Fashion podcaster Recho Omondi, host of The Cutting Room Floor, confronted intense backlash this week after posting a job itemizing that critics mentioned embodied all the things improper with pay in vogue and media.

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The full-time position mixed “the responsibilities of a bookings administrator and studio coordinator” whereas additionally performing as Omondi’s private assistant. It was full-time, in-person, and paid $55,000 a 12 months with no advantages…in New York City.

Omondi has lengthy been recognized for her blunt honesty as a podcast host with a loyal viewers. She has interviewed huge names within the vogue trade on her podcast, like Steve Madden, with controversial tales of their lives.

@urbanoutfitters_depop DREAM JOB ALERT 🚨 #thecuttingroomfloor ♬ Circus – Color Clownies

Backlash over the $55K wage

Almost instantly, followers criticized the provide. Many mentioned the itemizing described three jobs rolled into one. One commenter wrote, “$55k in 2025 is below the poverty line in NYC. She tried it!!” Another on TikTok mentioned, “The minimum salary to be exempt from overtime in New York City is $1,237.50 per week ($64,350 annually) as of January 1, 2025, increasing to $1,275 per week ($66,300 annually) on January 1, 2026.”

Although Omondi later pulled the job itemizing, journalist Ira Madison III preserved a replica on his Substack. He shared the total itemizing particulars and the problems with it.

He additionally identified that when Omondi went reside to apologize for it, she mentioned, “If you’re the kind of person where 55K is nothing to you and you’re like, ‘Uh, what? Like I would never take that. That’s not even livable. I can’t do anything.’ That means your lifestyle is just different. There’s somebody else in the world who’s like, ‘That’s a great opportunity for me. I would love to do that. My expenses are low. I’m a young person.’ […] If you want to live alone, in New York, this is not the job for you.” 

As Madison famous, by saying, “a young person” in reference to the one who would take this job, Omondi was inadvertently discriminating in opposition to previous folks, which isn’t authorized.

Not everybody condemned Omondi. Several folks on TikTok famous that her provide appeared typical for vogue’s entry-level roles.

One TikToker famous, “It’s not a lot of money but idk if people are actually aware of how little money many many people make in NYC. 55k isn’t uncommon depending on the industry.”

Critics on TikTok highlighted the truth that solely folks with a security web are in a position to afford to be underpaid.

Omondi defends $55,000 wage as trade customary

Nevertheless, Omondi defended herself in a TikTok Live. “It’s not lost on me that that’s not a glamorous wage. You can’t be living lavishly,” she mentioned, including that she was solely paid $30K yearly when she left college. She requested her viewers straight, “Where do you guys think the $55K is coming from?”

Her protection didn’t calm critics. Some accused her of clinging to the outdated logic that folks should “pay their dues” to maneuver up on the planet. Despite the outrage, round 800 folks utilized for the place earlier than she finally froze hiring.

The backlash grew when, amidst the dialog in regards to the place at The Cutting Room Floor, Omondi launched a brand new podcast episode with Gwyneth Paltrow. Listeners referred to as the selection comically becoming. One wrote, “of course she had Gwyneth Paltrow on. fits the brand very well iykyk.”

Omondi points a paywalled apology

As anger unfold, TikTok person @sixtwentyseven shared a subscriber-only recording from Omondi’s Patreon. In it, Omondi admitted, “We did a poor job communicating it. I mean, it was so poorly communicated that, therefore, it was poorly understood, right?” She argued that folks mistakenly believed the job merged three roles into one, when that “just wasn’t the case at all,” even if she personally had mentioned that it was primarily three jobs in a single.

Ultimately, she selected to halt the hiring course of. “We’ve decided we’re no longer hiring for this role,” she defined. “We kind of made a mess out of this unintentionally, and we feel it’s best at this time to just freeze the hiring because the last thing we want is to bring anyone into the operation who feels negatively about it. Who feels like they had to take it because they’re down so bad.”

She additionally confused the challenges of operating a four-person firm. “We’re a small business, you know, we’re learning in real time,” she mentioned. “There’s only four of us, four full-time people, and this was a wake-up call, I think.”

@sixtwentyseven I’m a paying member of @The Cutting Room Floor’s Patreon and woke as much as an e mail together with her response to what she’s calling “$55k”. Sharing with TikTok as a result of I believe the discourse round employers, hiring practices, worker expertise, equitable pay, and the way small companies navigate progress is essential. I’ve many ideas on this response… the intentional exclusion of mentioning the position supplied zero advantages, overuse of “we” language as an alternative of “I” because the proprietor and founder, telling people that her content material calendar completely couldn’t be modified 😩 which is a joke bc I work in media and content material calendars are made up and inside the management of the org… not acknowledging that the pay was beneath New York Employment regulation minimums. So a lot to unpack. #50k #hiring #worker #businessowner #thecuttingroomfloor ♬ authentic sound – Aïcha

@tcrfff and @sixtwentyseven didn’t reply instantly to the Daily Dot’s request for remark through TikTok DM.

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