WEBVTT NOTE 27. Work for Free 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.320 Work for Free With young people nearly shut out of the market 2 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:13.320 by recession, regulation, child labor laws and ghastly minimum wage laws, I would like 3 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:16.540 to suggest the unthinkable. 4 00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:22.760 Young people should work for free wherever they can and whenever they can. 5 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:28.440 The reason is to acquire a good reputation and earn a good recommendation. 6 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:33.000 A person who will give you a positive reference on demand is worth gold, and certainly far 7 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.640 more than the money you might otherwise earn. 8 00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:41.320 Many of the essays in my book, Bourbon for Breakfast, turn out to have forecasted both 9 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:44.080 the current mess and this solution. 10 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:47.880 But first, let me tell a story of two cases in point. 11 00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:53.040 The first, an example of the worst possible kind of worker, and the second, an example 12 00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:55.940 of brilliant foresight. 13 00:00:55.940 --> 00:00:58.660 The first case comes from a job I had in my teens. 14 00:00:58.660 --> 00:01:02.780 I was standing around with a few other employees in a clothing shop. 15 00:01:02.780 --> 00:01:05.300 The boss walked by and said to my co-worker, 16 00:01:05.300 --> 00:01:09.100 "'Please straighten these ties on this table.'" 17 00:01:09.100 --> 00:01:12.980 My co-worker waited until the boss walked away, and then he muttered under his breath, 18 00:01:12.980 --> 00:01:16.860 "'I'm not doing that for a minimum wage.'" 19 00:01:16.860 --> 00:01:23.420 That comment seared right through me, and I thought about it a very long time. 20 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:28.220 The worker was effectively asking for money upfront before working, even though he was 21 00:01:28.220 --> 00:01:32.100 employed to do things like straighten ties. 22 00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:35.580 This was even worse than in subordination. 23 00:01:35.580 --> 00:01:41.540 He had this idea that the value he contributes to the firm should never exceed the value 24 00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:44.600 of the money he is earning in exchange. 25 00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:50.120 If that must be true, one wonders why anyone should ever hire him. 26 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.960 The goal of every employer is to gain more value from workers than the firm pays out 27 00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:59.400 in wages, otherwise there is no growth, no advance and no advantage for the employer. 28 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:04.040 Conversely, the goal of every employee should be to contribute more to the firm than he 29 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:09.680 or she receives in wages, and thereby provide a solid rationale for receiving raises and 30 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:12.720 advancement in the firm. 31 00:02:12.720 --> 00:02:18.360 I don't need to tell you that the refuse, Nick, didn't last long in this job. 32 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:21.640 In contrast, here is a story from last week. 33 00:02:21.640 --> 00:02:22.640 My phone rang. 34 00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:26.240 It was the employment division of a major university. 35 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:29.880 The man on the phone was inquiring about the performance of a person who did some site 36 00:02:29.880 --> 00:02:33.800 work on Mises.org last year. 37 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:39.160 I was able to tell him about a remarkable young man who swung into action during a crisis 38 00:02:39.160 --> 00:02:44.280 and how he worked three 19-hour days, three days in a row, how he learned new software 39 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:49.480 with diligence, how he kept his cool, how he navigated his way with grace and expertise 40 00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:55.440 amidst some 80 different third-party plugins and databases, how he saw his way around the 41 00:02:55.440 --> 00:03:02.340 inevitable problems, how he assumed responsibility for the results, and much more. 42 00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:07.120 What I didn't tell the interviewer was that this person did all this without asking for 43 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.840 any payment. 44 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:13.600 Did that fact influence my report on his performance? 45 00:03:13.600 --> 00:03:18.800 I'm not entirely sure, but the interviewer probably sensed in my voice, my sense of awe 46 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:23.680 towards what this person had done for the Mises Institute. 