The Ambition Monster

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dream – Episode: The Ambition Monster

Release Date: March 27, 2025

Hosts and Guests:

• Jane Marie – Host of The Dream podcast.
• Jennifer Romalini – Writer and long-time content creator specializing in work-related themes, particularly women's work and the American Dream.

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Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of The Dream, host Jane Marie engages in a profound conversation with Jennifer Romalini about the intricate relationship between work, ambition, and personal worth in North America. The discussion delves into how societal expectations shape our perception of success and the inherent challenges women face in equating their output with their intrinsic value.

Background of Jennifer Romalini

Jennifer Romalini shares her journey from a blue-collar upbringing to a prominent career in New York publishing. She recounts her early start in her father's grocery business, her academic struggles due to undiagnosed ADHD, and her ascent through various media roles, including positions at Conde Nast and Talk Magazine.

Jennifer Romalini [02:48]: "I started working when I was 13 for my dad. I sold Easter flowers outside his grocery store, learning the ropes of business early on."

The Concept of Work and the American Dream

The conversation explores the deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic and the societal conditioning that links personal worth to professional achievement. Jennifer critiques the American Dream, highlighting how it often fails to account for systemic barriers that make success unattainable for many.

Jennifer Romalini [06:24]: "Work is... we are conditioned very early on to understand that the easiest way to be liked, accepted, is to achieve."

Evolution of Media and Content Creation

Jennifer discusses the transformation of creative professions into the broader category of "content creation," which, according to her, diluted the quality and authenticity of artistic endeavors. This shift, she argues, contributed significantly to burnout among creatives.

Jennifer Romalini [01:54]: "When we started calling any kind of creative art 'content,' that was exactly when we got screwed."

Gender Dynamics and Domestic Labor

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the disproportionate burden of domestic and emotional labor placed on women, even when they are the primary breadwinners. Both hosts express frustration over societal norms that undervalue women's contributions both at work and at home.

Jane Marie [19:06]: "You’re still doing it," referring to the vast majority of domestic work women continue to handle regardless of their professional status.

Negotiation and Compensation Disparities

Jennifer shares personal anecdotes about her experiences with salary negotiations and the realization of significant pay gaps between her and her male counterparts. She emphasizes the lack of mentorship and guidance for women navigating corporate structures, which exacerbates financial disparities.

Jennifer Romalini [39:48]: "I was in that job for six years. I lost $600,000 because... the men were making over two for the same job."

Reflections on Marriage and Motherhood

The hosts touch upon the societal expectations surrounding marriage and motherhood, discussing how these roles are often idealized as alternative pathways to fulfillment and stability. Jennifer critiques these notions, expressing her disillusionment with traditional marriage and the unrealistic burdens placed on women as mothers.

Jennifer Romalini [18:43]: "Marriage is just stupid. The scam of marriage."

Personal Journey Towards Balance and Contentment

Jennifer narrates her transition from relentless ambition to seeking balance and contentment. She delineates how separating art from monetary gain has allowed her to redefine her relationship with work, focusing instead on personal growth and creative fulfillment.

Jennifer Romalini [63:25]: "Now I've separated art from money. My real ambition is for balance and contentment."

Raising Children with Financial Literacy

In a heartfelt segment, Jennifer discusses her approach to parenting, emphasizing the importance of financial literacy for her 14-year-old child. She aims to equip her child with practical knowledge about money management, contrasting her stance with societal pressures to conform to affluent norms.

Jennifer Romalini [68:16]: "I talk a lot about credit card debt and how you never want to get in it. We talk about these conversations."

Concluding Insights

The episode concludes with reflections on ambition and the pursuit of personal goals. Jennifer emphasizes the importance of aligning one's work with genuine interests and values rather than societal expectations. She advocates for setting boundaries to maintain mental well-being and encourages listeners to redefine success on their own terms.

Jennifer Romalini [65:24]: "How can I take the bucket of skills I have and use it in a new way? That's exciting to me."

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Key Takeaways:

• Redefining Success: Align personal goals with intrinsic values rather than societal standards.
• Gender Equity: Addressing and balancing the disproportionate domestic responsibilities borne by women.
• Financial Literacy: Importance of educating the next generation about financial management.
• Work-Life Balance: Seeking contentment and balance over relentless ambition can lead to greater fulfillment.

Notable Quotes:

• "Work is... we are conditioned very early on to understand that the easiest way to be liked, accepted, is to achieve." – Jennifer Romalini [06:24]
• "I went into magazines, and I just wanted to be part of people making something." – Jennifer Romalini [09:37]
• "Marriage is just stupid. The scam of marriage." – Jennifer Romalini [18:43]

---

Conclusion In "The Ambition Monster," The Dream podcast offers a candid exploration of the pressures tied to work, ambition, and societal expectations. Through Jennifer Romalini's insightful narrative, listeners are invited to rethink conventional notions of success and personal worth, particularly within the context of gender dynamics and the evolving media landscape.

Transcript

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[Jane Marie]

I'm Jane Marie and this is the dream. Today you'll be hearing a conversation about work and industriousness and speaking of which, we'd really appreciate it if you went to the show description today's episode. In the show description there is a survey that you can take which is kind of fun. Like one of those personality type survey quiz things. Let us know who you are, what you're into. We want to know more about who is listening. Also, if you have pitches for us, our tip line is always open. 323-248-1488. Today we're talking to a woman who I think spends more time thinking about work, what it means, what it says about us, its value than I do, especially women's work. What is it about us here in North America that urges us to equate output with our intrinsic worth as humans? And no, she's not wielding an ax all day, but I have no doubt she'd be an incredible lumberjill in a pinch.

[Jennifer Romalini]

My name is Jennifer Romalini and I am a writer. I and a long time content maker.

[Jane Marie]

You're a content creator? Before that was a job.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah. Well that was exactly the swerve that fucked us all. We don't have to curse on this. Yes, that was exactly the swerve that fucked us all. I remember when it happened, when we started calling any kind of creative art content, it was exact like it used to be. I'm making a story, I'm creating an article, I'm writing, I'm painting, I'm you know, doing something digitally that's artistic and now everything is content. And that was when we got screwed.

[Jane Marie]

Not just artistic though, but you write like thoughtful articles and you explore parts. It's like scholarly in a way and journalistic and you know, as far as what I know of your work, yes.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I've written a lot about work.

[Jane Marie]

That's what we're here to talk about.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes, that's what we're here to talk about. I've written, but you've written about other things.

[Jane Marie]

Can we go back a ways to how you got started.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Okay, so what's gonna be germane to this conversation, I think is that I am a blue collar kid. I am sort of the product of the American dream. My father and my parents had me as teenagers. We have similar backstories. My dad didn't have a high school education, neither did my mother. They built a business up, got us out of poverty into a, you know, somewhat upper middle class life when that was kind of possible for people to hustle into. I started late like you started late in media. I worked my way up through the ranks of New York publishing. I worked at Conde Nast, I worked at lots of women's magazines. I worked at Talk magazine. I worked with Tina Brown, which people who are old enough to know, know. And then eventually I just, I kept rising and rising. I was in corporate media, I was in tech companies, I was contenting and I ran startups. I just. Then I started running things and then I really had like a massive burn and started writing books. And now. Yeah, that's basically it.

