I’m always shocked to see rich folks complaining about how long it takes to do various routine tasks/maintenance. Like, if you don’t like mowing the lawn, hire someone. If you don’t like picking stuff up, then leave it on the ground or hire a maid. Basically, once you have a lot of money, you shouldn’t spend time in ways you don’t want to.
Have you tried asking them why they don’t pay someone else? Because I can imagine a few reasons (some of them rational, some irrational) for doing so.
Maybe some of them are richer than average, but not rich enough to start paying people for doing things for them. Some people may seem more rich than they actually are, if they optimize for showing wealth. For example, they may have a huge house and an expensive car, but also a crushing mortgage that consumes most of their above-average income. So you look at the house and the car and get the impression they must be super rich (which is exactly what they optimized for), but they actually have no cash left after paying their regular bills to also pay someone for mowing the lawn.
Maybe they were poor in the past, and didn’t update (emotionally) yet. Maybe their income is large but uncertain, so they make saving the extra money the priority. Or maybe they just never did a market research, so they imagine that paying someone for doing stuff is more expensive than it actually is.
Or maybe the complaints are insincere and they actually enjoy doing the stuff, but for some reason want to appear as disliking it. Maybe they don’t want to seem too satisfied with their lives, to prevent envy, so they make up artificial problems. Or maybe they are obsessive perfectionists, who would never be satisfied with how someone else does the job.
It’s easy to underestimate the search and management costs (and the actual monetary costs in many locations) of finding, trusting, and paying people to do routine tasks for you.
I did, yeah. Isn’t that what you do when you don’t understand someone’s decision? What does that have to do with a behavior being surprising?
Imagine you were getting to know someone. Then they reveal that they are devout followers of Scientology. You are surprised. You ask what’s up. They give an explanation roughly on par with the stuff you wrote above. Are you surprised the next time you meet a person who turns out to be a Scientologist?
Yes, because it is weird. Things can be shocking and also explainable.
I’m always shocked to see rich folks complaining about how long it takes to do various routine tasks/maintenance. Like, if you don’t like mowing the lawn, hire someone. If you don’t like picking stuff up, then leave it on the ground or hire a maid. Basically, once you have a lot of money, you shouldn’t spend time in ways you don’t want to.
Have you tried asking them why they don’t pay someone else? Because I can imagine a few reasons (some of them rational, some irrational) for doing so.
Maybe some of them are richer than average, but not rich enough to start paying people for doing things for them. Some people may seem more rich than they actually are, if they optimize for showing wealth. For example, they may have a huge house and an expensive car, but also a crushing mortgage that consumes most of their above-average income. So you look at the house and the car and get the impression they must be super rich (which is exactly what they optimized for), but they actually have no cash left after paying their regular bills to also pay someone for mowing the lawn.
Maybe they were poor in the past, and didn’t update (emotionally) yet. Maybe their income is large but uncertain, so they make saving the extra money the priority. Or maybe they just never did a market research, so they imagine that paying someone for doing stuff is more expensive than it actually is.
Or maybe the complaints are insincere and they actually enjoy doing the stuff, but for some reason want to appear as disliking it. Maybe they don’t want to seem too satisfied with their lives, to prevent envy, so they make up artificial problems. Or maybe they are obsessive perfectionists, who would never be satisfied with how someone else does the job.
It’s easy to underestimate the search and management costs (and the actual monetary costs in many locations) of finding, trusting, and paying people to do routine tasks for you.
This.
This.
I did, yeah. Isn’t that what you do when you don’t understand someone’s decision? What does that have to do with a behavior being surprising?
Imagine you were getting to know someone. Then they reveal that they are devout followers of Scientology. You are surprised. You ask what’s up. They give an explanation roughly on par with the stuff you wrote above. Are you surprised the next time you meet a person who turns out to be a Scientologist?
Yes, because it is weird. Things can be shocking and also explainable.
And their reply was....?
Different things for each person. Security paranoia, ‘always done it this way’, perfectionism...