People who pay for conveniences in order to delegate their labor these days often confuse their class/caste privileges for a sign of maturity. What you’re confusing for a sign of maturity (people cooperating with you because you are competent/ respected) is actually capitalism replacing your social connections with money. You’ll notice that’s also how they trashed the rest of your society, if you take two minutes and think about it.
Nah, you’re missing two bits. One, you don’t personally share this delusion and aren’t being criticized. Two, you’re highlighting your class privilege by associating your time with money. I have no beef with professionals doing stuff a hobbyist is capable of. I just notice some people think that being able to pay to save their own time means that they’re wise instead of solvent.
Time is a finite resource. There are only so many hours a week and we have to make choices on where to spend those few hours. Privilege may dictate how many hours they can trade off, but we all do it. I guarantee the people at Jiffy Lube still make tradeoffs themselves on the weekend, but I admit those tradeoffs are more difficult the less money you have. For me, yes, I say the spending of $30 to save 2 hours of time is well worth it. Those 2 hours are more valuable to me spent elsewhere. That’s me though and my status. There’s a thousand other things though we decide on.
Are you a classist because you buy bread instead of making it yourself? What about choosing to work and hiring childcare?
I worked at Geek Squad now over a decade ago and learned then that I was wrong for thinking they took advantage of people, it’s that for most of the people who walked in they had more important things to do than to sit and fix their computer. I personally would do it at home, but it’s a skill I had and why pay money for a skill I had at the time, and I find enjoyment out of it. I did learn that most people have different skills though, and they would rather spend their time and money elsewhere. People of all classes and incomes.
you don’t share the perspective being criticized here but do you see how people a scootch luckier than you career-wise (and i’m not sniffing at 10 years of technical employment) might be susceptible to the “maturity” notion?
Oh I got yelled at constantly, demeaned, and shit on as a low level worker constantly. I put in 5 years retail there at best buy, and 5 years of fast food before then. If that’s what this is all about, then I completely see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think it’s related to this directly, in fact it’s the opposite I’ve found.
In my experience working those menial jobs it wasn’t the wealthy or the rich who made it their mission to make sure I knew my place - it was the people on the lowest rungs of society. The people who were often the poorest were also the ones who would really shove in my face that they were paying me for a service. It wasn’t the well to do woman wearing a suit who came in asking me to fix her computer who would yell at me, it was the old farmer who drive 2 hours to nowhere to have me fix it and demean me.
And maybe that’s your point, it’s a little garbled in the messaging but maybe that’s what you were trying to say. From what I saw, they had someone in front of them that was finally “below” them, and they took every advantage of that fact. I had literal cheeseburgers thrown at me by people who were at best my equals at the time. Looking back I pity them, I think it’s a psychology thing. They had someone to prove to them that they weren’t the lowest class. It’s where racism and homophobia comes into play. To them as long as there is someone in their mind below them, they’re not the worst.
Yeah the worst bosses I ever had were when I worked in food service, because they were the only person making a decent living (maybe $80k at the time) while holding complete power over an army of minimum wage employees who didn’t really have choices.
For what its worth, I agree with you.
You did qualify what you said: “often confuse”.
Not “always confuse”, you didn’t say what you said totally without qualification.
It indeed ‘is often’ the case that people confuse convenience with… some kind of false, or ultimately self defeating idea of social status.
By using qualifiers in your original statement, you made it clear that you are describing a broad or general trend, not an absolute black and white rule.
…
Judging by your use of ‘cash-pilled’, I am guessing you are younger than myself, and all the older farts in this thread talking about whether or not to oil up their own dipsticks, lol.
I would imagine what you are saying is much, much more generally true with people your age, younger… the simple stats bare out that as economy has gotten worse and worse, it has financialized much more, everything is a subscription, a micro loan, nothing is built to last but instead built to break or be thrown away, finding a job with better than subsistence wages is extremely difficult, almost none of you will ever own a house, or be able to climb any kind of social ladder.
This has produced the phenomenon of ‘luxury poverty’… saving up for things is pointless, so dive headlong into conspicuous consumerism.
AI is going to ‘do everything’, so why bother developing a hobby or a skill… why even bother learning anything, writing anything.
And then of course all the mass shootings, and climate change is going to burn down and flood the world… life is cheap, yolo, live fast, die hard, there is no future.
…
Sure, it can be rational to pay someone else to do something for you, if your own time is more valuable.
But, you are, I think, coming from a perspective where… no, most younger people’s time actually is not that valuable, and they are being foolish in paying a premium for convenience, when their wages are usually so low that the straight math of the equation doesn’t work out …
… and they are also robbing themselves of experiences and opportunities to actually develop useful skills… and those experiences, they could actually be an antidote to the mindless narcissistic nilhism engendered by never having to do anything ‘real’.
…
So maybe that is a bit of the disconnect here, which you are trying to get at via mentioning classism:
You have trouble seeing that a person can work, still be working class, but it can also make sense for them to not do everything themself.
But others have trouble seeing the true extent of the … just, poverty, of the younger generation, which you identify as a meaningful dispsrarity of wealth.
…
I guess I wish I could have showed you the 90s.
We really were optimistic, broadly, back then.
Thought that things would get better, the internet and computers would usher in ‘The End of History’, a somewhat bumpy but predictable ride toward a near utopia.
We were very wrong.
But still, I wish you could have known some of that… awe, wonder, and hope.