[Jane Marie]

How did that help with the burnout?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Well, I think.

[Jane Marie]

Or hurt.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No, I mean, you've talked about this a lot and I think this is. So the book is called Ambition Monster. The last book that I wrote, the first book I wrote was really me grappling with, trying to still fit into the system and giving people like a decoder ring, you know, it was like, it was called weird in a world that's not a career guide for misfits, fuck ups and failures. And it was really about. I was still in it pretty deeply and I was trying to figure out why everything felt so bad and it had to be me, right? I had to be weird in order for work to feel so bad. And especially because it was the height of the girl boss movement and, and I felt sad all the time. I didn't wanna like show off my cute office with like the, you know, neon sign that said good vibes only on the wall when, you know, when all it felt was bad vibes. So I was really trying to write a guide in that first book, which was like, here's how to work the system. Here's how to get through it. If you feel anxious and sensitive and all of this feels like bullshit, here's how to serve your self in this system. But then eventually I went back in and I went in for an even bigger job after writing that book. And I was like, no, no, the whole system's fucked. Like I, you know, ignore that whole book. I want to write about why we're thinking about ambition entirely wrong. Because there's actually no there or there here. There's no satisfaction in the sort of lie we've been told, like, you know, accumulation for accumulation's SA titles for title's sake. You know, tying up your identity in your work and your value in your work.

[Jane Marie]

Mm. Well, so where do you think you got that idea in the first place that that was how things were supposed to work? Like, I talk about this a lot about myself, where I, you know, grew up in a home where I was told, you need to. First of all, you need to bust your ass twice as hard as any man.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That's right. And it's true.

[Jane Marie]

It is true.

[Jennifer Romalini]

If you want to survive, you do.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. Especially without a man. Yes, exactly. Yes. So if you're gonna do it by yourself, you're gonna have to be 10 times better. But where do you think it, like, for you? Where did it start?

[Jennifer Romalini]

I mean, first off, it's just in the ether, right? Like, work is. I mean, we associate work. We associate. There's a virtuous suffering with labor. Okay. Like, I'm not the first person to say it, but that's a Protestant work ethic that is just built into us. We are conditioned very early on to understand that the easiest way to be liked, accepted, is to achieve.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Achievement is just built into the whole thing. And then for me, I very actively saw work as survival, as redemption, as the thing that made you worthy on the planet.

[Jane Marie]

And then there's this other version as women, where it could have been that we saw motherhood and marriage and parenting is that thing. And that never appealed to me.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Me neither.

[Jane Marie]

As far as how I was gonna get that satisfied or any sort of. I felt like there was probably more of a guarantee that work would get me that sort of.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Stability, freedom.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

The ability to actually live a life, like, live a full and rich life, to see a of things, to have a lot of experiences, to have a bigger life.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

My mother's life looked very small to.

[Jane Marie]

Me.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And suffocating and the bitterness, the wiping down the counters, the, you know, cleaning up, just angrily cleaning it. Like, it just seems so stif. Like, I couldn't fathom. I wanted to be my dad from early on. He got to leave the house every day. He had friends. He went wherever he wanted. He had the money, he had the power.

[Jane Marie]

Right, right.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And that's what I wanted.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. And you were told. Well, we're all told that you can have it.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You can't. Well, yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. But you don't real. Nobody tells you. Well, because then.

[Jane Marie]

Well, tell me specifically how that worked. Like, what was your first job?

[Jennifer Romalini]

I started working when I was 13 for my dad. I sold at Easter. We are Italian Catholic, and right down the street from his store in southwest Philadelphia was a church. And I sold Easter flowers. And he would split the profits with me, if there were any profits. The entire reason to put these Easter flowers out, which was like, you know, all the kind of masses during the week before Easter, people go to church and they come and they buy, you know, tulips or hyacinths. And the entire reason to have this stand was to bring people in to the store. Right. He didn't care if he made a profit off it. So that's why it was kind of the perfect thing for me.

[Jane Marie]

To the grocery store.

[Jennifer Romalini]

To the grocery store, exactly. Sorry. My dad owned a grocery store, so he would set me up outside, and I would do it willingly because I was like, if I can make $300 at the end of this week, I'm 13, I can buy all the Garfield shirts I've ever wanted. You know what I mean? So I was learning to wheel and deal. I knew the cost of the flowers. I knew how much we needed to charge to make a profit. I knew how much I could cut the price to, you know, to make a bargain with somebody but still make a little bit of a profit. I'm in a perishable goods, like, business. They're like. They're literally, like, wilting around me as the week goes on. By the time Easter Sunday came, every Sunday, it was a massacre, flower massacre. And I'm just pushing, like, you could plant them as bulbs. They'll come up next year, you know, whatever, right? And then I never stopped working after that. I loved. I mean, I do get off on working. I don't get off on money, which is really the fucked up thing, because that's what you need to have to be the person who's like, oh, now I just want to accumulate for accumulation's sake. And I don't have that.

[Jane Marie]

Or a combination of. I really love working in a place where I make money or in an industry where I make money. That's where I hit myself in the head all the time, where I'm like, jane, really? You picked public radio?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

You know, like, I could have gotten an economics degree and just as much.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Fun, I could have become a plastic surgeon. I mean, that's really where the money is.

[Jane Marie]

What were we doing?

[Jennifer Romalini]

I don't know. Why. Why Am I not injecting Botox and making, you know, $10,000 a day? I don't know. But I think that what's important to say here is the world was different when we made these decisions. Right. So you could make a living. Like, I was never. I was never hot for wealth, and I don't think you were either.

[Jane Marie]

Still not.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And I went into magazines, and I just wanted to be somewhere in magazines. I wanted to be part of people making something. And at that time, people were making a fine living because, you know, real estate was cheaper in New York, so you could live in New York on a magazine editor salary. Salaries were better. Magazines, you know, were robust and had budgets.

[Jane Marie]

I think we also grew up in a time where magazine. There were magazines like Sassy.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Right.

[Jane Marie]

And we can talk about Kim and your relationship to these magazine editors who are adjacent to all this stuff. Yes. But I remember at. I think I was 13 or 14 when they did the reader produced issue. And a girl from my high school was chosen.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Wow.

[Jane Marie]

And got to go to New York for a week or two.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yep.

[Jane Marie]

And create this issue of this magazine where it was a bunch of girls, teenagers, saying, here's what's cool and here's what interview I want to do, and here's. And just all these ideas flowing out and being printed in a glossy magazine that I could buy at the drugstore.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

And I felt at that time like that was my first glimpse of, oh, ideas are valuable. And I think I have some ideas.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes. Yes.

