When you SHOULD work for free
I’m often confronted with the question: when is it a good idea to work for free?
There’s a LOT of heat online about why you should not work unpaid. Especially women. Especially if offered ‘exposure’in return. (Scroll through ForExposure’s feed on Twitter for shocking stories of why people should invest their skills in projects with zero budgets.) Makes total sense, right?
Yet, every time I’ve done it, it’s been useful…
When my career was stalling, I started a free blog for Management Today about being pregnant while working and travelling. Highlights included a red-faced CFO in Boston demanding to know, why any company should pay me to sit on my ass and feed a newborn.
The blog led to my column, Power Mums (and a few Dads). That made a cover story, which led directly to my book deal for The Mother of All Jobs.
It was a long play…
Then I created the women’s networking group, The Coven (hell yes, the name has a story). It has seen many of us through crises with a dark humour more precious than magic.
And—of course 🥁—this vlog, which came out of lockdown 1 in the UK, when I didn’t even know who Casey Neistat was (… big time vlogger if you’re wondering), but it has led to paid speaking opportunities.
What are you worth? A guide.
I love this quote, but its truth annoys me: “Society views women's time as infinite, like sand, and it views men's time as finite, like diamonds.” - Eve Rodsky, Fair Play
Sand
My guide—DON’T work for free when:
❌ Someone else will make money out of your work and/or someone who needs paid work won’t get it.
❌ The thought of doing it bores you and/or you’d be crap at it. (e.g. My brief stint on the PTA bar came to and end when the head took the piss out of my pouring technique.)
❌ The person asking doesn’t value what you’ll do.
🚩 ESPECIALLY if the invite skims over the fact they are asking for a freebie—even worse when they are bullying you to promote whatever it is.
Diamonds
But DO consider free work when:
✅ The thought fills you with joy and/or adds something to the world.
✅ You’ll learn new & fascinating things.
✅ There’s a practical benefit, for you/team/others.
✅ You have capacity—and can stop at any point.
✅ It’s an easy thing for you to give.
One of my lovely witches sent me this quote after the episode on burnout from Parker J Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak:
“Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing”.
Sometimes these are the things that, when we do give them, renew us as we do so.
Do you ever work for free? Does it renew or deplete you?
Christine
PS. Next week: Digital body language, informed by Erica Dhawan’s new book.
