Jobs

Lately I have heard a lot about the bad economy. People are losing their jobs left and right. Today, I realized that it is not as bad as we all think.

There's a story here. My roommate Scott just bought a very nice TV (a very nice TV), and when he took it out of the box, it didn't work. He called Sharp and they sent over a couple guys to fix it. When they got here, I was a bit underwhelmed. The technician was about 45 years old and looked very tired. The assistant was 30 or so, and definitely smoked pot while playing D&D in his mom's basement.

They asked where he bought the TV, and gave eachother a secret scoff when he told them he had bought it online. They told him that buying anything online was really risky and he should only purchase from stores with a physical location because there were more people to complain to when things broke.

Next, the technician (let's call him Harold) stared at the TV for a few minutes while the assistant (let's call him Milton) whipped out his cell phone and started playing solitaire. Harold told him to put it away, so he hid it by standing behind the couch and continued to play. Harold asked Scott the same questions he had answered over the phone ("so, it's not working?" and "are you sure it's plugged in?"). Then Harold called tech support, and they asked him those same questions. They unplugged it and plugged it back in a few times, and then decided that it was unfixable. All this while Milton continued to play solitaire. They told Scott to ask newegg for a new TV because this one was broken.

While these guys were here (about 45 mintes or more) I realized that somebody was paying them. Somebody paid these two guys to come over to our house, play soliatare, and ask the same questions we had already been asked. The only thing they did was take information they already should have had and determine that the problem was beyond their skill.

Then here comes the great part. While these two were being paid, they called somebody else (who was also being paid for his time) and all he could do was ask them the same questions and determine that it was also beyond his skill. There was something beautiful about seeing the three of them being paid to have a conversation about how none of them knew how to do the job they had been sent to do.

So, my thought is this: as long as these guys are getting paid, I don't think I have to worry about my job future.