Working for Free Should Be the New Normal. Right?
Refusing to work for free makes you lazy?
Introduction
One of the things that I avoid doing during the last year of quarantine is scrolling on Facebook and watching the news. Last night I broke this rule.
I doom scrolled on Facebook for a little bit after reading the statements of a Greek TV presenter (I’m Greek by the way) about working for free as a young graduate. I think it’s less important to refer to his name, so let’s pass it on.
Getting paid for your job is a human right
The reason why I’m writing this story is not that I was that shocked by this statement. In fact, in Greece, these kinds of statements are being said almost daily by ministers or Prime Ministers over the last 12 years of the financial crisis.
But what all these people deny to understand is that getting paid for the job that you do is a f***ing established right for all of us.
The excuse — I don’t even consider it as an excuse, it’s just bullshit — that working for free is better when you don’t have experience or when you don’t have a network of people in the job market as a young professional, is actually the reason why this situation keeps going.
