Always Get Paid for your Work
Monday, July 26th, 2010
This morning I stumbled across Harlan Ellison’s rant… or at least I stumbled across it again… about Paying the Writer for their effort. I think you can safely substitute web designer, coder, graphic designer, artist and journalist into that rant without risking offence to anybody but the people who want to get rich off your effort without paying.
Enough can’t be said about this subject because the No Spec! Campaign has been getting a little traction for years and we still have the problem. The problem is the person who is willing to undercut, to try to get a foot in the door by working cheap or for free… the person who impales themselves on the commercial juggernaut of business with the gusto of a World War One cry of “Over the top, lads!”…
Don’t be fooled. Those guys in the suits, those guys with the swish cars and lattes and sitting in nice office chairs with receptionists – THEY ARE GETTING PAID. And Harlan’s right… they’re not only getting paid, they’re bitching about how much they’re getting paid and they want more.
Oh it’s hard sometimes to take a dollar away from a not for profit agency or a small business. I’m as guilty in the past as anybody for lowering the hourly rate or pitching below cost because I felt a pang of guilt somewhere deep inside my Myer Winter Sale shirt… because I felt what I contributed wasn’t worth it. I felt like a bit of a fake.
