Sometimes you read something that shakes you to the core. On the heels of Bob Herbert's final, brilliant essay on our nation's misplaced priorities, comes this little gem from CNNmoney, titled "Unpaid jobs: the new normal?"
Ever heard the expression, "willing to work with a servant's heart"? Oh, well this story's about employers with hearts like obsidian glass. Join me over the fold:
"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis
Yes, desperate people willing to do anything to get a job will work much harder than those lazy salaried peons who ruin everything. Houston, we have a business model!
Seriously - what's the payoff? Why would a person work at a company for zero wages, paying their own gas money and dry cleaning and so forth, running a net deficit? Is there a pot o' gold at the end of this story? Turns out there is:
Potter's year of volunteering at Coalescence paid off when the company's founders asked her to take the reins as president -- a salaried position
If some company "hires" you to work for them for free, and you stick it out for an entire year, then huzzah - you could be named president of the entire operation! Like that's going to happen. But it's a thought that could keep you slugging away, day after work-for-nothing day.
Oh, but don't think for a moment that these kinds of opportunities grow on trees...
Lovejoy, received 300 responses for an editor position and 700 cameraman applications after one week of advertising ... One editor and two cameramen ended up quitting before the end of the trek due to rough conditions and 16-hour workdays. In retrospect, Lovejoy says, "I would screen a little bit better and make sure they understood that this wasn't a vacation."
Of course, you're taking a real chance with unpaid labor, like Crystal Green in Tallahassee, who runs an event planning business, Your Social Butterfly. She's had "mixed results":
"It's really hard as a single entrepreneur to babysit these people who need to learn. They're not making any money, so you have to be very patient," Green says
Straight out of Dickens:
'Please, sir, I want some more.'
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.
'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
To be fair, I work in an industry that often offers paid internships, because it's very hard to crack into publishing and it's a way for students to gain experience. But we always pay at least minimum wage for what's normally a summer job.
The idea of asking a person to work for nothing is outrageous. At least, I think it is. And it's also against the law. But, according to Fallis, "it's the wave of the future" in hiring. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says.
Fallis, Lovejoy, and the other criminals in the linked article should be fined and, in my opinion, jailed for the crime of engaging in human slavery. We have to make sure that in 10 years, this is very much not the norm.