4 ms·

Actually I don't think everyone starting out has those same priorities. I think many would go for the carrot, as I most likely would have if I'd been unable to

by rapind 17y ago

Actually I don't think everyone starting out has those same priorities. I think many would go for the carrot, as I most likely would have if I'd been unable to find paying work fresh out of school. If a telemarketing firm had approached me for a free internship with the promise of riches once I put in my time, I may very well have turned down paying positions at McDonald's etc. I'm not trying to say most of us are dumb coming out of school, but I do believe that the fake pot of gold is pretty appealing and that there are many ethically questionable companies who would make all kinds of promises if it would benefit their bottom line. I think the system where these companies are forced to act at least somewhat ethically by paying a minimum wage is a good system. I think there is and should be a line though. If you are unable to value your work properly, young or old, then maybe you simply don't deserve to make more than minimum wage. I don't think society should pay for your bad decisions beyond a certain point. However, I like that you can still at least make some sort of living, and I think the company that is benefiting from your poor decision making skills should be footing that bill, and not tax payers. It would be infuriating to pay a wellfare tax while the persons receiving the benefit of that tax are passing it on to companies where they are working for free. A company could get an extremely discounted rate for certain services if they were able to hire free interns. Then to take it to extremes, if a publicly traded company could gain a competitive edge by doing this, then it's practically illegal for them not to.

cwan 17y ago
Are you assuming that the company would create a paid position if they couldn't have an unpaid internship position? I look at it on a pricing continuum. On the extremes, would you pay nothing to get work done that you considered to be important for your business? I mean I employ a number of people and I'm pretty sure I don't pay in the lowest quartile or even half of comparable skilled positions. It's almost the same as buying any product or service, price is just one factor. For most people it's about the overall value. I think this also applies to hiring (at least for me). (I didn't realize that unpaid internships were possible - and like you probably, coming from Canada it's a foreign concept that I hadn't heard of until working in the US - but it seems like a reasonable idea to pay as little as possible during a probationary period before hiring someone for good only given the high costs of training involved with entry level positions?)
- rapind 17y ago
  I think our difference of opinion really boils down to our views of companies at large. Not every company is ethically responsible and many companies don't put enough thought into the hiring process at all. Once some kind of work becomes free, companies will do less and less diligence hiring for these position, simply because the value of the work becomes trivialized. This ends up hurting the workers and the company in the long run. There are some great articles at http://www.no-spec.com/ http://www.no-spec.com/ that describe a fairly similar problem. Let's say I'm starting a business and require a large amount of data entry. I categorize this work as grunt work for the most part. I get free interns to do it since I don't have the capital to pay anyone for it. Let's even say the availability of free work prompted me to start the company in the first place. I sit all these interns in cubicles and have them populate my application. What I'm not doing though is keeping a really good eye on the content their grabbing, copyright infringements etc. because to me, this work is free, if one of them messes up I'll just replace them. I don't have the time to babysit this free work because I'm busy running other parts of my business. Now, if I was paying for the work I would value it more, and keep a closer eye on it. Why? Well beause I'm paying for it and if I'm paying for it, I want to make sure I'm not getting ripped off. We only value something when it costs us something. Just like we only value the poker pot once we've invested in it. I wouldn't value a free intern nearly as much as a paid intern. This will be reflected in the way I treat the free workers (lack of respect when they are easily replaced, because if I actually respected them, well then I'd pay them), it will reduce the interns sense of pride in their work, and it will definitely degrade the quality of work. Now there are definitely exceptions, and maybe this article is one of them. However, by and large I think free workers is a really bad idea, and therefor I agreed with laws that prevent this practice.
  - cwan 17y ago
    Hmmm - that's interesting. I think one of the best pieces of advice that I've read about being a manager is to treat each your employees as if they're volunteers. I realize that this is going a bit off the reservation now as far as our discussion goes, but it's something that I've been trying to strive for (often unsuccessfully) - but I think it's useful for building the type of culture that maximizes productivity (and, as an afterthought, is enjoyable to work in). re: No Spec - yes, it's a position I sympathize with but at the same time, I don't believe any of these markets operate in a vacuum. Given the tensions in the spec market (or any service that seeks to be sold based on price/free), over time it seems almost inevitable that it attracts the bottom end of the market. It's the same reason why I try to make sure I don't underpay employees or service providers as the cost can be far greater in the long run if you do. re: large amounts of data entry. Having had to do it at one time for a professor, though I was paid, being paid did make me feel as if I had an obligation to do it as right as possible without allowing bad data to fall through the cracks. I'd like to think I was better than that but frankly if I wasn't paid I suspect I would not nearly have been as careful. But that's the thing - sometimes you get what you pay for - and especially for the more menial tasks if you don't value the output that's fine but there was still a cost for the professor to manage the project and there was indeed value to the underlying data that he needed to be accurate. Indeed - often the cost of the overhead is a significant cost of the underlying wages - even more so I suspect for entry level positions. Such is the case for managing volunteers or unpaid interns for which I don't really see too much of a differentiation. The way I see it is that unpaid work is essentially producing a sample of your work for sale. Sure you don't want to keep on doing it, but at least in a market these things tend to work themselves out. As for spec work (or any industry that provides free samples) - are also of the view that this should be made illegal?