[Jane Marie]

It didn't really make sense, but it gave me a dream of, like, oh, if I just come up with some good ideas and I learn how to write or tell stories or edit or whatever, and I could have a problem.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And continue to be curious. These people are curious. They are out there looking at things and finding the coolest stuff, and they're sourcing it for me and sharing it and sharing it. And I mean, Sassy really was the dream. Right. I mean, that did the number on a whole generation of women, which is why Kim France, who is my podcast wife, who I do a podcast called Everything is Fine with, she was an original Sassy editor and her life. She's nine years older than I am. We missed this by nine years. Like, she made more money in every single job she had. It's not talent. She is very talented, but I'm as talented. But it was just the business had changed, changed, and everything had changed. You know, rents have changed. Like, everything was changing. By the early 2000s, everything was just. Life was not Set up in a way that you could survive as that kind of mid level creative.

[Jane Marie]

Mm. Mm.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And even her following is very different than mine. Everything's so diffuse now. It's just not the same. And she didn't have to sell herself.

[Jane Marie]

Right. She didn't have to create a giant following on Instagram or whatever.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah. She didn't have to become an influencer. They just got to do their jobs and they just got success from doing their jobs well.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Jennifer Romalini]

So the. So that we had the idea that that's something that would have worked for us.

[Jane Marie]

And that was every industry.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That was every industry. It's just not the case anymore.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And I mean, I don't know, I guess if you are really good at being an influencer, you have money. But that feels so unstable to me.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Because it's built on somebody else's platform. Even though those were build magazines, it was kind of. That was different. It felt more collaborative. So, yes, that's where I got the idea that the work would save me. I also really loved hiding in work. I found that to be such a powerful drug, such a way to numb out was just. And I still do. It's still a place I'll turn. Like, I will just create more. I have five jobs. I will just create more and more work for myself. If I'm anxious, if I don't know how to be in the moment, like, oh, I'll just go over here and I'll just type something up real fast. I'll put out a quick substack or.

[Jane Marie]

An email to friends saying, let's start this thing. Let's try this.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

[Jane Marie]

So, okay, so you go from selling flowers on Easter Sunday to then what?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Well, I was a bad student. I didn't know I had adhd and I was a bad student. Like, I was a curious kid, but I just could not follow the rules of school. I couldn't keep up with homework. I was constantly getting behind. I was disorganized. So I got into one state school. I failed out. I stoned out. Who knows? I mean, I was doing drugs, you know, whatever. Just drinking and smoking a lot of weed. I wasn't really a big drug person other than that. And then I got married, which was dumb. I got. I married. Like, I was working at a hotel restaurant and I married the hotel manager who had a Miata because, you know, you just wait.

[Jane Marie]

A Miata?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah. He had a fucking Miata.

[Jane Marie]

Oh, that's hot.

[Jennifer Romalini]

He had a Miata. Like, I. At those days, I was Like, I don't even. He was just like, a Ben Stiller, like, reality bites type to, like, you know, every Ethan Hawke I had dated, you know? And so I married him, and I was so bored immediately, but then I felt like I couldn't leave him. But I was so bored. He, like, played golf and, like, listened to Rush and, like, watched golf on tv.

[Jane Marie]

Absolutely not.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Like, that was not the life I wanted. And he was like, let's start having kids. And I was like, no.

[Jane Marie]

How old were you?

[Jennifer Romalini]

I was 21.

[Jane Marie]

Mm. I was 26. My first. My first try up marriage.

[Jennifer Romalini]

So stupid.

[Jane Marie]

And the judge was like, these are good ages. She even told her name was Nancy Drew.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No.

[Jane Marie]

Yes.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Amazing.

[Jane Marie]

I know. That gave me confidence somehow.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I do think that's so funny. Why? I don't think she was, like. She was solving the mystery of whether or not you should get married.

[Jane Marie]

It was just the three of us in a room, and so I was like. I didn't have anyone else to look to for, like, really? Is this okay?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, I had the whole thing. I had the big Catholic wedding. I wore gloves. I had, like, the meringue. I knelt in front of the statue of Mary. Like, I did the whole. He was like an altar man. He had been an altar. He was an altar boy so long that he was an altar man. Like, it was a very Catholic experience. But let me ask you this, okay? I have come to believe that marriage is just stupid.

[Jane Marie]

That's our next episode, you and me. It isn't unrelated to what we're talking about with work.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No, it's not.

[Jane Marie]

Right. Like I said, I know that, at least for my mom, marriage was the job and was supposed to afford you a comfortable life. If you're a good housewife. Right. And a good mom, and you're supposed to be taken care of, even though you're doing more work than they are.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, so much more work.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. Like, the unpaid domestic labor, the physical.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Domestic labor, the emotional labor, the accounting, the. Just so much of it. But what's so funny is, even when you're working, even when you're the breadwinner.

[Jane Marie]

You'Re still doing it.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You're still doing 80, 90% of it.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. And that's not you making that up. That's real statistics.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Like, I mean, I know that have been studied, and it doesn't matter who the man is. Like, I have so rarely seen it in any other way.

[Jane Marie]

I say that often to people, and they're like, well, I know a couple.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No, it's like a. This fucking drives me crazy. It is when it is like a when we see men doing domestic labor, emotional labor, it is always a dog playing a saxophone. It is always like oh, but he changes diapers and it's like oh fucking great. It's like Ben Affleck as a director. It's the same fucking thing. Same thing. It's just like oh, and also he could do this. I didn't know his species could. But I am also very sick of hating on men. Like it's obviously the system. Like I'm not interested in being a bitter middle aged lady. Like it's in some ways not their fault. Like it is their fault, but not but this is societal conditioning, you know, like they don't survive in the same way that we're taught to survive.

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[Jennifer Romalini]

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[Jane Marie]

What I find difficult is that the world is built on the idea that they're the most capable and that they're the drivers of the economy and all of this stuff. And all of us women who really run things, quote, unquote, behind the scenes or whatever, are seen as accessories to that, as opposed to, like, people aren't seeing reality. You know what I mean? Like the. The story that's been sold.

[Jennifer Romalini]

So.

[Jane Marie]

Oh, wait. So let's get back to the conversation so that we don't completely confuse everybody.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Jane Marie]

And we will come back and talk about the scam of marriage.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes, please.

[Jane Marie]

I want to have regular guests.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I will talk about it for four years straight.

[Jane Marie]

And motherhood.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, my God. The scam of motherhood. The scam of motherhood. Oh, my God.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, I screwed that one up big time. I'm going to have a great kid. So do you, but. Whoa. Yeah, it's a lot. So, okay, so you are working in magazines. How did you get from dropping out of school and being a stoner?

