On working for free

There’s a huge difference between how my generation and many people in previous generations look at work. It’s been made clear to me in a number of different encounters lately.

My mom just recently read a Facebook post about an opening of sorts, starting with exclaiming that it was slave work. When she read it to me, it sounded nothing like slave work. It was an unpaid internship for a 6 month period, with a possibility for full time employment after those 6 months.

To me, and many in my generation, that’s just how things are at the job market right now. In order to get a job, one needs experience. One won’t achieve experience without getting some work to do. There’s a loop, which is solved by working for free and thus building a portfolio.

It’s part of the individualisation of society, where we are used to taking care of ourselves in a way that our parents and grandparents aren’t. Many fields of work today function on the same parameters that artists have been following for a long time.