When bored, go for a walk

Some doggie in the window.

Originally I left the house to go get groceries. It's been the thing to do the last few days. On lock down mode for spending money and still looking for work. Photography work, at least on Craig's list and Kijiji is pretty dismal. Most of the people looking for photographers are looking for photographers to work for free, photographers to maybe work in the future, or photographers that will pay to do the work.

"Eh? What's that? I have to pay you to photograph something I have no interest in? Uh, no."

Monster.ca, a well known web site for job placement had a posting looking for a photographer to work for three months on a trial basis. If at the end of the three months the photographer worked out they might hire that person into a full time position at $10.00 an hour. Oh, did I say that the first three months, the trial period, were non-paying. What kind of small piss ant company was this? Working as a teenager way back when we were hired onto a job maybe at a lower rate but not for free and not for three months. Three weeks maybe.

Turns out the employer wasn't some small company, just a company that was looking for cheap labour. It was Bell. Yes, Bell that phone company bell. The same company that told me I couldn't drop my phone service because I had a 3 year contract. A 3 year contract that I never signed because I bought the phone out right.

As someone that's worked for the most part in middle to upper management and freelance for as long as I can remember this working for free thing (internship) would have escaped me. It's only recently while shifting work priorities that I have found this exploitation. For some school courses some programs require that the student put in 40 hours or so to get their degree, program certificate, what have you. This is where companies have jumped on the band wagon to get free employment. Slimy money grubbing opportunists getting free labour, promising jobs but releasing people after their internship to replace them with new people willing to work for free.

This made me furious. I actually wanted to start a company just to train kids while paying them then getting them jobs so they can by pass these bastards. I was brought back down to earth by one of my friends saying maybe I should find a job first for me. He had a good point.


It's Ian!

I decided to go out and get some air, and groceries. My random wanderings ended up with me walking down to Queen street taking photos of the odd store and bumping into Ian at Squirrelys. It was a random occurrence. While photographing store fronts I noticed him and his friend in the front window of the restaurant. They had just gotten out of some rock climbing gym and were finishing dinner.

I walked in and joined them for a drink. We talked about how we both had horseshoes up our butt when it came to work. Usually things would get pretty dire. Not being able to pay rent, maxed out credit cards, and then just as things looked financially bleak... we'd get a job, pay off our bills, rent, be able to eat out and spend some money. Someone up there likes for sure.

I told Ian how angry I was at these companies hiring people for nothing. It bugged me that much. Then the issue of me not working came up. "I'm not too worried. I still have a whole month before rent is due. A lot can happen in a month." I told him. Being in the same situation before he agreed. It wasn't like rent was due the next day.