This is a Tweet from two days ago about an intern who dreads the writing work they’re doing at their first internship, which is about federal funding. The intern continues by saying “nothing that fills my cup will ever pay the bills”… But, what if it could?…
What if the intern was actually interested in the topic of the blog post they were paid to write… what if they were actually interested in writing about federal funding? This may be possible with a little more freedom.
In my first job ever, I am having the time of my life writing blog posts, which I am paid to write. Some of the topics i write about are picked for me, and i also get to pick some of my own, but the key point is that i have creative freedom in where i take my articles. Thus, i never find it boring, nor does it ever feel like my life is doomed because of work.
For example, the last blog post i wrote was about a new standard in the telecommunications industry. It is an industry standard for cooperating on some new tech, and i got to write about both the tech and the management side of the project. I delved deep into GitHub and looked through the project’s repositories, trying to understand how exactly the app worked. I also looked through articles on Google scholar and came up with possible use cases for the new tech.
It was a fascinating subject for me. It was similar to other blog posts i’ve been writing at this job. They all are at the ‘intersection of society and technology’. I even added a section to my personal blog with the same title, and post related essays i write in my free time.
I think the key of why i enjoy this job:
i kept doing what i liked (blog posts, tech studying),
found a place within society that let’s me keep doing that (the company),
which also connects me with collaborators (i get to talk to industry experts about my blog posts), and pays me (my salary).
Sure, i get asked to write about certain subjects, but they are not boring. They are not inteded to be tedious marketing chores (which the intern’s blog post probably was). They are intended for me to explore new venues of tech and present them to the company. Thus, the work i am comissioned for, expands my horizons.
The company even fixes the ‘solve for distribution’ challenge for me. I wrote a marketing script that got read twice by an analyst—an senior industry expert—who gave me a detailed thirty-minute feedback about how things (in marketing) worked and why some things (in my script) could be changed.
The analyst told me something which i never expected to encounter in a marketing context. This quote was actually from him:
I wrote “Global and Connected Bards” and “Ancestral Recall” last February, two essays about myth telling and its place in our societies. And i would have never expected to encounter Bardistry and Folk Tales in my new tech job…
When I publish a post on my personal blog (like the one you’re reading now), which i have been doing quite frequently in the last few months, i rarely get any feedback from people. I don’t actually expect this feedback to come on its own. It’s my responsibility to set out and acquire it, as stated by the ‘solve for distribution’ principle… And I keep producing even if i don’t get feedback because i’m writing the stuff i want to see being written. I write for myself. I create the content i find valuable. I want them out there! Yet, I also want others to see and comment on my work. That would fertilize my work. And, finding those collaborators and critics can be a though job.
So then, when you are creating on your own: one – all your resources are your own.
you have to build your own feedback machine—your own intellectual circle of collaborators—and generate your own electricity—which is your feedback and other wayguides. Nobody’s going to hand them out to you.
Whereas when you are part of a company: what you write makes them money, so they want to see you succeed. They’ll find you the collaborators, find you the goals and the new vistas. You just have to put your mind to work on their problems, and invent the outputs—which are the blog posts.
So there’s a strange trade-off, between having resources and having ultimate freedom.
Then what I say is this…
A good company provides you the following:
A good company can pay people to review your work, they can pay others to make your writing better! It’s in the company’s best interest for you to get better as a writer, so they won’t hesitate to spend money and make that happen.
In addition, when your work get’s published, you get many more readers! Since it’s published on the company’s website and blog, it will have many more readers waiting to read about the latest industry standards…
But, you don’t get to write about what you want, which is what writing is all about!
To sum up…
Writing for a company can be an advantage: it gives you better publicity, a goal and direction, and the resources to get better. A period of working at a company can be a stepping stone for so many writers out there.
So if you’re going to dread the first internship, the boring writing work you get at your first internship, realize that you’ve landed a boring job, and know that things can be different: you might actually enjoy writing for a salary—your dream job and “the paying job” might overlap to some extent—and you might benefit tremendously from your job.
Giray's Sandal 