Member-only story
Like I’m Back In Prison
Busting my ass for medium.com wages
Most people who are reading this have never been to prison. Probably a good thing. But I have. It’s not all that much fun. My manner of coping was reading every book in the library and working every shitty job I could to pass the time.
Prison jobs don’t pay all that much. And that’s an understatement. Humping the kitchen paid 6 cents per hour (although you could sell the food they gave you — or you stole — which could effectively raise your wage to a whole dollar per hour). Depending on your educational level, suicide watch pay lay between 12 cents and a dollar per hour. Obviously, nobody got rich from this employment. You had to deal tobacco, deuce or hooch to make any real money.
To the point: Medium.com. Oh my god! I feel like I’m back in prison!
Two parallel worlds: Before incarceration, I was making major bucks running an adult ad agency (ads to hookers). After I got locked up? A dollar an hour tops. Kind of a long way down.
After my release, I garnered some nice paydays via my association with Paul Manafort and Jeffrey Epstein while I was in prison. The NY Daily News and Daily Beast were paying me mid three figures for 1000 word op-eds that were taking me 30 minutes to write.