47 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:28.120 The interviewer told me that he had written down 15 different questions to ask me, but 48 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:32.040 that I had answered them all already in the course of my monologue, and that he was thrilled 49 00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:34.640 to hear all these specifics. 50 00:03:34.640 --> 00:03:38.940 The person who was offered the job, he had done a very wise thing. 51 00:03:38.940 --> 00:03:43.040 He had earned a devotee for life. 52 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:48.080 The harder the economic times, the more employers need to know what they are getting when they 53 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:50.180 hire someone. 54 00:03:50.180 --> 00:03:54.560 The job applications poured in by the buckets, all padded with degrees and made to look as 55 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:59.000 impressive as possible, it's all just paper. 56 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:03.920 What matters today is what a person can do for a firm. 57 00:04:03.920 --> 00:04:08.940 The resume becomes pro forma, but not decisive under these conditions. 58 00:04:08.940 --> 00:04:14.060 But for a former boss or manager to rave about you to a potential employer, that's worth 59 00:04:14.060 --> 00:04:16.060 everything. 60 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:21.580 Sadly, many young people who can't get jobs have no work experience to show for themselves 61 00:04:21.580 --> 00:04:22.580 at all. 62 00:04:22.580 --> 00:04:28.260 They have been wildly misled all their lives about the great glories that await anyone 63 00:04:28.260 --> 00:04:33.100 who stays in school and gets great grades. 64 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:38.140 There are innumerable aerospace engineers, mathematicians and even lawyers who are in 65 00:04:38.140 --> 00:04:44.820 In this situation, to say nothing of sociologists, historians and people with degrees in communications 66 00:04:44.820 --> 00:04:47.020 and marketing. 67 00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:51.220 Adding to the problem today is the burden of student loans. 68 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:55.700 Kids are graduating today with six figures in debt that they will immediately be forced 69 00:04:55.700 --> 00:04:58.860 to service if they accept employment. 70 00:04:58.860 --> 00:05:02.860 But with no prospects, outside Walmart and Starbucks, they opt to stay in school and 71 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:08.580 and get yet another degree hoping all the while that the labor market will turn around. 72 00:05:08.580 --> 00:05:11.080 This is a terrible trap. 73 00:05:11.080 --> 00:05:15.100 They have structured their lives around the speculation that a high-paying job awaits 74 00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:18.780 following graduation, but there is no such thing. 75 00:05:18.780 --> 00:05:25.040 A low-paying job isn't even enough to pay the rent plus debt service. 76 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:28.000 It was a very bad speculation. 77 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:32.560 Their dreams are being killed by a desperately tight labor market for anyone without work 78 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:36.040 Work Experience, or any kind of work reference at all. 79 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:41.420 Under these conditions, the solution is to gain that thing of highest value. 80 00:05:41.420 --> 00:05:44.480 That means volunteering. 81 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:48.860 The state can't come after you to start paying the student loan debt, and yet you gain people 82 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:52.200 who will become your benefactors later. 83 00:05:52.200 --> 00:05:53.200 Where to volunteer? 84 00:05:53.200 --> 00:05:58.040 A nonprofit such as a church or educational group would be fine. 85 00:05:58.040 --> 00:06:02.860 But also find might be a local plant nursery, lawn service, mail house or printer, or even 86 00:06:02.860 --> 00:06:04.940 at a law firm. 87 00:06:04.940 --> 00:06:09.580 You can make an application informally, but be clear that you want no payment. 88 00:06:09.580 --> 00:06:12.560 If there are legal issues, try to work around them. 89 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:19.120 If you are accepted, not a foregone conclusion, set hours for yourself and stick with them. 90 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:22.560 Make yourself super useful, super dependable. 91 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:25.160 Get to know as many people as possible. 92 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:42.800 The time will come when one of the people you came to know will receive a phone call. 93 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:47.320 He or she will be asked their opinion of you and your work. 94 00:06:47.320 --> 00:06:51.280 That's when the whole of your life can change for the better. 95 00:06:51.280 --> 00:06:55.580 Is that six months to one year of volunteer work worth it at that moment? 96 00:06:55.580 --> 00:06:59.160 It is worth everything. 97 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:03.880 On the other hand, you can spend your life refusing to straighten ties because you aren't 98 00:07:03.880 --> 00:07:07.000 paid enough to do that. 99 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:10.840 That person will never be paid to do anything.