In any given week, many people choose to have someone else:
-wash their car
-clean their house
-feed, walk, bathe, and groom their pets
-fix the car
-landscape the yard
-drive us around. to the airport, home from the pub…
-take care of financial matters including taxes
-launder and fold our clothes
-make coffee and for that matter:
-breakfast, lunch, and dinner
(Any other big ones I’m missing?)
Obviously, these things we can do ourselves.
Someone in my office roasts his own coffee. I think there’s something great about that.
As I’m writing this, I sip from my savvily-packaged (yet weak in defense, fully-recyclable) venti Starbucks I picked up on the way in because truthfully who knows where my mug went. And, I like their Tazo tea.
This package is more than $2.39. It’s comfort, it’s identity (oh, the options to choose from! I’d like a “tall extra-hot americano, please” an actual reply from a baristo “I’ll let you know when he walks in the door!”) , and most importantly it’s ease.
In looking over the aformentioned list, I subscribe to many of these. Why? The answer to that is simple. Why not? It’s not a matter being unable to handle the day-to-day minutiae anymore. I’m buying convenience.
It makes me wonder what kind of shift is happening here on a socioeconomic level. As we place a higher value on the reliance of services, will we place a higher premium on the service-based industries? Will we start to see higher end and/or gourmet services with higher premiums?
What does this say about the way we work, and live?
Great post Nicole! So true. I mean, Americans have either become SO lazy or SO overwhelmed that we don’t even have time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or put cream cheese on our bagels – they come frozen with the peanut butter and jelly already together in a crustless bread “package” or pre-cheesed.
I think it has a lot to do with more families having 2 working parents. And the high cost of living compared to what our parents went through where it was easier to have one person work and another stay home and raise the kids, living on one salary. How many people in this day and age can afford to do that? I’m guessing a lot less than our parents’ generation but I haven’t researched the numbers.
The irony is all this mass consumption is so much worse for the planet – all those throw away Starbucks cups and waste created by businesses.
I wonder how much money someone could save by doing ALL those things on your list themselves?
As for me, I can’t wash my car as I don’t have a driveway or hose to do it with so it’s either car wash or dirty car and car washes are actually more environmentally friendly than “doing it yourself” unless you use only one bucket of soap and water…and who does that?
As for cleaning, in LA we can find affordable people to clean for us and personally I rather work an extra hour or two doing my job and outsource the house cleaning than to do it myself.
I definitely have no ability to fix my car and I’ve done my own taxes and while saving $, it’s very frustrating and I rather again, work more hours at work and make money doing something I know I’m good at than trying to master accounting or tax software.
Nice post!
Great post Nicole! So true. I mean, Americans have either become SO lazy or SO overwhelmed that we don’t even have time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or put cream cheese on our bagels – they come frozen with the peanut butter and jelly already together in a crustless bread “package” or pre-cheesed.
I think it has a lot to do with more families having 2 working parents. And the high cost of living compared to what our parents went through where it was easier to have one person work and another stay home and raise the kids, living on one salary. How many people in this day and age can afford to do that? I’m guessing a lot less than our parents’ generation but I haven’t researched the numbers.
The irony is all this mass consumption is so much worse for the planet – all those throw away Starbucks cups and waste created by businesses.
I wonder how much money someone could save by doing ALL those things on your list themselves?
As for me, I can’t wash my car as I don’t have a driveway or hose to do it with so it’s either car wash or dirty car and car washes are actually more environmentally friendly than “doing it yourself” unless you use only one bucket of soap and water…and who does that?
As for cleaning, in LA we can find affordable people to clean for us and personally I rather work an extra hour or two doing my job and outsource the house cleaning than to do it myself.
I definitely have no ability to fix my car and I’ve done my own taxes and while saving $, it’s very frustrating and I rather again, work more hours at work and make money doing something I know I’m good at than trying to master accounting or tax software.
Nice post!
I like to think that placing a high value on services is part of the American way of life. So much of what we do can be considered service whether it’s volunteering, waiting tables, working at Jiffy Lube, programming internet radio, etc. And in this country we do place a higher value on services and even self-impose premiums in the form of gratuity. Anyone who shops at Whole Foods knows what it means to pay a premium.
This is what I love. But I’m also one of those primadonna commies that hates Starbucks. This model of robotic service of products with Francaitaliano names makes it seem OK to get all of our addictive products from some big box corporation. But it stifles innovation and kills small businesses.
Convenience? nah – I’ll always walk the extra block or drive an extra mile to avoid that place. Just yesterday I was going to visit one of my all-time fave coffee shops, Water Canyon Coffee, to taste their roast and see if there was any open mic going on or at least use their free WiFi. Closed. Probably because Starbucks finally moved in — to the cookie-cutter supermarket down the street.
In this sense, Starbucks is capitalizing on our suckerdom to the status quo: the cool thing is familiar and more trustworthy – i see it on TV.
Call me a traditionalist but I prefer to place a premium on the places that offer great service while providing community and incentive to innovate. I mean what if the *only* place to make coffee/tea products for was Starbucks and the *only* place to publicly sell physical CDs was Wal Mart and we could only by American cars? Would life be a big old clunky Billy Joel song?
I like to think that placing a high value on services is part of the American way of life. So much of what we do can be considered service whether it’s volunteering, waiting tables, working at Jiffy Lube, programming internet radio, etc. And in this country we do place a higher value on services and even self-impose premiums in the form of gratuity. Anyone who shops at Whole Foods knows what it means to pay a premium.
This is what I love. But I’m also one of those primadonna commies that hates Starbucks. This model of robotic service of products with Francaitaliano names makes it seem OK to get all of our addictive products from some big box corporation. But it stifles innovation and kills small businesses.
Convenience? nah – I’ll always walk the extra block or drive an extra mile to avoid that place. Just yesterday I was going to visit one of my all-time fave coffee shops, Water Canyon Coffee, to taste their roast and see if there was any open mic going on or at least use their free WiFi. Closed. Probably because Starbucks finally moved in — to the cookie-cutter supermarket down the street.
In this sense, Starbucks is capitalizing on our suckerdom to the status quo: the cool thing is familiar and more trustworthy – i see it on TV.
Call me a traditionalist but I prefer to place a premium on the places that offer great service while providing community and incentive to innovate. I mean what if the *only* place to make coffee/tea products for was Starbucks and the *only* place to publicly sell physical CDs was Wal Mart and we could only by American cars? Would life be a big old clunky Billy Joel song?
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