Would you do your job for free?

[beach_golfer]

So would you do your job for free? Let us see who is here for the cash and who could stick it out due to the love of the job. Me, Yes I would do it for free. I enjoy the look on persons faces when I show up.

[beach_golfer]

So would you do your job for free? Let us see who is here for the cash and who could stick it out due to the love of the job. Me, Yes I would do it for free. I enjoy the look on persons faces when I show up.

[Bogie Hokie]

So would you do your job for free? Let us see who is here for the cash and who could stick it out due to the love of the job. Me, Yes I would do it for free. I enjoy the look on persons faces when I show up.

What are you, a clown?

[immts007]

You must be joking. Or independently wealthy.

frack no, I wouldn't do my job for free.

[Fat Slice]

Only if my name were Deuce Bigalow.

[Lefty731PM]

So would you do your job for free? Let us see who is here for the cash and who could stick it out due to the love of the job. Me, Yes I would do it for free. I enjoy the look on persons faces when I show up.

I'll bet you wouldn't.

The reason they call it work is because they have to pay you to do it. Doesn't mean that you can't see good in it. But, seriously, what a ridiculous question.

[Surefire]

Like many before me no! I don't hate my job, or dislike my job at all. I'd even go as far as to say I enjoy my job, but thats as far as jobs go.
I don't enjoy my job as much as I enjoy playing golf, going to the gym, eating nice food, travelling, the list goes on...

[Harry Longshanks]

Uh, hell no.

My job is what I do, not who I am.

[TheWarHound]

I like my job everyday, love it most days . . . but wouldn't do it without getting paid.

[Pat007]

being a male erotic dancer has its perks....

seriously, this has to be the dumbest poll ever. Lets re-name the poll: Who would love to be exploited for free?

gimme a break!

[nevets88]

I've been doing pro bono work for a big umbrella non-profit organization for several years now. Lots of people, in that capacity, that I worked with do their jobs for free. Some people I worked with were doing two projects, but they were in grad school.

I somewhere between like and love *what* I do. A job means adding the politics, administrative, difficult people to work with, etc...

[michaeljames92]

What's wrong with the question. Some people enjoy their job enough to think that if you took the need for money and whatever else out of the equation, they would still continue it. Me? I don't work. High school is hard enough with 2 maths, 2 science and english to contend with.

[liftkitfan]

Umm it would have to depend on my situation but I enjoy what I do.

[julie_m]

seriously, this has to be the dumbest poll ever.

That's harsh. If you don't like the poll, don't take it, or respond. Pretty easy.

I think the responses are interesting. The folly of my generation is that someone, somewhere along the way convinced us we can be anything we want to be. (The opposite is what my dad always said - work hard so you can play hard.) I'm lucky that yes, I found a way to get paid for doing something I love to do anyway. I would - and have - volunteered to do it before. But once it's a job even the fun starts to get killed - you're accountable to someone, the people who pay you hold you to a high standard, you can't take vacation. I suppose you have to think about that if you think about doing something like pro golf.

[GaijinGolfer]

No way would I do my job for free. No pay, no work!

[Shindig]

For me, it depends on the situation. Certainly, I would continue my current existence as a graduate student for free if I had to, to finish the degree. But please don't tell my department that!

If I got a faculty job afterward, but was only offered it on condition that I don't get paid first year (or so), then sure. I could figure something out. A corporate job for free? Probably not, unless there were perks beyond it (I could see doing it for a year for housing and food, surviving my leisure on savings).

One of my goals in life is to be able to, mid-40s, have the option of leaving my work entirely. Part of why I think I'll be able to do this is that I'll have a six figure income and a mid-to-low five figure upkeep, even with golf figured in. I don't eat tons, I drink not too much, and beyond golf, I don't have any expensive hobbies. I can be happy living in a small house, and most of the places I want to live have much smaller cost-of-living rates than Los Angeles. That's not just a side-note, that's relevant to where I'm going on the topic.

There's going to be a good amount of money going into traditional savings vehicles and retirement accounts (so that some can grow tax-free until I'm old enough to have to retire).

Would I keep my job after I can do this? Depends on how much I'm enjoying it at the time. I might cut back hours. It's kind of like the "depends on the hours" thing. Doing a job when I don't need the money - if dividends (or is it interest?) from bond indexes can pay my living expenses, for example - is not too far removed from doing it for free in my mind.

[Harry Longshanks]

One of my goals in life is to be able to, mid-40s, have the option of leaving my work entirely. Part of why I think I'll be able to do this is that I'll have a six figure income and a mid-to-low five figure upkeep, even with golf figured in. I don't eat tons, I drink not too much, and beyond golf, I don't have any expensive hobbies. I can be happy living in a small house, and most of the places I want to live have much smaller cost-of-living rates than Los Angeles. That's not just a side-note, that's relevant to where I'm going on the topic.

Shindig,

I say this NOT to be a jerk, but just as friendly advice (and hopefully it will be taken that way) : That's the goal we all had. And it seems simple enough. Unfortunately, I don't know a single person who accomplished that goal. Too much stuff always gets in the way. There is nothing wrong with hoping and striving for it, but make sure you have other options and, more importantly, other goals and dreams. Having said that, I genuinely hope you succeed where so many of us have failed.

[Shindig]

Shindig,

Taken as friendly advice, no worries. Actually, I do know people (older than I am - anyone who can retire at 25 probably doesn't know me) who can walk away from their jobs today if they wanted. Some are in their 40s, others in their 50s. I've read about even more.

That having been said, they each enjoy their jobs, and probably won't walk away for some time. But being able to walk away and not doing so is, in my mind, very similar to working for free, just with a paycheck. As for me, I already enjoy the parts of the future job that I do - teaching (as a teaching assistant) and doing research (as a research assistant, although I'll be senior student in my lab before too long). So it's unlikely I'll walk away, even when I can afford to do so. But I will want to have the option, and once I have that option and keep the job, it's similar to saying I'd be willing to do it for free. Just with a paycheck. (and now I wonder if the way I wrote it even makes sense)