[Jennifer Romalini]

I got myself back into college and honestly, because there were some pretty good incentives for a student in my position, for a non tread student. Like, I walked into the financial aid office at Emerson College in Boston, which is where I was living, and I was like, my husband and I just split. He's not gonna give me any money. This is what our taxes look like. He's literally, you know, he's let me leave with a fork and a futon, which is the truth. He was like, you can't have anything. And I'm a waitress, what, 23 years old. I was 24. And I walked into this office of all women in this financial aid office, and they were like, okay, honey. Like, they really took care of me. And they were like, there's a Pell Grant, there's this, there's that. You know, and I still had to work to take out student loans. And I still worked full time as a waitress.

[Jane Marie]

My same experience.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah, full time as a waitress. Like, worked every night as a waitress, had two internships and was also going to school full time. And I was just on, like, I was just out of my mind. But I did it. And then I got to New York. That was a whole nother story. And I had to get interviewed by every snotty female elite, generational wealth, white editor, who literally, one of them said to me, we expected to get all people like you coming in for this job, but instead we're seeing all these Harvard grads. And I was like, that is fucked up. So there was definitely a massive culture shock for me, coming from being blue collar Italian in a very aggressive city of Philadelphia to moving to New York into these super white worlds of New York media. It was. I was really out of my depth. I didn't understand that the world was not a meritocracy until I got into this situation, and I was like, oh, wait, this person does no work, but her dad is important. You know, it was a lot of that.

[Jane Marie]

Mm.

[Jennifer Romalini]

But I wanted it. I wanted it. There was. There was like a. I had a fire in me. It was. I had such an. I'll show you.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, you had an ax to grind.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I did.

[Jane Marie]

And do you remember exactly where that came from? Or approximately?

[Jennifer Romalini]

I think failing young. I think getting in that marriage. I think even I was married for three years, from 21 to 24. And he didn't really want me to go back to school. He really wanted me to have baby. Like, just that. That. Like, short jail time of that, you know, that sort of heteronormative, like, confinement of that made me like, I have to live. Like, I have to get out there. I need to make something of my life. Also having no skills, no marketable skills, no money, and feeling like I couldn't leave because I had nothing. I knew I would never put myself in that position again. Now, going back to what we were just talking about, I chose poorly if I was looking for financial stability.

[Jane Marie]

Well, I was gonna say, I mean, yeah, becoming a writer or an editor seems like a wild choice to make when you could have, you know, become a phlebotomist.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I know. But it was what I wanted to do, and I knew I was good at it. And that's always fucked up. Like, it's fucked up to say that when you're young, especially as a woman. It's like, I knew I was a good writer. Like, I knew it really early on, and it felt really highfalutin to me. It felt really like I had no understanding of what a path to that would look like. And coming from what I came from, there were no models of that kind of a life. But I was like, yes, this is, I'm just gonna do. Because also I had nothing to lose. I had like $200 in the bank. Like, and I was 24 years old. Like, what was I. What was it? What was going to happen to me? So I got to New York in my late 20s. Magazines were starting to go, but I didn't know that yet. So I got laid off. It took me so long to get a first job. And then I got laid off from the first three jobs I had in quick succession. Like, one magazine went under, the next magazine I got to went under, the next magazine I went, I went to, went under. Then I went to timeout New York. It was like the best job I ever had. But they paid $35,000 a year. And it was an amazing job. But like, in order to have that job, which was a full time job, and pay my rent, which was only $900 a month, but that was two.

[Jane Marie]

Weeks pay, you needed a husband.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I needed a husband. Or I had to write quizzes for kitchen and bath magazines on the side. So I was always working. I was never not working. I was like, I was reporting stories. Target had a magazine for a minute, an in house magazine. So I was like reporting stories for Target. Like, I was just never not working. And years later, I would be on panels with, you know, girl bosses after I became like a lady who people wanted to hear things from. And the girl boss ladies were almost uniformly people who came from wealth or had wealthy husbands. And we would be sitting on stage in front of all these young women, and these young women would be like, how do you make this work? Who maybe didn't come from generational wealth or had wealthy husbands? And the rich women on the stage would say, well, just get a side hustle. Just, well, you know, I mean. And they would all talk about their first apartment in New York as if it was the worst suffering because their first apartment was a studio with like a bathroom in the kitchen. Ha ha ha. Child. By themselves. By themselves, exactly. I lived with four roommates. One was a clown, you know, a literal clown. A literal clown.

[Jane Marie]

Well, that's fun.

[Jennifer Romalini]

He used to hide things in my bed. Cause he thought it was funny. It is kind of not really.

[Jane Marie]

Like.

[Jennifer Romalini]

But I would watch them and I would be like, you're just, you're just telling people to burn out.

[Jane Marie]

But also, as if they don't already have three side hustles, they're trying to become like a journalist.

[Jennifer Romalini]

They're trying, you, you rich lady who had the book that you're promoting, Ghost Written by somebody else for $70,000. And you have four nannies and everything else. They're trying to become you. And you're not telling them the truth about what it is to become you.

[Jane Marie]

Right. You're saying, stop buying your Starbucks in the morning.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You're saying, yes. Or, you know, just, you know, do something on the side. Like, that'll be fine. Then you can just cobble it together. That's not what you do, Bitch. Your husband's in finance.

[Jane Marie]

You don't pay your credit card.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Exactly. You're telling these women how to have a balanced life. How to have a balanced life is have money.

[Jane Marie]

But these parents pay, you know, and they pay for the apartment, and they pay. You know, it's a very different.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Well, no, and then you start to realize, I mean, New York magazine just did that story about how many people. Like, I forget the percentage, but how many people own apartments in New York? Their parents gave them a down payment. It's a very high percentage. It was, like, over 60, 70% Louisiana, too. Yeah. I mean, because how else?

[Jane Marie]

I don't know.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You don't save that kind of money by cutting back avocados.

[Jane Marie]

Like, it's not right. Right.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Like, I don't know Matt that well, but I know it well enough to know that anyway, for the first couple of years when I was in New York, I made less at my job than I had made as a waitress. And I made about $60,000 a year in fine dining waitressing. Cause you. That was really a meritocracy. That was really. This is how much you put in. This is. You can upsell. You treat the customer well. You're gonna, like. You understand what to do. Plus, it was a cash business, so, you know, it. I've never really gotten over starting out my career as a waitress for the first 10 years. I've never really gotten over the economics of that. Like, oh, I'm short on rent. I'll pick up three more shifts.

[Jane Marie]

Or I'll just be more charming and faster and faster and make sure the order's right. And I'll never bring a plate to a table that isn't exactly right. And as soon as I hear it's wrong, I'll fix it. You know, like those sorts of things. Exactly.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And I'll be checking in, and I'll have all my timing correct. And I'll tip the busboy really well so that he really serves my section better than other sections. And. And I'm always nice to the chef because I don't ever want him to fuck me over. And if something goes wrong, I am going to need him. That is an ecosystem that makes so much sense to me, and everything since then has made no sense to me. Publishing.

[Jane Marie]

What?

[Jennifer Romalini]

What is it? What are they doing?

[Jane Marie]

So what was the impetus for your first book?

