Some days I feel like I’m just standing on my little soapbox in the street yelling desperately at the strangers passing by and hoping that maybe, if I just rattle off my credentials a little louder, someone will give me a “real” job in my field. And then I think about the joke Sarah Kay tells in her TED talk about the other kind of field and I giggle, and I remember that talk, and I feel less like a pathetic almost-post grad and more like an explorer about to set out on the next great adventure.
My biggest issue at the moment isn’t even job hunting, it’s the bitterness I feel towards the “internship” racket. I have a really hard time justifying giving valuable time away for free to a firm that could afford to pay me but doesn’t. There’s a really awesome professor with VCUarts who agrees with my sentiment in somewhat fewer and blunter words:
“Don’t be a slut, make people pay for your art.” –Peter Fraser
Because the whole ‘work-for-the-experience’ BS feels like just that. Bullshit. I would rather (and do) give my time to a good cause that can’t afford to pay me, like a small nonprofit or an underfunded passion project. I can get just as much, if not more, “experience” creating content for people who wouldn’t get it otherwise. Plus, it’s miles more fulfilling than making the daily coffee run at even the coolest agency ever. If I’m forced to work for free in order to pad my resume (or whatever the logic for interning is), I’d much rather do things that matter. I’d rather know I’m helping people who deserve help. I’d rather make the world better by donating my talents than let some CEO flush them down the toilet and laugh at all these fools who are willing to work for free.
I think a lot of recent graduates struggle to value themselves and their work. Validation basically evaporates when you leave the academic world and that can be hard. I am here to tell you: you deserve to be paid. You have a degree that you (or someone else) paid for, you have earned the right to ask for compensation. This is about more than the wage gap, I know that society brainwashes women to be less able to demand payment, this is about your worth as a creative person. YOU, yes, you have talent and skill that are worthy of a decent wage.
So don’t be a slut.
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