Life is Funny

Why do people always do this…

They value their own time. But as soon as you offer to help them with something, all of a sudden your time invested is worth very little.

Let me give you an example.

I know someone who makes arts and crafts. One one art project it may take him 2 months to complete, working in his spare time, maybe an hour a day, 5 times a week.

Someone will see what he has made, and say.. Hey, I’ll buy that offer you. Will you take $100 ?

He’ll sit there and do the math.  $100 purchase price – cost of art materials $25 = $75.00

So $75.00 / 40 hours = $1.88 per hour of labor.  He’ll then turn to them and say, would you work for less than $2 per hour?  All of a sudden, then they realize what an insult their offer was…

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Similarily, when you offer to help someone probono for a while, and they say “I’ll give you some money for your time”… they start to get really greedy, FAST. They want all kinds of things done, and they’ll work you to the bone.

This is a very bad arrangment to get into.. You’re thinking, well heck, I’ll toss them 10 hours of labor, and I’ll probably get $150 bucks for it.

Instead, they want 100 hours of labor, and intend on paying you $500 for it. (Again, thats only $5/hour, less than minimum wage)

A smart person will avoid these traps, or when they see them coming, they’ll avoid them and be very up front about it.  Today, someone who thought they were paying me $750 for an entire project that has used up 50 hours of my time, with another 100 hours still to go… is now being told that my 50 hours is worth $2500 todate, and that if we finish the job, its $7500 (not $750)

All of a sudden, now our friendship is called into question, which is fine. But I won’t be anyone’s slave, while they profit off of my cheap labor. Friends do favors for friends. A favor is something like “can you help me for an hour?” Not “can you help me for 150 hours?”

I saw a bumper sticker the other day on the back of a pickup truck. It read:

YES, THIS IS MY TRUCK. NO I WON’T HELP YOU MOVE.

Pretty bad isn’t it? Just because you own a pickup truck, all your friends ask you to help them move all the time. That’s not what friends are for.. Friends are for socializing. Not for stealing labor off each other and to see who can be more greedy about it.

So today I felt like I was acting greedy just because I wanted to get compensated for my time. But truthfully, I should not feel guilty about that… Life is tough, expenses are high, and we all have bills to pay. So asking for compensation for my labor is not wrong.. it’s the right thing for me to do..

But some people think my time and labor will always think my time is worth very little, and I can’t bow down and cater to them anymore.