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Working for free and what it taught me
- gautamc 13y agoWhat is "A MBA running Debian for doing most things" ?
- rpeden 13y agoA MacBook Air, running Debian.
- miahi 13y agoIn this case, free = non-profit. I think 99% of the population would work for "free" provided their expenses are paid.
- RyanZAG 13y agoI'm part of the 1% then. Sure, working is fun and all, but there are things I want to do in life besides working. Those things generally need money to pay for.
- tjbiddle 13y agoIn this case - What the author wants to do in life besides working is travel and gain some rich experiences by meeting people across the world. To me - that's really freaking cool.
- robashton2 13y agoPerhaps I miswrote, I lost a lot of money doing this - expenses were travel and finding me somewhere to live, everything else in life costs a lot of money which came from my own account.
- smartwater 13y agoYou would have life costs either way.
- robashton2 13y agoSure - but I'd be earning money to cover them :)
- Tichy 13y agoWhile I think it's cool to do this and I am a bit envious, I would still like to add the recommendation to not dismiss money so quickly. I have some friends who think like that and it concerns me a bit. The thing is, you are not taking into account that there might be times in the future where you could actually need some backup money. For example an illness (or simply old age) could make you unable to work for several months or even years. Not even counting other things you might want to do that money could come in useful for. In the future, you also might have a family. I'm certainly not advocating missing out on life for fear of running out of money and running in the treadmill like crazy just out of fear. But saving money in the good times probably can't hurt.
- TamDenholm 13y agoThis applies to freelancing/business but it works in this context too. What i would say is never ever discount. Either work for exactly what you want to be paid, or work for free, dont work for a discount. Discounting has the problem of having the obligation associated with being paid, but without the satisfaction of making you feel like you're being paid what you're worth. It also sets the baseline of what the client/employer thinks you're worth, they'll have the same expectations as if you'd be getting paid your usual rate. If you work for free, usually, the expectation of delivery is far less, which gives you more freedom.
- ramblerman 13y agoYou're not incorrect, but your statement reads mainly like a self justification. I would agree it's probably not for everyone. But if you have no dependants and are truly miserable in your job.... well you only live once right ;)
- Mithaldu 13y ago> I offered up my time for free providing my expenses were covered Those two things do not mean the same thing. > Experience in Tool/Language X is a stupid thing to ask for I'm pretty sure my experience with Perl won't allow me to write useful C within two days, no matter how experienced my coworkers. It would've been much more interesting to read about how he actually found his "jobs".
- robashton2 13y agoConsidering how much it usually costs to hire a contractor, this really is free. If you win tickets to a concert you still have to pay to get there, but the tickets are still free. Paying a couple hundred quid to hire me for two weeks is free. When I said expenses, it was the cost of getting there and putting me somewhere to sleep (not hotels mostly, thankfully). By charging that small amount, it means they're serious about bringing me in because it demonstrates commitment. I paid for my own upkeep over this time and burned through the best part of 25k EUR - all worth it.
- Mithaldu 13y agoI understand that. I'm just a bit irked because i occasionally do actual free work for people who can benefit from my skills and do good or interesting things.
- robashton2 13y agoI found my jobs by writing a blog entry, the Internet did the rest for me - pretty boring really :)
- Mithaldu 13y agoHuh, ok. If you didn't have to search yourself, that explains why you didn't mention that part.
- robashton2 13y agoYeah, it didn't see that important - the internet is quite a good place for doing things like this - thanks to Twitter and other places where people share things the calendar was booked up for 6 months within a couple of weeks
- _mulder_ 13y ago>People are generally okay This really resonates with me and I've come to the same conclusion from my own, similar experiences. Its a shame mass media has cultivated an irrational fear of outsiders into everyone. Ironically, even the people I've met who have been so kind and generous often try to be helpful by warning me about such and such race, or part of town, or different religious people to avoid because they're dangerous for one reason or another.
- vickytnz 13y agoReading this, this is perhaps comparable to getting university education: you are losing money, but you get some interesting experiences to set you up for later. That said, in an age of free internships and similar, I hope this isn't done too often so as to give employers ideas….