Imagine this: Someone asks a favor from you. They'll give you like $10 for some easy, but boring work. Hey, you could use ten bucks. Sounds good, so you accept. You get started on the job. You work. And you work. And you work some more. An hour passes. Then two. Then onto three? Yup. Three hours of grueling, grinding work for a measly ten dollars. Ten dollars. Why did you even bother? Cuz you care. Cuz you said you were going to do it, and you stick to your promises. You have morals. Goddamn morals.
You hand the work over, feeling way closer to resentment than gratitude for being offered this chance to earn a few bucks. They thank you. Hours pass. You don't get paid. Hmmm... Maybe they'll pay you tomorrow. No problem. Then they approach you again. Oh, they have a second part to the job. You gotta do another one, but this one's a tad longer. Oh, and guess what? They ask you to do it RIGHT before bedtime. You're tired. You're irritated from earlier. But hey, they say it's urgent. They hope you can do it immediately. URGENT? They want it IMMEDIATELY???
You boil up, still unpaid, ready to RAGE OUT! But no. Instead, you bury those feelings down. You're a professional. You kick ASS at everything you do. You keep your promises, goddammit, no matter how often people take advantage of you for that simple fact. So you challenge yourself. You're gonna focus 1000% and finish this one faster than you did the first one. And you do. Only takes two hours this time, and it's just as good as the first one, if not better. You hand it over. You say, "I really hope you appreciate all my hard work." They reply with, "Of course we do."
A day passes. You awake. Still not paid. Over five hours of hard work that you put your EVERYTHING into and nothing. Didn't earn a single penny. You may not even get paid at all. They may get robbed of any form of payment, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just gotta wait and hopefully talk to them again to figure out WTF is going on.
Now stop imagining and realize that this happened to me last night. I was offered about $10 to transcribe two interview segments from some technology seminar or something. The first one was 11 minutes. The second was 13 minutes. Took me 3 hours and 2 hours, respectively. I do fucking awesome work, so it took that much time to get every goddamn word 100% correct and flawless. I worked hard. I worked REALLY fucking hard, like I always do. Still haven't been paid. Not a single penny. Along with another transcription I was working on last night (that I ALSO didn't get paid for), I dumped like 7 or more hours into this new "online job" I found the other day, and I've received NO compensation for my work. I fucking love it.
Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. I don't know. But I'd certainly like to hope that I'm storing up good karma for the day when someone else can do ME a favor and help ME out. Maybe I could finally get some acknowledgement, admiration, and appreciation (and I dare say money!) for 17 years of work on my greatest passion: my book. Maybe I could finally achieve some sort of success and be able to become a truly independent "adult" like (nearly) all of my peers. Maybe I could finally meet that special girl who appreciates me, who cares about me, who likes me, who has ACTUAL romantic feelings for me, who wants to spend her precious time with me instead of the countless times I've suffered through "unrequited feelings" throughout the years.
That'd be nice. It'd be nice for hard work to pay off. Maybe earn some money. Maybe earn some happiness. That'd be nice.
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