you are in Fort Wayne, writing?
R: Now . . . Yes. Yeah.
B: Writing a book. What’s the plan?
R: Oh, yeah. [sigh] I’m like, ugh yeah, that. Yeah, so I basically kind of transitioned really slowly from, I set up a Patreon for my podcast, and then I started writing more and more for my Patreon and posting more and more of my writing on Patreon, and kind of at the same time that I’d started to feel really paranoid, there was a real comfort in putting all these things behind a paywall, and being like, okay, random people who hate me can’t read this any more – or, if they can, they’ve to pay for it!
B: Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
R: Yeah, and it also just made me feel a bit safer. That I was like, okay probably they’re not gonna pay for it if they hate me. So the people who pay for it and read my stuff are going to be people who want to support me and are interested in what I have to say, which was a really nice position to be in. So I started writing more and more for Patreon, so that’s pretty much what I do now, semi full-time. I do some social media consulting, I do a little bit of commercial blog writing, a little bit of commercial journalism, freelance.
B: You answer my questions about how many people have listened to our podcast.
R: Oh my God. I am your podcast PA, 24/7.
B: [laughing]
R: I’m doing this podcast, I’m doing my other podcast, How to be Sound, which I’ve just started getting back on a kind of a . . . bi-weekly schedule.
B: But I have to say, not to congratulate me, but you’re lucky you have me because I’m definitely keeping you regular, as they say. I’m your personal Active.
R: Just like the prunes!
B: I’m your personal Active yoghurt.
R: You’re just like the prunes! Except you’re not paying me three grand to talk about you.
B: I’m your personal free prune. [laughs]
R: But like, you know what? I have always wanted to . . . make a living by writing. And I thought that would look very different to how it looks now. But I’m also much happier now than I ever was when I was kind of close to what I imagined I wanted. If you know what I mean?
B: Yeah, well it’s hard to know, right? It’s hard to . . . It’s hard to imagine, until you’re in it, what life’s all about, do you know what I mean? And I don’t mean that to sound profound, and it doesn’t, so I’m good. But . . . [laughs]
R: Yeah, I’m like, you’re grand that was not that profound. [laughing]
B: But I mean, it’s –
R: That’s – that’s just like when that doctor was like, listen, if you want to become a model. You’re like, don’t worry.
B: Oh! How dare you! Did we talk about that?
R: Yes, we did.
B: Oh, we did, where the doctor told me, when I went in, when Mum brought me in because I was super fat, and the doctor said, well not only is she super fat and needs to eat less, but if she ever wants to be a model we should break her face right now. Like, what the hell! Seriously, the more I think about it, the more like, no wonder I’m . . . drinking a lot of wine. No wonder I’m relatively damaged.
R: Yeah.
B: I’m not that damaged, but like, thanks to wine. And pizza. So. On that note!
R: On that note. Here we are.
B: In Fort Wayne! Both of us! We’ve both done our careers backwards. Started in Kildare, which is the equivalent of Paris, ended up in Fort Wayne, which is the equivalent of . . . the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
R: Started in Kildare! Well, like, I was thinking more, started in The Irish Times, in the paper of record.
B: Yeah.
R: Ended up, basically, writing my diary on the internet.
B: In Fort Wayne.
R: In Fort Wayne, Indiana. But I’m delighted with myself!
B: I know you are. I know you are. And I’m delighted that you’re here.
R: And I’ve a great tan!
B: The first time, in 20 years, that I’ve ever lived close to a family member, who I now can not hang out with because of coronavirus. But I’m still delighted you’re here.
R: But you can call me six times a day and it’s not ridiculously expensive and you can ask me about your podcast ratings.
B: Our podcast ratings! AND we’re in the same time zone! That’s true. That’s amazing. AND! I went over to you today and social distanced with my grog mask. Gorg. Gorg mask. My Fraggle Rock mask. Yes.
R: You did! It was an absolute delight. Beatrice, as usual, this has been the best – Jesus, hour and a half of my day.
B: Except for the other hour and a half, earlier on, when I brought you over flowers.
R: That was pretty nice.
B: And I noticed –
R: And a caramel frappe.
B: And a caramel frap! And I noticed, when I got home, that not only had you – you had left me my cushions, which was very nice, you’d also left all the wrapping from the inside of the box in the back of my car, which I have to tell you, I did not super appreciate.
R: Ah, listen. There’s loads more wrapping here, don’t worry about it!
B: I was like, the cheek of her!
R: Do you not still have that skip?
B: No. The skip’s long gone, you absolute brat.
R: That’s bad timing.
B: All right. I’m Beatrice.
R: I’m Rosemary. And this has been . . . Not Without My Sister.
B: Not Without Your Sister.
R: My Sister! Jesus Christ. The professionalism. Thank you all for listening – if you have time and are that way inclined we’d really appreciate if you would rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, if you have an Apple device. An iPad . . . an iPhone.
B: You can tell that I, particularly, would really appreciate it. I am very, very keen on these ratings and reviews.
R: She loves a good review!
B: Thank you for listening.
R: She loves to have a review sent to her in the afternoon.
B: I do!
R: Thank you so much for listening, and we will catch you next week with another episode of Not Without My Sister.