[Jennifer Romalini]

My first book, I was working at hello Giggles. I'll just say it. I was working at hello, Giggles, which was a Zooey Deschanel startup. It was a happy place on the Internet. It was geared toward. At that point, they were young millennial women in their 20s, and I had a lot of young female employees. Nobody was older than 25, and they didn't know how to do anything. They didn't know how to write an email. The thing is, it wasn't their fault that they didn't know how to do anything. What I realized when I was working with them is that mentorship steps had been cut out. Like it used to be, you were an assistant for a really long time or an intern for a really long time, and you kind of learned the basics.

[Jane Marie]

And part of your boss's job was teaching you those.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Exactly. And it was like swim lessons almost. You know, you didn't get thrown in the deep end the first day. And so what I was realizing is that these young people were only as good as they were out of the gate because they were not being taught skills slowly. And those jobs suck. Those grunt work jobs, where you also gain coffee, but you're also learning. Even if you're answering phones or taking messages or whatever you're doing, you're learning. You're seeing business etiquette, you're getting the basics. You're watching how somebody who's been doing it for 20 years is doing it right. They didn't have any of that. My classic example of this was how, just out of their depth, one of my employees, who I liked a lot, and I knew she liked me a lot, she had got. She was getting poached from another company on LinkedIn. She brought her laptop into my office, showed me the message, and said, what should I do about this? And I was like, okay, this person is trying to hire you to go work another job. You now have a decision to make.

[Jane Marie]

And you're showing your boss.

[Jennifer Romalini]

So I really took it very seriously.

[Jane Marie]

You call your mom.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You call your mom, you call a friend something. Because also, they all called their moms too much something. You have a professional network. You discuss this, or you use this as leverage with me and say, hey, I'm getting poached. I want to make more Money. So those kinds of maneuvers, I wanted to teach people how to do that. Especially people who felt like, this feels weird to be in an office. Like the weird, like, office birthday where we're all eating cupcakes together and, like, you know, standing around like, I never knew how to do that. I didn't know what to do with my hands. You know what I mean?

[Jane Marie]

Like, I had to be told to stop tying my sweatshirt around my waist during, like, greeting guests at this American Life in the lobby. Like, you know, stop looking like a child skateboarder that doesn't actually have a job.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes, yes.

[Jane Marie]

Brush your hair.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Those sorts of things, you know, and.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I feel a little bit bad about those things. And I also think that book is incredibly dated now because I think the Pandemic changed work completely. Like, if I had to go back and rework that, it would be totally different because it also.

[Jane Marie]

So that book was advice.

[Jennifer Romalini]

It was advice. It was advice. It was what to do if you want to leave your job, how to look for another job, what your resume should look like, what your cover. Like a cover. Like all just the foundational things, but not in a lean in way. Because I recognized even back then that what she was selling and what girl boss was selling was trash. I knew it. And I wanted to teach girls like us, who maybe didn't come from a lot, who weren't polished, who didn't have a pedigree, how to move through the world of work. And, you know, I think that, you know, I think I said in there, and I probably wouldn't say this again, but I said wear a bra. And I might not say it again, but I did say wear a bra because people were not wearing bras. So actually, I think it was like, problematic. But to me, I was like, I want you to set yourself up the best in this system. Right.

[Jane Marie]

But you have to wear. I do want to pause on this for a second. I mean, I really did have those conversations, but I did have a colleague who's very wealthy and didn't wear a bra. And you know when you don't wear a bra and your buttons go like this.

[Jennifer Romalini]

So they send a button down. Yes. Jane's doing like, you know, the spread on the button down.

[Jane Marie]

Right. If you don't have a bra on, it just kind of like there's gaps. And then especially if you have side boobs, like I do. Yes, yes, there's gaps. And then everyone can see that you don't have a bra on.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Because they can see your skin.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

But Those folks didn't have to wear a bra because daddy had their rent or whatever, you know, like, it really wasn't an issue.

[Jennifer Romalini]

It wasn't survival.

[Jane Marie]

No. And so those survival tips, I think in your first book, I found them to be very, very useful for folks that didn't. That didn't grow up with a huge safety net and couldn't take the risks of getting fired because they don't wear a bra.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Right, right. And just wouldn't have thought about it because they didn't have a father or a mother. A parent who got dressed every day and went to work in an office and could advise them. I also wanted to teach people how to neg. Every single time. Up until about. I'm 52, up until about 10 years ago, every single time I got an offer, like a salary offer, you say yes, I said yes. Oh, my God, thank you so much. I can't believe you're hiring me. Wow. That's more money than I ever imagined. I've since learned that they expect you to negotiate.

[Jane Marie]

They go low.

[Jennifer Romalini]

They go low. That is just something. That is just a class difference when you are working class versus when you are white collar. Just no idea.

[Jane Marie]

My first real raise. I had a cost of living raise when I moved from Chicago to New York. But then I got a raise after that that I could not believe was possible.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Jane Marie]

I felt like the luckiest girl. I felt like, wow, I must be amazing.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I made one the first time I ever made real money. And the thing. What really was fucked up is because I made all of those mistakes. And again, this is wealth building. Right. If I was making more money all those years that I didn't know this, I would have more money. Like, it's crazy, you know, I would have a lot more money. I was making, I think $70,000 as a Conde Nast editor.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, this is what I made when I moved to New York.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That was more money than I could ever conceive of. People in my same position were making $120,000.

[Jane Marie]

Yep. I saw it on the printer one day. I saw it on the printer one day. Someone a few years older than me, a little less experienced, et cetera. I saw a paper come out on the printer and I went, hang on, what, like 1:30? And I was making 70. And it was a real kind of moment.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

But I also found out I was the only person on staff who was doing the 100% maximum pension matching. Wow. No one out. We had like a. If you went up to 10% of your income, they would match 5. So it was like a.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That was smart.

[Jane Marie]

Well, it's the only way I could get a raise, I thought.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Right.

[Jane Marie]

It looked like a raise to me. Like, it looked like that's how I'm gonna make the extra money. Not gonna ask for it, but I'm gonna do the matching. The employee matching thing. And so I maxed that all the way out rather than. Or I probably would have done it no matter what.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jane Marie]

But rather than say, hey, how does 80 sound? Because I live alone in New York, and, you know, we work in Manhattan and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I work way too many hours, and I'm here all night, and I have to order three meals at work and all the stuff, all the reasons I didn't dare. I was also so scared, of course, because what if it's replaceable?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Exactly.

[Jane Marie]

Oh, my God.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I'm too expensive. No, but that's the thing. That is where the ignorance just damns you. Right.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

And I had family who were like. We had a safe. We had a cash business. That's where my parents put their money in a safe. Like, my parents were afraid of the market. They, like, discouraged me from a 401k. You know, like, you lose money that way.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

So I had no concept. So then when I got to Yahoo, they offered me $100,000. Right. And I was like, six figures.

[Jane Marie]

Which these days, I know we're laughing. It still makes me nervous that we're laughing about it. I know.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I know.

