Oh, I do understand where you're coming from. I may sound a little bitter, but I know this isn't something bad that PGC is doing. It's just something I see all across the business world. You're not the first fan-operated site that uses volunteer help. I've heard those comments before about experience and learning. It's a common line, but in PGC's case I can understand the cost versus profit margin - in that costs are probably high and profit is probably nonexistent.
As for Rabicle's comments, the Red Cross is a heck of a lot different than what I've seen and dealt with over the years. It's pretty pathetic what the business world expects from people caught in the catch-22's. As a writer, you learn that it's not quality in writing that's valuable, it's reputation, and if you don't have reputation your hours of work are worth nothing and should be free to the world to use. That's due in part to the fact that there's a dozen million writers all willing to write for free while working at McDonalds and a Mr. Zips convenient store at the same time 70 hours a week to survive.
What I don't like are corporations and businesses who use volunteer work. That's where my experience stems from. I've seen a lot of good hard workers with valuable skills pour hours into nothing. They do it because they love what they do. That's good and bad. So what if they love what they do? Somewhere down the line is somebody who does exactly what they do, but can't earn a dime from it to support themselves or possibly a family. That's how it is for writers. What if this disease spreads into programming? What if game development groups suddenly find that they don't need to pay coders at all. There's so many self-taught programmers and people coming out of college with good programming skills and graphics talents. All of these people would love to make video games. They qualify for volunteer work. They can work a factory job while volunteering to build levels for Half Life 2. I'm sure there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of 25 year old yupees who'd go for that.
Quite seriously, I think the bulk of them are that dumb, too. That's not kindness, that's ignorance.
Did you know, I've only heard of one poet who ever supported himself on his poems. I forget his name, but he did manage to live off the income from his poetry. He did it because of a piece of land with a house on it that he inherited. He managed to pay the taxes on it and live very cheaply. The fact is not that he was capable of doing it, but that he had to struggle to do it and lived in poverty in the process. I think that's pretty sad.
Ever heard of internships? They run the same line, but the kicker is that local businesses offer these internships for college students. They used to actually pay for the hard work, but more and more lately they do not offer pay at all. You just gain credit for the position. They usually expect 20 to 30 hours of work a week with consistent high quality from you. I laugh at the thought of that because these businesses are getting very high qualified workers with degrees in the particular field of work, and they're expected to go out and work for absolutely nothing. That's like Burger King asking MIT math and physics majors to come in and operate the grill 30 hours a week for nothing more than credit...
Bottom line is that volunteer work stinks. It's a curse and a plague upon any market that doesn't give charity to people in need.
In our case, I guess that's PGC's offering of free media and articles. And that concludes the rest of my 2 cents.
Topic: PGC is Hiring! (Read 6351 times)