by rapind 17y ago

cwan 17y ago

Are you assuming that the company would create a paid position if they couldn't have an unpaid internship position? I look at it on a pricing continuum. On the extremes, would you pay nothing to get work done that you considered to be important for your business? I mean I employ a number of people and I'm pretty sure I don't pay in the lowest quartile or even half of comparable skilled positions. It's almost the same as buying any product or service, price is just one factor. For most people it's about the overall value. I think this also applies to hiring (at least for me). (I didn't realize that unpaid internships were possible - and like you probably, coming from Canada it's a foreign concept that I hadn't heard of until working in the US - but it seems like a reasonable idea to pay as little as possible during a probationary period before hiring someone for good only given the high costs of training involved with entry level positions?)

rapind 17y ago
I think our difference of opinion really boils down to our views of companies at large. Not every company is ethically responsible and many companies don't put enough thought into the hiring process at all. Once some kind of work becomes free, companies will do less and less diligence hiring for these position, simply because the value of the work becomes trivialized. This ends up hurting the workers and the company in the long run. There are some great articles at http://www.no-spec.com/ http://www.no-spec.com/ that describe a fairly similar problem. Let's say I'm starting a business and require a large amount of data entry. I categorize this work as grunt work for the most part. I get free interns to do it since I don't have the capital to pay anyone for it. Let's even say the availability of free work prompted me to start the company in the first place. I sit all these interns in cubicles and have them populate my application. What I'm not doing though is keeping a really good eye on the content their grabbing, copyright infringements etc. because to me, this work is free, if one of them messes up I'll just replace them. I don't have the time to babysit this free work because I'm busy running other parts of my business. Now, if I was paying for the work I would value it more, and keep a closer eye on it. Why? Well beause I'm paying for it and if I'm paying for it, I want to make sure I'm not getting ripped off. We only value something when it costs us something. Just like we only value the poker pot once we've invested in it. I wouldn't value a free intern nearly as much as a paid intern. This will be reflected in the way I treat the free workers (lack of respect when they are easily replaced, because if I actually respected them, well then I'd pay them), it will reduce the interns sense of pride in their work, and it will definitely degrade the quality of work. Now there are definitely exceptions, and maybe this article is one of them. However, by and large I think free workers is a really bad idea, and therefor I agreed with laws that prevent this practice.
- cwan 17y ago
  Hmmm - that's interesting. I think one of the best pieces of advice that I've read about being a manager is to treat each your employees as if they're volunteers. I realize that this is going a bit off the reservation now as far as our discussion goes, but it's something that I've been trying to strive for (often unsuccessfully) - but I think it's useful for building the type of culture that maximizes productivity (and, as an afterthought, is enjoyable to work in). re: No Spec - yes, it's a position I sympathize with but at the same time, I don't believe any of these markets operate in a vacuum. Given the tensions in the spec market (or any service that seeks to be sold based on price/free), over time it seems almost inevitable that it attracts the bottom end of the market. It's the same reason why I try to make sure I don't underpay employees or service providers as the cost can be far greater in the long run if you do. re: large amounts of data entry. Having had to do it at one time for a professor, though I was paid, being paid did make me feel as if I had an obligation to do it as right as possible without allowing bad data to fall through the cracks. I'd like to think I was better than that but frankly if I wasn't paid I suspect I would not nearly have been as careful. But that's the thing - sometimes you get what you pay for - and especially for the more menial tasks if you don't value the output that's fine but there was still a cost for the professor to manage the project and there was indeed value to the underlying data that he needed to be accurate. Indeed - often the cost of the overhead is a significant cost of the underlying wages - even more so I suspect for entry level positions. Such is the case for managing volunteers or unpaid interns for which I don't really see too much of a differentiation. The way I see it is that unpaid work is essentially producing a sample of your work for sale. Sure you don't want to keep on doing it, but at least in a market these things tend to work themselves out. As for spec work (or any industry that provides free samples) - are also of the view that this should be made illegal?