Freedom of Experience

In an unprecedented show of good will and kindness, I emailed my boss last week to say that I was just finishing college for the summer and would thus be available to work more hours or change them over the next few months, should he need me to. He emailed me back straight away to say we’d have a chat the following day about his ‘thoughts’ on this, and my heart sank. I’d been looking forward to the next four months of essentially having two weekends every week, and I was convinced he would have me in five days a week instead like any normal person.

So we sat down for a chat, and he announced he’d like me to do some work for the editorial side of the business instead of just admin, which is pretty much my dream come true, with maybe some studio work thrown in too. Then he said, ‘We won’t pay you for it,’ in one quick breath. Oh no. Apparently it’s supposed to be just AWESOME for me because it’s work experience, and as I’m a student I suppose they feel that they can take advantage a bit. No matter that I’m probably as good as any of the existing editorial team, though I suppose I don’t come with specialist knowledge of buses and coaches. But I’ve been there for nine months, I know more than enough! I think the real reason they won’t pay me is a) obviously they’re a business, not a charity, and as such will do all they can to conserve money, and b) they can’t be arsed to alter the pay roll for four months. Oh well, I guess it does give me the upper hand if I'm doing work for free. Plus it'll only be one extra day a week.

But really I can’t complain at all. I’ve been so lucky with this job. It pretty much fell into my lap, and I didn’t even have to have any kind of formal interview until last month. Plus they can’t have me full time till 2012, which is a fucker for them but they’ll keep me anyway. It’s thanks to them that I’m even doing a degree, since I don’t have any A Levels. My boss is like my Dumbledore. He even put a magazine on my desk the other day with an article about young journalists getting careers, bless him. Apparently to break into the business you need patience, tenacity and most importantly, experience. Fuck, man, I’m already there.