Business

This is touted by the political Right as an age of entrepreneurship. Libertarians cry out that everything would be just peachy under a totally Free Market system. Well, I am here to testify that the business and work ethic in the U.S. is in a bad way, judging from my experiences of it recently.

Ben Franklin, Businessman
I should begin by saying I have owned three small (tiny) businesses over the years. While I am well to the Left of any political chart, I practiced business with the serious ethics of the Protestant forebears of this country. Clean balance sheets. Do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. Show up on time. Do the whole job the best you can mange for the price offered. Do not whine or complain to a customer. Work hard and do the job as you would have it done for yourself. 

As a customer today, I am amazed at the sloppy and irresponsible behaviors I encounter everywhere with independent contractors. However, the prices are by no means lower than they were. They are exorbitant. This is no great advertisement for the Free Market and Libertarian values. What I see is a lot of freedom to do a lousy job for too much money with no values at all.

Estimates are bizarrely divergent for the same job. This indicates that estimates are not based on any physical reality of cost of materials and labor plus mark-up. They are simply imaginings, fantasy numbers, perhaps based on the price of a contractor's desired motorcycle or fishing boat.

Once a price is agreed upon, actually getting the service deliverer to deliver the service in a timely and efficient manner is nearly a full-time job in itself for the consumer. Insult to injury. It took two appointments for a plumber to recently fix a leak in a kitchen sink. The first repair ignored a problem that still leaked. Both times the plumber was an hour late. This was over $400 for a job which took about 45 minutes between the two appointments. It would have taken less time if it had been done correctly in the first place. 

I have found that I must call to confirm absolutely every appointment for service a day in advance after being repeatedly stood-up. The follow-up calls to the absent contractor usually gets a response like, "Oh, man, I had a really long weekend, if you know what I mean." I am supposed to be forgiving of this irresponsibility and just pay high prices for rescheduled labor at my inconvenience. 

For many years, I have honored my standard of "Business is business. Social work is social work." In other words, even in Social Work, the fee structure must be clear and the bills must be collected. I do not mix business with friendship or pleasure. I pay for service as it is delivered. I do not expect credit nor do I expect services to lag on forever while I twiddle my thumbs. This used to be the better part of the much-maligned Protestant Ethic. It was the only worthwhile part, in my opinion, as a practical humanist.

Comments

Popular Posts