Free Slave Labour
Alright. Time to address a little issue I keep running into while researching possibilities for summer internships.
I think companies need a little reminder that “internship” is not young-person slang for “free slave labour”.
As younger undergrads, we’re usually in the world of higher education because we in fact have the desire to learn. Trust me, we definitely could’ve graduated high school and chilled in the nearest community college, but no. Here at RISD, we have already self-selected ourselves into specialised areas and damn well paid the price. (This IS a generalisation but there’s a whole lot of truth to it.) We do not want paid internships so we can cruise a little longer in the world of we-are-paying-you-to-learn. We have been PAYING for our education for four-plus years now. We are used to it, but that doesn’t mean we’re enjoying it.
Now to the point. I recently was looking up an internship for a popular book-publishing company which asked for the following: a forty-hour-a-week commitment for six months minimum. No stipend, college credit, or housing provided.
I was almost okay with this on the basis that they stated this information as a fact, and didn’t attempt to explain their complete lack of compensation of any sort for work that amounts to the same as a full-time job. Mostly because the next internship I researched had the gall to CHIDE the reader, namely me, for even potentially questioning the value of the internship for HALF A NANOSECOND.
Behold. The institute’s name has been left out.
“Access to ____’s internal activities and information is a privilege. The lack of material compensation for efforts expended on behalf of _____ in no way liberates a volunteer or intern from adhering to the highest ethical standards. Most notably, volunteers and interns must act towards the betterment of _____ and not for their own personal gain in their work at _____ (other than the inherent gratification of museum participation.)”
Also fair. I get it. You trust us with “priviliged information”, we provide you with…free labour in a commitment large enough to prevent us from holding down another full-time job. The only notable difference between us and your employees? We aren’t offered benefits, or a salary, or really any guarantee that your “real” employees will want to spend half a second of their time teaching us the ropes. Additionally, we are held at equal responsibility and liability for anything that goes wrong.
And “the inherent gratification of museum participation”? This isn’t high school anymore, folks. I’m not going to volunteer at the library shelving books and participate in Save-the-Earth-Day potting plants in a ulterior-motive-riddled plot to make sure Harvard knows I did community service. It is past the point in our lives where we have the time and parental funding to do things for free to look better on a resume. That is for children.
Speaking of children, I don’t care who you are, trust-fund baby or not. No one out of college just has so much money and spare time floating around to devote to an organisation with zero compensation other than the bleak promise of “you’ll learn something”. WE JUST DID THAT. It’s called undergrad studies. We did that so we can receive paying jobs.
Not to say that most internships offered in the world do not fully intend to provide an enriching experience that benefits both parties equally. I do believe this. Again, not implying that all people offering internships are cheap crooks hoping to score some free labour. I had an excellent (unpaid!) installation display internship last summer working for a company I loved, and who treated me extremely well and offered up their resources with complete generosity and freedom. However, they also set absolutely no “commitment”-just offered a flexible schedule and made my recieving college credit for the minimum hours needed, a requirement. Presumably to not come off as child-labour promoters. But they never sent me for coffee, either. Just let me do a whole lot of work, take as many photos as I wanted for my portfolio, and were gracious the whole way through.
Sp really, I’m really just pointing out the nerve of some higher-up companies (who we all know can afford someone a small stipend a day) to ask for free interns. Uh, “ye old apprenticeships”? That was back in the day where you basically moved in with the local blacksmith-housing, food, education, everything. Now people don’t have the courtesy to offer, like, a transport stipend. If you’re going to treat someone like an employee, you’d better pay them as such.
Just actually stopped and went into an Allsaints Spitalfields for the first time in my life (as opposed to just assuming I can’t afford anything there and walking by), and was basically blown away.
Where have these clothes been all my life. Seriously. It’s like what I would wear IF MY MIND COULD CREATE PHYSICAL OBJECTS FROM SCRATCH ALL BY ITSELF.
Every single piece is cut so strangely. Everything is grey, for the most part. Every fabric is the type I enjoy. Now I remember why people bother getting real jobs.
Only downside: like most wearable items, they are made for tall people. But that’s what tailoring is for…?
Just watched The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights now that I have cable television for the first time in my twenty years of life. I feel like whether it’s a documentary or a magazine article, Jack White always attempts to describe the importance of their aesthetic, like the whole color/number 3 which always blows my mind a little (the specificity of each album theme, and so on) but really the only interesting part to me is how he interacts with Meg, who is so quiet and just follows him around like a little ghost that he constantly refers to and dances with travels with him like a rolling suitcase.
It’s like, you’re Jack White, you have doucumentaries about what a musical genius you are, but you also have this person is with you all the time and sits next to you and cries while you sing on the piano. I don’t know. It’s very sad and sweet. Even if it is just for show, or something planned out like they always pull.
But to the point. Let’s say you create some set of aesthetic rules for your band and you become reasonably famous—what happens if you get sick of it? When you wake up one morning completely over red, white and black, and all your equipment is just completely done up, so you’re a little opposed to doing some Madonna-esque reinvention image-overhaul type of thing? How frustrating.
