I Love Podcasting But It’s Eating My Life

And My Dog Is Eating Really Smelly Treats

Meghan Daum
5 min readJan 28, 2021
Hugo sitting in for the host.

Last summer I started a new job. There were some great things about it, for instance that it was endlessly interesting, offered something new every week, and allowed me to interact with people I’d long been following and admiring from afar.

The downsides were that it was full-time and paid a monthly salary of exactly U.S. $0. To be precise, it paid a salary of minus a couple hundred U.S. dollars, since there were some expenses to actually doing this job.

I know what you’re wondering. Did I become a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador? (Technically that job pays one dollar per year.) Did I become one of those volunteer ladies who gives tours at historical sites, in full period costume, and says “watch your head in the low doorways; people were shorter back then!”? No, but close. I started a podcast.

Saying you started a podcast in 2020 is like saying you tried ayahuasca in 2016 or joined Facebook in 2009. There is no appropriate response other than “duh, you Basic. Who didn’t?” The only thing that’s a bigger cliché than starting a podcast in 2020 is getting a puppy in 2020, which I also did.

In my defense, I’d been searching for a puppy since well before the pandemic hit and had been wanting to launch a…

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Meghan Daum

Weekly blogger for Medium. Host of @TheUnspeakPod. Author of six books, including The Problem With Everything. www.theunspeakablepodcast.com www.meghandaum.com