Summations Only

You're an idiot. So long as the parties each get something of greater value to them out of the exchange than what they put in, they are both acting rationally.

And that something is... what, exactly?

Value, of course.What else could it be?

So people would work for free because of the value of value? You're either an idiot, or you think the rest of us are.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

No, wise ass.Because of the value of what they get in returnexperience, college credit, references, networking, information, etc.Same way people work for purchasing power.Other people are willing and ready to work for something other than purchasing power.But according to you, that makes them irrational.

I asked you what they get in return, and you told me they get "value." Now you've given me a whole list, but let's look a little closer and we'll see how it makes no sense:Experience - you can't get this from an unpaid job, because if you were getting experience that was relevant to a paid job, you'd be doing that job and they would be paying you.College Credit - I mentioned earlier that college credit at a state university - usually considered a bargain - is around $150 an hour, so it's not likely that a business is going to give you something worth $150 an hour to get less than $7.50 an hour's worth of work out of you. As well, there's the same problem as above - if what you're doing at your job is so hard that it's the equivalent of studying something at college, there's no way it's easy enough to justify you doing it for free. Thirdly there's the problem where you have to pay to register for the credits so you're actually paying to have a job, which is just fucking stupid.References - references are people you've worked for, so by definition nobody at a job where you're not getting paid can be much of a reference. And unless you've done something really challenging - in which case you shouldn't be doing it for free, again - the "reference" isn't going to be able to say much more than that they saw you show up and do very simple tasks. You're just damning yourself with faint praise.Networking - a networking opportunity such as "co-working" costs on the order of about $30 a day, so, again, it's not likely that a business is offering anybody $30 a day to accomplish $7.50 an hour of work - they'd only just break even.Information - same as above. If it's not hard enough to justify a significant wage, the information you'll get from it has no value.So it's clear that you're just flat-out wrong, Jon. If there was intrinsic value in being employed in the top echelons of a valuable, esoteric field, we'd observe that the salaries and wages paid to those so employed would be lower than at the middle or the bottom. But instead we see the exact opposite - you make far more money as an engineer at Google or SpaceX than you do at Bob's Software. If the access, networking potential, and information content of a job made it make sense to work for free, then there would be no need to pay the people who run companies; yet in the US, CEO salaries are the highest in the world. There's probably no more valuable networking in the world than to know the people CEO's have access to - world leaders, celebrities, great thinkers - yet not a single US company has a CEO who works for free.There's just no reality to the notion that there are offsetting benefits that can justify working for free. Volunteering, of course, is something else entirely and that has ample benefits. But those benefits are not economic. The proof of this is that the best-educated, most-experienced people - who would be in the best position to assess the potential benefits of working for free - are, universally, getting paid for their work.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

It could be a job that requires a certain level of competence is required before a person can justify being paid. Or perhaps its a job that requires a certain amount of experience in another job, and the person is prepared to work for free (and so massively increase the chance of getting employment) so that they gain the necessary experience.I seem to remember I was shown a career root involving television which if I wanted a chance of climbing to the top, required a certain degree of working for free.The fact is that having experience helps getting future jobs. Starting a new career track can be difficult if you are competing with people with even as little as 6 months experience. One possible escape from this dilemma is to take on a sort of voluntary role to gain the experience so that you can compete with others for future employment because now you can justify the wage. Surely this is a little simple minded? At $7.50 an hour one only needs work 20 hours to earn $150.So an arrangement could be made: Every 40 hours you work, we'll pay you $150 and 1 hour's university credit. Does the fact that you weren't paid mean that someone is incapable of saying to future employers "He's a dedicated and hard worker."? Of course, if you are competing against people that do not have any people willing to give them references, and for whatever reason you do not have any yourself, this may be worth it.

You could follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid but get the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job and better your own performance so that you can end up getting paid to do it.

