December 14th, 2009
Mad Things Happening on a Monday
Today. Weirdest day ever.
This morning the Hyphenated Husband calls me from work to tell me that I had a package delivered there. Mind you, I have not worked at that company in three months, and I would never order anything to have it shipped there. He opens the package to find a jewelry box containing a necklace from Tarina Tarantino – the famous celebrity jewelry designer. It wasn’t sent by her though – it was sent by some random stranger. There’s no note, just a return address and a name: Radine Lopez.
No, I have never heard of Radine Lopez from Los Angeles California. We get online looking for her, and it seems that she’s a 20 yr old photographer, according to her Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter pages. She must also be wealthy because the necklace she sent me appears to cost approximately $170. No, she’s nobody in my “friends” list, and no, I have never, ever heard from her before. So Hyphenated Husband tries to make contact with her, and so far we have heard nothing back. I obviously have a stalker. I need a bomb sniffing dog to search this thing for explosives. Given the hate spewing in my direction over the last week, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was some sort of a veiled death threat.
A few hours later, I get an email from a producer over at TLC/Discovery Health. They contacted us two weeks ago to ask if we’d be interested in appearing in a new series about “out-of-the-box” parenting styles. They specifically wanted to highlight the “Gender Neutral” parenting that I talked about in this post. So, we filled out some forms and answered some questions, and waited to hear back. Well, this morning the producer called to say we got picked for the show. Cool!
Wait.
It was all very exciting until Hyphenated Husband called the producer back to work out the details, and when he asks them what our monetary compensation will be, they say “$500.”
Okay, I have no idea who’d let camera crews take over their house for days on end, and put their entire family on national television for almost no money, but that ain’t us. It would cost my husband hundreds of dollars just to take off work, so in the end, we’d be getting paid scraps. He explained that we expected at least SAG union wages (which would have amounted to about $6,000 for the family) and they replied that they weren’t in a position to offer that.
So that’s that. Even with the excitement of just being picked for something, I wasn’t super excited about turning over my life to the viewing public, and without compensation there is absolutely no incentive whatsoever for opening my life to the critical masses. What’s amazing, however, is that they already had at least one other “attachment parenting” family agree to be on the show, and I’m assuming, agree to those terms. Good luck to them!
Please tell me your Monday was just as strange, or I’m going to start to think the universe is out to get me.
UPDATE: So, we’ve worked with the producer to come up with a compensation package that works better for us. From the looks of it, we will actually do the show now. More details as they come…
Click to Leave a Comment
That is very strange. Although after the grief you got last week…I’d say jewelry is a nice compensation for some of the misery. Unless it explodes of course…that would be bad.
The show issue kills me! I guess some folks want to be on TV bad enough to settle for such little monetary compensation. The thought that it would actually cost you in lost wages baffles me though. That is considered reasonable to anyone? Whatever.
I had a bizarre weekend, but nothing strange today for me…you win.
[Reply]
$500?! Yah, I wouldn’t do that either, not for a week of filming!
[Reply]
No way would I do it for such a low amount, I’m sure if they really want you they will renegotiate.
Maybe Radine Lopez is a super fan? I am so curious if you will make contact with her to explain such a fancy gift!
[Reply]
Good to know about the Discovery Health Channel thing. They contacted me too and had old paperwork on me from their idea of a show on extended breastfeeding, but I never ended up hearing back from them that time or this time (not interesting enough I suppose, or perhaps they could tell by my photos that I’m not quite photogenic enough for the camera? I’m trying not to wonder). Without first asking my husband, I think $500 might have worked for us because I make no where near that for a few days work and neither does my husband. Plus he would probably take those days as Vacation days and get paid anyway. So while it isn’t a lot of money for some people, it can be a lot for others, and no, I’m not specifically speaking about us, just people in general. From what I understood it wasn’t a week of filming either. I thought it was 2-3 days??? I could be wrong though.
[Reply]
ugg, what piddly compensation! Would you even wear that necklace if it was found ‘clean’? Looks very flashy.
[Reply]
Yes, you win for weirdest day. So odd.
[Reply]
So, the update is that we’ve worked with the producer to come up with a compensation package that works better for us. From the looks of it, we will actually do the show now. More details as they come…
[Reply]
Strange on the jewelry. I’m glad it was sent to the job you no longer work at, it’s a little bit less creepy that way.
And good luck with the filming! I will totally have to watch. 
Amber´s last blog ..The Decline of Babywearing 
[Reply]
Listen, I want to hear from you - I really do. And if you're being nice to me, I encourage you to leave eleventy-billion comments. But for realzies - don't be mean to me or anybody else here. I mean seriously, do not make me use the delete button, because I will. Oh, I will.
AvatarsThe avatars that are shown are via Gravatar. If you do not have one associated with your email address it will show a default image, however I suggest you sign up to get one since many blogs use this feature!
Commenting Additions You may use the following mark-up within your comments. I only permit XHTML mark-up at this time. Line breaks are converted automatically.(<em> <del> <strong> <pre> <code> <blockquote>)