[Jane Marie]

It makes me feel like.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, I feel like a snob.

[Jane Marie]

I know. Horrible. Like, a hundred thousand dollars. But we lived in cities.

[Jennifer Romalini]

We lived in massive cities and still, like, on. But the reason why that's so $100,000 is a lot of money. But the thing was, is that two years later, I was in that job. I had been promoted with no raise, and I was working harder than anyone. My section was doing better than, like, many of my male counterparts. And then I found out they were making $250,000. And, like, I tried to, at that point, get an adjustment, but they're never gonna bring you up that high. So think about that. I was in that job for six years. I lost $600,000 because I was an idiot and, like. Or I was ignorant. Let's not say I was an idiot. And I was a woman. And maybe they wouldn't have given it to me, but the men were making over two for the same job, but.

[Jane Marie]

Doing worse and doing worse. I found out also after, like, When I worked at Gawker, when I was at Jezebel, I was not in the New York office. I was remote. And I found out after the whole thing fell apart for reasons that were out of my control, that I was on the leaderboard every single day, all day long in the office. And my articles were charting higher than most every day. And I got paid. I don't even want to say, tell.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Me, tell me, tell me.

[Jane Marie]

56.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Stop it.

[Jane Marie]

Stop it. I'm not joking. As if it was a part time job. But I wasn't able to see the evidence that I was doing a good job. I had no idea what to compare it to. It was a new subsection of the website that had never been tried before. But no one was alerting me to the fact that I was doing a good job. And I was just. I was recently divorced. I needed the money so bad.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That's right. That's right.

[Jane Marie]

And I feel like women are also often in that position where it's like we just. I need. I'll just take it.

[Jennifer Romalini]

We play small. Yeah, we play small.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I still do it. I know I still play small. I just. It's part of who I am. I can't really fathom it.

[Jane Marie]

And also, you have a poor kid brain.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I do have a poor kid brain, but also I've been adjacent to real power and real wealth, and I butted up against real power and real wealth and been in rooms and been, you know, not quite a peer, but, you know, there, like, I have a seat at the table and I don't like it.

[Jane Marie]

You're not like them.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I'm not like them.

[Jane Marie]

Well, let's get there in just a second. Yeah. Okay. So your first book was basically a how to guide for people who don't come from the world of business or folks who think they don't belong.

[Jennifer Romalini]

People who floundered around, who felt anxious, who just felt like they didn't belong, who like, you know, never don't have like a stain on their pants, you know, and are watching all these, like, perfectly polished people come in who just seem to know what to do. So that's what that was. And I loved writing that book. And hello, Giggles had been sold. So I had actually made, for the first time in my life, I'd made.

[Jane Marie]

Some money during the sale.

[Jennifer Romalini]

During the sale. Cause I had some equity. Cause I was smart enough to negotiate some equity in that, even though I really didn't understand what it meant.

[Jane Marie]

You're like, I've just heard that this thing can Happen. It's a startup.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Exactly. So it actually worked out. I had some money, and I got a pretty good book advance, and I took the year off to write a book, and I loved it. And just as I wrapped up that book, I was going through edits. I got offered a big job, and I got offered a job that everybody can Google if they want to look at it. But it was a big job. I was a chief content officer, and they came to me, and it was one of those things where. And this is one of the most important lessons I've learned in the past six years. It was one of those jobs that looked good to the outside world. Everybody told me I'd be crazy not to take and just seemed like it was just, I should do it. I should do it. I had a pit in my stomach from word go. Like, from the interview. The first drive into the office. I cried the whole way. I just had the worst feeling about it. And let's just say it was not a good experience for me. But part of why it wasn't a good experience was because I didn't want to do it. I was done. I didn't want to be facilitating somebody else's dream anymore. I didn't want to have somebody profiting off my creative labor. But more than that, I was only interested in making things that were really good. Like, really good. Like, I wanted every piece that we put up on that website to be able to be held up anywhere. I had been in the, you know, clickbait game for so long. Let's pump out 50 stories a day. Let's pay these writers $40 for a piece. I was so over that. And I also had felt complicit in that, which felt like such an abuse of labor. I was like, we're gonna pay people really well. We're gonna do slow content. Slow content doesn't make money. The thing you work on for three months. That is a beautiful story. It's very rare that that does better than, you know, 10 couples you forgot were together.

[Jane Marie]

Right?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Or ways to be grateful today. You know, I remember ivillage when I was at yahushuin. Ivillage. Remember ivillage?

[Jane Marie]

Yes.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Okay. So ivillage and yahushine were in constant competition in Comscore. Yahushine, which I ran at Yahoo. Was the number one women's site in the world. Or it was iVillage every other month. And we just needed that spot because we needed it as a calling card for advertisers. Whatever. So finally, I went out with the Guy from the managing editor at iVillage. It was in New York. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, what are you doing different? How are you making all of this traffic? I don't understand. We're doing the same things. And he said, oh, it's the mullet approach. Everything in the front is all happy homemaker tips and like, ways to dress for your body and like, how to negotiate a raise. And the back is all filthy sex.

[Jane Marie]

Okay, right?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Like the kinkiest lovely. Who cares? But just the search words that, like, only we are doing. So he was gaming the system in the back, but had this front facing thing and had figured out a way to like hide it. But also.

[Jane Marie]

You mean like the front page?

[Jennifer Romalini]

The front page of the website looked like one thing, but where they were getting all the traffic was from really specific.

[Jane Marie]

Gag on a dick.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

[Jane Marie]

And I'm only saying that because I read an article in Glamour magazine when I was 10 years old that taught me.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh yeah, they always taught us how not to gag on a dick. That was like, you know, you're like 15 something. You have to know right now, don't gag on a dick. Or they were also doing like the trashiest, like celebrities with cellulite. Like the worst shit. Like the darkest, the darkest. You know, like this person's wife gained weight. Like, like horrors. Okay? But in the front it looked, it looked like a mommy blog. Like it was just like a clean, like, you know, whatever. So the bottom line is, is that since all content is now for profit, you don't get to make good things. And I was getting pressed to do a thing that I could not do, which was, you know, an O magazine. And I just was, I was done with that. That was just not where I was at anymore. And I, I used to be able to force myself to do things I didn't want to do. And as I got older, and maybe it was perimenopause brain, I don't know, I couldn't force myself anymore. And I wound up getting fired from that job. And after that I was just in free fall because my identity was so caught up in my career and you.

[Jane Marie]

Didn'T have a outlet.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

So then your next book comes out of that.

