Fellow youths, I bring horrible, world-ending news. Our university — nay, our universe itself has been afflicted with a terrible curse. It is the most vile, sinister curse I have ever seen in my 215 humble years of existence — we all desire to work without pay. That’s right: unpaid! Uncompensated! I can truly think of nothing more evil.

Every summer, we are expected to toil away at the work others refuse to do, and we must be grateful for it. It matters not how degrading, exhausting, or mind-numbing the work is; we must be grateful, like a mantra repeated by an Instagram mommy blogger who walks the line between fetish work and child abuse. We grovel, kneeling before the great gods of research and industry, and we beg: please, sir, might I have a bit of laboratory work? I’ll wash dishes for a month! I’ll lick the acid from your glassware myself! I must ask: What the fuck has happened to us?

There is but one explanation: we are cursed. Little else could cause such a universal desire to work without compensation — and nothing else could explain the reason we subject ourselves to humiliation, pleading to do the work no one else wants. And we still get ignored! Communication is open for weeks, then our prospective employers simply cease responding. This cannot be the force of a benevolent god.

No one wants to work! What a preposterous claim! Apparently, everyone wants to work — and without any of the benefits! No pay, no healthcare, nothing! Despite all logic and reason, everyone wants to work for some vague, possible future success that hinges upon too many moving parts to be guaranteed. Nonsense, I say! We are fools to listen to the whispers of the devil, promising riches to those who work, work, work!

This past summer, I spent 95 days in a cave in rural New Mexico, playing video games for 19 hours a day and subsisting off of potions brewed from forageables. I did not work, nor did I volunteer. I rescued scorpions from an untimely death, and those were my good deeds for the summer. And I was happy. The gap in my résumé has filled a gap in my heart, and I will not offer excuses to future employers.

However, there is still hope for the rest of the world. I can formulate a cure. It may take time and effort, but I promise, I will return our peers to their senses. We will only desire work that has tangible benefits. We will no longer feel the unceasing obligation to serve the machine. We will have time to produce art, visit our loved ones, and find a sense of purpose outside of our employment.
In the meantime, I must research my cure. It is a most wonderful potion, and undoubtedly foolproof — but I will have to hunt the ingredients down myself. I will need a crushed Erlenmeyer flask, one humanely raised rat, a dash of unionization, a heap of self-respect, and the blood of a billionaire to finish it off.