Bon Journal

Pay to play

When I was a student, I paid to work. Work was study. Except for those times when I was in receipt of a scholarship, I had to pay for it.

When I was an employee, I got paid to work. If I was lucky, work was play. For most of the time, however, the monetary reward compensated for the time and energy I put into work.

After I became job-free, playing and working became mixed up. Working for free, so-called pro-bono work, allowed me to get involved in new areas and interact with new kinds of people, new communities. It allowed me to experiment and discover what was interesting to do.

For most people, you have to pay to play. You pay for a holiday. You pay to have a game of pool. You pay to have a drink with your friends. You pay to have a night in town.

During my short stint at the Renaissance Hotel at Heathrow, I got paid to play. Once I discovered how nice it was to get paid to play, I started exploring other ways to get paid to do what I love.

How would I get paid to maintain this web site? Get sponsors? Get advertisers? Use affiliate marketing?

How would I get paid to write? Submit my work to publications that pay for my kind of work. Get commissioned to write. Get royalties from my published work. Get paid for editing.

Here's a two-by-two matrix (I just can't resist creating) to summarise this entry:

13 January 2004 Tuesday

No pay, no play