[Jennifer Romalini]

My next book came out of that. My next book came out of. Okay. I don't feel the thing that I've loved to do my entire life, my entire adult and tween life since Tweenhood. I don't wanna do anymore. I have bottomed out of it was like a serotonin, like just bottoming. I had no ambition at all. I didn't wanna do anything. I was very Lloyd Doppler. I didn't want to make anything, I didn't want to sell anything. I didn't want to do anything. And I started sorting out what my relationship with work was and I realized that my relationship with work was very caught up in and I hate to say this, but childhood trauma. And I started to track the relationship between growing up kind of rough and tumble, never feeling like I was good enough, always feeling afraid of myself in some ways, like I was like a monster and work and achievement and success, filling all of those holes. Just like how much I was validation seeking through work. I wasn't seeking money, I was seeking somebody to say, yeah, you did a great job. So I went above and beyond all the time. All the time. I just needed it so much. It was akin to an addiction. And addictions are cumulative, right? It's an amazing thing to have. Like to just start to understand yourself, right? And then you're left with, well, what happens now? And the book was really hard to write in a lot of ways because it was really emotional and like, how much do you write about your family? Your family, you know, people who are still alive. How can you be fair? How do you not make yourself such a villain that like people don't. The people are not interested in reading it because it's like annoying to read. But also take accountability because I really felt complicit in the systems that I upheld throughout my career.

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[Jane Marie]

One thing I thought reading reminded me, and I've talked to Dan about this a number of times, that I have always felt most loved and rewarded by my performance.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Not unconditionally loved. Certainly not for my sweetness or being a good friend or, you know, it was my and my parents forgive me for saying this, but I really did get the biggest hugs and the most verbal praise for performing.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Performing with grades. Performing on stage. Performing. Performing for, you know, and at work, you know, being the person that gets the biggest tips that night. Like just spinning plates. Spinning plates.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Being indispensable.

[Jane Marie]

Being indispensable and performing and not being rewarded. You know, I would see colleagues of mine who are much more successful and wealthier or being rewarded for being quirky or from a certain background or what, you know, And I never felt like I could keep up. I still don't. I feel like, especially in podcasting, like, I watch people be rewarded who are, frankly, criminals, like literally scammers, people who float by, people who fail up, constantly.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Fail up. Failing up. Looks amazing, doesn't it?

[Jane Marie]

I can't imagine it. Like, I just.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I couldn't stomach it. I couldn't stomach it.

[Jane Marie]

But it happens for some folks. And I don't know if it's the system doing it or if it's them doing it. I don't really know. But that's just not the way my brain was formed. Like, my Personality was formed. My personality was formed with Jane. Sing that song. Why don't you recite all of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems for this party we're having right now, but only do it in the corner so that the right people come over and listen.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You know, also, when you have parents who are that young, you're an accessory. Like, I remember, like, my mom and her girlfriends being high because they're in their early 20s and, like, asking me to, like, do. Put on a show for them and, like, put on, like. And there's pictures of me, and when I look at them, I feel so sad and so tender for that person who was, like, needs were just not being thought of.

[Jane Marie]

I just wanted to sit on your lap. Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I just wanted you to stroke my hair.

[Jane Marie]

Exactly. And just say, oh, my God, I'm gonna start crying.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I know. I just wanted you to look at me and see me, and I didn't.

[Jane Marie]

Have to learn the dinner you were making. I just. I'll sit there and be fed.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I always had to be useful, and I felt so desperately unseen. And how do you work that out? Right? So you work that out with drugs and men.

[Jane Marie]

Yara da da da.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, the fucking y. And you're bigger, you know, you're bigger than everyone else, and you're, you know.

[Jane Marie]

Jazz hands all over the place, fudgeing.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Jazz handing my whole life. And now, like. Like, you know, I. It's like the thing of the invisibility of middle age. I'm like, hooray. Because I'm tired. I don't want to be looked at, and I don't want to be on this. I don't want to be looking for your approval all the time. And you being anyone, like, I'm tired of was exhausting. I still love work, but I'm less willing to do anything for it. And I feel like that's waking up.

[Jane Marie]

I also feel like I just should have gotten into sex work or something. No, I mean, if I was gonna put that much effort in.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You're right.

[Jane Marie]

I could have charged so much more. You know, if I was performing, I could have performed for one person who wouldn't tell anyone.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

I don't know. That's not.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah, no, no, I hear that. I hear that. And that's. No, I think that's interesting. I think that's interesting where you're going with that now. I don't know what that would have brought for you. My relationship with sex is so fraught and caught up in the Catholicism and sh. I don't know if I could have survived sex work. I certainly thought about it in my brokest hours. I thought about, you know, certainly phone sex. I can't believe I never did that. But I thought about it. I thought about selling eggs. I mean, you really start to get this poor brain right, and you're trying to survive in white collar worlds where they have. They have nothing like this, right? And you're just like, I have literally $11 for the week after I pay these bills. Like, what am I supposed to do, right? I saw women who had confidence that I didn't have, who could move through rooms. So they made different decisions. Like, they also maybe had financial backing, but they went to, like, Time magazine when I went to Glamour. And Time paid nothing. But Glamour paid a lot. But I didn't want to write about stupid, you know, couple time. Like, I didn't want to write about. I didn't really want to write about.

[Jane Marie]

Sexiest positions for you bend over and do the dishes.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I didn't want to be fat. I didn't want to be fact checking stories on queefing. Like, I really didn't. It's a story I bring up all the time. I think I've brought it up to you before, but I still think about it. But I didn't know how to be a serious lady. Like, I always think about this Rebecca Traister and I started about the same time, and Rebecca Traister had just confidence and she just knew what to do.

[Jane Marie]

Tell us who that is just for the audience.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, Rebecca Traister is a major feminist writer and she's really smart and she's actually a really lovely person to know. She's super down to earth. And she also came from Philly, but she came teachers in Philly, and I came from blue collar. Like, I think that's also different. You know, I had just. I didn't have a foundational education, really, because school was not important. Like, my parents were like, drop out in ninth grade, become a hairdresser. You know what I mean? It just wasn't.

[Jane Marie]

I was this close. So was I.

[Jennifer Romalini]

If I had any sort of fine motor skills, I might have done it.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, I mean, it was very much like, do something with utility and get your bills paid. But I have friends who, you know, came right out of high school with some this confidence that, like, they were gonna get a job.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No, I was kind of broken. I was a broken doll. I was a broken doll. And I tried to fuck the pain away. I tried to work the pain away. I tried to Drink the pain away. I did all of the things, but so I watched Rebecca. She made so many smart career decisions early, and she made decisions, you know, to advance her creativity and advance her thinking as a writer. It was very smart. She was a smart girl.

[Jane Marie]

I mean, Look, I spent 10 years at this American Life, and up until the very last day, my boss would call me intern from the other room. You know, it was cute, but nobody else was being called that. And I made the least amount of money.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No. And, like.

[Jane Marie]

And I'd been there longer than most people at this point. I know you're never going to lose your ambition and desire to work.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

Is it? Do you have a different goal in mind now?

[Jennifer Romalini]

Now I've separated art from money.

