This Company is Like a Family in That We Won’t Pay You

Hello, and welcome to your first day at The Big Family Corporation! The first thing you should know about working here is that this company is more than just a business. We’re not just some profit-focused establishment wherein you use your skills to further our goals in exchange for fair compensation. No sir, we’re not just some cold collection of business drones. We like to think of ourselves more like a family, in that we expect you to give us 100% of your loyalty and dedication, and you shouldn’t expect us to give you any money for it.

Afterall, what is money anyway but a symbol of professional value and a resource with which you can live your life? Pretty shallow, isn’t it? We’re about so much more than that here. We’re about love and caring and pulling together as a team that no one gets paid to be on. In fact, we care about you so much that we want to protect you from the corrupting influence of money by keeping it all for ourselves. Sure, that may mean we’ll be forced to spend our days on yachts and in mansions, but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make for you. Because you’re family to us.

And all we ask in exchange is you treat us like family in return. You shouldn’t think of working here as just a job you put down at the end of the day so you can go home to your family. We’re your family now, so you should have no reason to go home. Ever. After all, everyone knows family doesn’t keep regular business hours. It’s 24/7. It’s the people you’d get out of bed at 3 AM to help out of a jam without expecting anything, especially financial compensation, in return. That’s it. That’s all we expect. Just that you make yourself available around the clock without getting paid extra for it, like you would for any of your other family members.

Isn’t it so much more fulfilling to contribute above and beyond just because you care? I mean, when you take a whole Saturday to throw a birthday party for your son, you don’t ask him for overtime pay. Come on, that’s just gross. No, you do it because you love him. That’s exactly why you’ll never get a raise for doing extra work here. Because families aren’t a transactional exchange. They’re about love. That’s why we expect you to love working here too much to ever ask for anything from us, ever.

But we’re not just a family in that we expect to be your priority way out of proportion to the concrete material compensation we provide. We’re also a family in that we keep you grounded. We don’t want you to get a big head over your successes, or value yourself to a degree that you start expecting fair financial returns, so we’ll take every opportunity we can to remind you that no matter how successful you become, you’ll always be the same unpaid intern to us.

So anyway, that’s my little orientation speech. Welcome to the family. If you need me don’t hesitate to call. I won’t answer, but when I see you at the holiday party I’ll act like I’m happy to see you. Because that’s what family does.