I wrote a comment on the story The Squeeze: Have you become an ‘insourcer’? this morning, but after thinking about it a bit more I’ve decided that I want to open up the conversation a bit further.
Please read the original post for context prior to continuing here. It’s a good article and Peter St. Onge raises some solid points, but there is one assumption that I feel needs to be called out and addressed.
The basic gist of the story is that people are reducing their expenditures for services like lawn care, house cleaning and car repair due to the downturn in the economy. That makes sense, it’s a natural reaction, and a responsible one. But I take issue with the idea embodied in the following quote:
Oakley tells The Squeeze that behaviors like insourcing – productive and self-improving as they might feel – aren’t deep-rooted. When the conditions that cause behavior change, “consumers will return to natural tendencies,” he says.
If all of that makes us sound … weak, well, we are who are we are. But there’s possibility for change.
Peter St. Onge
Wow. That’s not how I view it at all. Using a service isn’t necessarily a a sign of weakness – it’s trading money for time. It provides the opportunity to focus on subjects and projects that are and challenging. It affords the chance to grow personally.
Not mowing a lawn does not make one weak. Watching TV instead of mowing the lawn makes one weak. That’s an important distinction.
Yes, there is definitely a point where the cost of a service is too high which is multiplied if there is the risk of financial instability as we now face, but it’s dangerous to assume that the idea of using a service as a whole is bad.
One commenter noted that Walmart stopped selling thread because people “don’t do things anymore”. That’s odd, I know people who knit, sew their own dresses, woodwork, build robots, barbecue (woot!), restore their houses, build bikes and do many other projects. They don’t go to Walmart for materials because Walmart doesn’t provide the level of quality they need. People do stuff, they just have better sources for their materials than a giant retailer. Walmart finds it more profitable to encourage customers to buy a finished product than to sell components, so it makes sense that they’re modify shelf-space accordingly.
Pieces like this are frustrating because the core premise is interesting (how people change their behaviors during tough times and whether or not those behaviors will become ingrained is fascinating), but it’s quickly derailed by false assumption that we as a species, country or community are lazy.
Not being interested in lawn care doesn’t make me lazy. I’d prefer to spend that amount of time thinking about the tools I want to build, the communities I want to improve and the challenges I want to beat.
What money-for-time trades do you make? Which will you hold onto the longest and which is the first to drop?
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4 comments so far… Jump into the discussion and tell us what you think.
I had to think for a while before simply posting a “me too” response to this post, because I’m pretty much 100% in agreement with your take on insourcing. In years past I did things like maintain my own lawn, clean my own house, and even color my own hair. The results weren’t great, but they got me by. But then life became more full and I had to start contemplating the value of my time. If I have the choice to trade the 4 hours it takes to clean my house on Saturday with 4 hours of quality time with my family and the $136 fee to my house cleaners I will happily do it. That $34/hour is worth it in spades. I don’t trade my time gained by outsourcing to sit around eating bon-bons – I use it for family time, learning time, and precious me time.
Of course, given the current state of the world, valuation of my time is in flux, so it’s important to regularly take a look at what I’m outsourcing. I’ve cut back in some areas and do many things less frequently, but one thing I know is clear, I don’t consider myself lazy for choosing to not do some things myself in return for precious time. I consider myself smart for turning certain tasks over to those better at them than I am and that’s simply the price I pay for personal growth and sanity.
Well put Natanya. You touched on something that I left out in my post, but is important – expertise. My lawn looks significantly better when a service takes care of it than when I do, which has a halo effect in that I’m happier when I’m outdoors. Sometimes we’re not just trading money for time, we also get the bonus of an improved experience.
Am I being too paranoid by saying that the core assumption is tied up with the idea of the “American Dream”? That if we were “good” Americans we’d be able to purchase better stuff and sit on our laurels more often — and, more dangerously, the converse: Lacking the ability to buy stuff means we are somehow deficient?
So, yeah, 100% me too. It’s simple economics, cost/benefit analysis, no weird moral overtone.
I don’t think it’s paranoid. I do agree that the “American Dream” is often times skewed towards ownership and wealth instead of happiness and achievement.
For me the dream, and success as a whole comes down to my ability to seek that which I find interesting and have the means to access and interact with it. Monetary wealth may be an American Dream, but so is recognition for art, bringing together people to improve a community or sharing experiences with those we love.
The “right to pursue happiness” is the key of it. My choosing to pay someone else to mow my lawn provides me the opportunity to find and experience that which makes me happy.