[Jane Marie]

Okay.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That was step one in some ways. So my real ambition is for balance and contentment. So I have a day job that I'm massively overqualified for, and it's exactly how I want it. I make enough money that I don't need to worry about money. I don't make a ton of money. I make much less than I made at the height of my career, But I make enough with health insurance and a 401k match. Okay, so benefits. Like, I'm a jobs person again. I understand if you can get a job. I'm like, get a job. Like, it's hard out here. I was just hustling as a freelancer for six years, and I had two successful projects. I had a successful podcast that was written up in the New Yorker, you know, was named one of the best podcasts of the year, and I had a successful book. And I was going further and further and further into debt because the money is just. It's so hard to grab the stupid money. It's like everything's getting replaced by AI. Like, all the stupid copywriting we used to be able to grab. It's like, it's gone. So it's just really hard to survive. So, anyway, I have a day job that I do not go above and beyond in. I do that job well, but that job, I don't have it on my phone. I don't have slack on my phone. That is a boundary job. And then I think about. And this is just, like, work goals. Like, I have relationship goals and travel goals and, you know, motherhood goals and all of those things. But I go back creatively from my death to now, and what do I still want to do before I die? And most recently, I figured out I want to write a novel. So I write. I wake up 5am every morning. And I'm working on a novel.

[Jane Marie]

I don't know how people write fiction, but I'm excited to read whatever you do.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I don't either. I don't either. But it's a puzzle. And those are the things I've figured out that light up my brain, are creative puzzles. How can I take the bucket of skills I have and use it in a new way? Like, that's exciting to me. And especially I feel so scared. And I love to be a little bit scared, you know, like, oh, God, wow, I'm really SC. Failing at this. I don't know how to do this. The mastery is also a thing that is very satisfying to me. Like, I'm horny for mastery, really. And I think that as we get older, it's just so good to give yourself those challenges if you can. Right. What's the. My friend, Kristin La Santi, who, you know, and I don't know if this is hers, but she told me about this, which is the key to career satisfaction. It's just gap. Gap. The gap rule, which is growth, autonomy and purpose. If you have those three things, you're going to be satisfied in your career. I don't know if that works, but right now that's what I'm doing. And I can feel that the day job would promote me. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Just let me stay in my lane, let me do a good job and let me have enough of my brain left that I can exist in my life. I can have a social life, I can show up for people and I can show up for my own creative projects.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That to me, that's the win.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. I wanna say, I think for. As we're sitting here talking about this, I'm getting. I feel this bit of anxiety about how elitist this conversation sounds. Yes. And I just wanna acknowledge that. That, like, even being able to say we have creative jobs feels like. I feel self conscious.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No, of course. This is an incredible privilege. This is such a privilege to see.

[Jane Marie]

Even though we've never made money, even.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Though I've never made the kind of money that, like, you know, that we.

[Jane Marie]

Thought we were gonna make.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Right. I've never owned a home. I've never made. I've never made that kind of money. I've never succeeded in the way that. But, yes, it is privilege, but my.

[Jane Marie]

Car'S 14 years old and I don't have one of my side. And I don't know if I'm gonna ever get a chance.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Oh, I'm driving a Beater Prius and I will forever, you know, but, like, what do you value? Right?

[Jane Marie]

Yeah. Well, my other last question is, so we have children.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Tell me, Jen, what's the right way to raise them around this stuff? I like, do you feel the pull to raise them to be part of the ruling class or to be more like us or something in between?

[Jennifer Romalini]

The problem with what you and I keep saying is, well, why didn't we do this, why didn't we do that? I think that you're not going to live a happy life if what you do is not aligned with who you are. I just don't know. I don't know.

[Jane Marie]

I couldn't even figure out who that would be for me.

[Jennifer Romalini]

You know, it's like, you know, it's not that I wouldn't have married a banker. Like, they just never liked me. Like, it was like I never liked them and they never liked me.

[Jane Marie]

I can't tell the difference between any of them.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I can't. No, they all look the same. And the vests. I can't, I can't. It's just. No, it's not right. How do you raise a kid? I mean, I'm raising a kid very pragmatically with a lot of financial literacy. I talk a lot about credit card debt and how you never want to get in it. I just talk a lot about debt. I talk about rules, about money that I never understood, which is this is what you do with a paycheck after your basic expenses are paid, whatever you have left, this percentage goes into savings. You know, I drill those things down maybe a little too much and maybe too much because my kid, who's 14, is already starting to talk about. So I just want to go to a normal college where I'm not going to take on too much debt. And I want to live in like, you know, an affordable city where I can have a two bedroom apartment, you know, maybe all five rooms together. And I'll have a roommate. And, you know, for the first couple of years, like, if I do want to be in animation or if I do, you know, whatever they wind up because I think they are creating. I mean, their father is a writer. I think that they're a creative person. I don't know yet, but so I can work at a bookstore and like afford to live. If I'm working in a bookstore while I'm figuring things out. These are the kinds of things this child says to me, like, how much is a sofa? You know, like, I wasn't asking those questions. And I wish I had been early on, like, what are taxes? Like? Like, we talk about these conversations.

[Jane Marie]

I go in the exact opposite direction with mine, where I'm just like, fuck it, it doesn't matter. Do whatever you want. Like, you're gonna be screwed either way.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Kind of you are.

[Jane Marie]

But, God, I wish you're not inheriting anything.

[Jennifer Romalini]

No, that's for sure.

[Jane Marie]

And if you just want to hit the road, enjoy, you know, you're gonna have to be a good babysitter or something. I don't know, dog walking.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Which is maybe stupid, but I mean. No, it's not stupid. I mean, I'm not trying to crush out there, crushing any dreams, but, you know, I didn't invest in a 401k in jobs that I had that I should have. I now understand that if I had put $6,000. If I ever had $6,000, if I ever put $6,000 in a bank account when I was 2025, I would have like a couple hundred thousand dollars now.

[Jane Marie]

Oopsie days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That I did try to do.

[Jennifer Romalini]

I think you were smarter with savings than I was. I think I was more pretty much a moron. I had like. Cause my parents were just like, anytime we had money, they were like, let's get a new tv. It was just, let's get a Cadillac.

[Jane Marie]

Oh, don't even get me started, right? My dad's like, let's get a blueberry farm and an airplane. Thank you. You're welcome for coming. We can talk about marriage and kids next time.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Yes, please. Yes, definitely.

[Jane Marie]

Because that's the real problem. Let's be honest. Honest.

[Jennifer Romalini]

That is the real problem.

[Jane Marie]

Okay. Love you.

[Jennifer Romalini]

Love you so much. Thanks for having me on. You're welcome.

[Jane Marie]

The Dream is a production of Little Everywhere. Please, like, share, subscribe, all that stuff wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're gonna comment on the podcast, what I do for sure know, because it's been drilled into me by commenters, is that I have an annoying voice, an annoying laugh, and that I seem pleased with myself. If you think any of those things about me or any. If you have another comment that has nothing to do with the content of the program, you can call our tip line 323-248-1488. But you do not have to leave it on a public forum like Spotify Comments or the Apple podcast reviews. Please, please, darlings, I hear you. I'm not for everybody.

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