A Curmudgeonly Response

Although I have not had the heart to delete him from my links, it appears the Craigslist Curmudgeon is no more. He has not posted for nearly 3 months.

With amazing synchronicity, however--especially given my post of two days ago, to Harlan Ellison's rant about writers not getting paid or voluntarily working for nothing--I received a form email from a company that had advertised on Craigslist. They called for writers, and I responded. The ad gave the impression they would pay; otherwise, I would not have bothered. Here's what I got back:

Dear Candidate:

Thank you for your response. Here is a link that will give you the job details.
(deleted, since it doesn't)
The above link will give you more information about an unpaid internship. However, we are offering the same job with an hourly pay ranging up to $10.00/hr. . . . (jump through a few more hoops) if you still feel you are qualified and able to do this job, you will receive your first task as an intern delivered to your email.
Although you possess outstanding skill and credentials, we will still require you to go through our internship. It is a free internship, and will provide us with the necessary feedback and will tell both of us, if you have the proper skills to work for us and if it is really something to want to do. . . . We cannot tell you exactly what your rate of pay will be until you complete the first task as an intern. However, I want to let you know that we do give cash gifts to those individuals who exceed our expectations during the internship.

OK, people, can I get a big, loud "What the F@#!" from the congregation?

It's free-lance, not free.