So if you didn't ever get paid to do it, wouldn't that prove you were just incompetent at it?Ultimately it's a signaling thing, I think. You shouldn't be eager to send the signal to a potential employer that your work product is so valueless you'd give it away for free. Well, right. That's the problem, right there - you can't think of your career as a "route" that you're supposed to follow; where, if you stay within the "guidelines" you'll eventually just be given a successful, lucrative job. I dunno, maybe it worked that way for our parents or something but that's just not the way it works, now. (I have my doubts that it ever worked that way; I think people who say they got jobs that way actually got them via exploitation of trust networks - the "good ol' boys club.") If you want experience in order to be a more attractive hire then you should have the experiences not just try to convince someone to give them to you, or expect people to believe you had them because you did something completely unrelated in the vicinity of the experts.To riff off of CS's example, below, nobody's opinion of your photography skills is going to be improved by your "experience" of getting coffee for photographers. What's going to make people think you're a good photographer is a portfolio of good photographs you've taken. If you want free experience as a photographer, take pictures until you're good at it. Getting people coffee is just a waste of your time. Everybody says everybody is a dedicated and hard worker, which means that employers know to disregard any statements that the applicant is a dedicated and hard worker.People are sensitive to bullshit. I know that they are, and I know all of you are. They know when they're being bullshitted, or at the very least, if you're going to bullshit someone you need to be pretty good at it. Which means that your references have to be able to tell a very specific story about how you're good at your job - with examples - just the same way that if you were trying to improve my opinion of one of your close friends, you'd tell me about the time he worked a double shift so that you could visit your girlfriend in the hospital - instead of just telling me "no, he's a good guy."Employers are deluged by applicants saying what dedicated and hard workers they are, how their greatest weakness in the workplace is that they just sometimes work too hard, that they're "experienced" "self-starters" who focus on the "value-add." Maybe that's convincing to yourself when the only resume you've seen is your own, but when you're reviewing hundreds of resumes from people who all say what dedicated and hard workers they are, you have to look for specific, revealing information about who is actually worth a damn and who is just another phony who knows how to mouth the words. People know when they're being bullshitted.

Getting coffee isn't going to make you a better photographer, and if you tried to tell someone that it did, they'd know you were an idiot. Watching other people take pictures doesn't make you a better photographer either until you put what you've learned into practice.What makes people think you're a good photographer isn't the "experience" line on your resume, it's a fat portfolio full of awesome photographs. You guys are so hung up on "experience" that you've failed to realize that you should be demonstrating your skill, instead.

Yeah, we sure do.

Just to add to your list: fun
noblesse oblige
humanitarianism

I have done 8 houses for habitat for humanity when work has been slow. (I am a plumber) I had the privilege of working with a man who was unemployed and homeless. He helped me some and told me one of the reasons he was doing it was to maybe get lucky and get a job with one of the contractors who were also volunteering. He did, I seen him several moths later working for a brick mason, he was doing simple labor, but learning to lay.I myself done the the work because it is the right thing to do , IMHO, and it makes me feel good to support an organization I believe in.

Well not necessarily, no. But if the only way you can get employed is to work for free, for all of your life, then that's certainly an indicator that something's amiss. I'm sure it's wonderfully privileged to be in such a position that one can stick to such principles.But not everyone can, or wants to do that. And they're not fools or irrational for doing so, right?Some people might be happier to work for 6 months for free, so as to near guarantee they'd get paid employment the rest of the year rather than risk spending the entire entire year out of work. That wasn't the scenario I presented, so it can't be 'the problem' with anything I said. Of course I could have stuck to your principle and try to compete against those that didn't, but that might mean spending longer on the lower rungs on lower pay. Unless you can't have the experience because nobody will hire you without that experience (eg., if you are competing for the position with people with experience). If you're a moron who spends their days with a photographer and who only participates in coffee errands, maybe.But sensible people will observe setting up shots, trade tips for quick colour balancing, will ask questions about exposure settings and learning the justifications for each. They'll learn how to approach clients and drum up business, how to sell their work, what work sells quick, what work sells high. Self teaching yourself a trade might work. But it is risky. There's plenty of risk enough becoming self-employed, some people want to learn to avoid mistakes that could ruin them. Sometimes people don't want to learn everything the hard way, and instead seek instruction, tutelage, education and mentoring.Take college for example. I did that, I did work and nobody paid me for it. I designed circuits, troubleshooted faulty appliances and various other tasks that, not only did I not get paid for - I had to pay to do. A bland reference is better than no reference. And if you excel at what you do, you might get a glowing reference. I didn't feel like writing a long example reference that one might get. My point was something you didn't address. Let me go over it again. You said:

quote:

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References - references are people you've worked for, so by definition nobody at a job where you're not getting paid can be much of a reference.

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And I'm challenging your (hidden) premise that references are people you've been in the paid employ of. You can get references from people for whom you have worked even if they didn't pay you. One can use references from volunteer work that you've done.For instance: You want a job in training. You work as a legal secretary. You decide to teach disadvantaged kids, or maybe doing vocational training for adults at the local college.Even though you didn't get paid to do the work, it would be pertinent to a job application to include whoever managed your work as a reference if you were applying for a training job.I was merely asking why it was impossible for someone to provide a reference when they didn't pay the person for the work they did.So you'll find your digression into why my reference wasn't really worth working for free for, is entirely irrelevant. If you want, read what I said but insert the most inspiring glowing reference it is possible for you to conceive of, that's relevant for whatever jobs you are imagining while remaining credible...in place of what I said. I simply couldn't be bothered to dream such a reference up, and then type it all.

When it's fun, it's not work, it's play.Very lucky, of course, are the people who get paid to play.