do-it-yourself
I was thinking today about all the many ways we Americans are actually "served" by other people in daily life. I mean, at a restaurant or in a store, the server or clerk has to pretty much be nice to you no matter how you act. If you ask to talk to the manager, he or she may be allowed to say a few harsh words to you, if your behavior is particularly bad. But even then, she might be in trouble with even-more-higher-ups if she drives you away from the store.
Think about buying things in some other cultures - it's not always like that. In some places, you engage each other as equals, arguing and haggling.
Of course, most of us try to treat those who "serve" us pretty well, partially to avoid sneezed-on food, and partially because most of us inhabit both roles during a given day - a bank teller works hard to get everybody's banking transactions completed quickly, then goes out later and expects a perfect martini from the bartender.
Sometimes I think what motivates Americans to make more money, is to be served more often, and to serve less. More than that I think we want things done for us; not to do things. We want to be paid for our brilliant thoughts, carried out by someone else's hands.
I felt like I was wrestling with that on a small scale today - I keep finding spiders in my basement apartment in a beautiful 100-year-old building, and it makes me think of another apartment I looked at when I moved, a sparkling clean 10-year-old condo that rented for another 100 bucks a month. How nice to have everything all taken care of, no cracks in the drywall, with no worries of bugs. And central air, so I wouldn't have to get the landlord to help me lug the window unit out in the fall. A generic, white-and-beige clean slate on which to paint my life. Less time taking care of things, more time to be artsy fartsy and dream.
But I'd have to have a higher-paying job, maybe working in an office; emailing files, collating documents. I'd have to give my money to a faceless rental company, rather than my friendly landlords. I'd have more, and do less.
It's not neccessarily awful to want people to do things for you, but it gets to be a slippery slope. "Life would be soooo much easier if I had the car with navigation control, the cell phone with all my friends' numbers programmed in, the house in the gated community." "How great would it be if I could eat out every night and never cook?" We start to think we need the things we want. Our society is so lopsided that we know that we want to be the ones who are served, NOT the ones who serve.
Thinking of that, I decided not to search the want ads this Saturday night, and instead I cleaned my apartment, so as not to attract the spiders, and went around sealing up cracks and possible entry points. Then I saved money by cooking my own tostadas. The clerk at the grocery store recognized my ingredients right away, and started telling me about how her Mexican relatives make them. So maybe what we gain by doing, not just having, is community.
posted by Kim @ 1:32 PM
4 Comments:
Interestingly, I read somewhere that before modern conveniences like electricity and grocers, people ate their main meals of the day at inns because they were too busy working the farm to be able to cook. This meant that eating at home was a sign of nobility/wealth -- they could afford to pay someone to cook for them. Fascinating how things are reversed yet are exactly the same.
Today, many poor people don't have adequate kitchen facilities, so they have little choice but to eat out. Or they don't have access to a full grocery store, just the convenience store on the corner. People who don't have adequate resources eat calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food (the dollar menu at McD's) because it's affordable and what they can get (much like the underclass in 1650).
People who have access to a functioning stove, for example, and a good grocery store have the option to cook for themselves, or go out; sometimes doing both. People on tighter budgets may go out less often.
Then there's the people who have so much money they can pay other people to do everything for them, which is unchanged from 1650.
So, to sum up:
poor: have always eaten out because of inadequate resources
middle class: have recently (eg, last 250 years or so) begun eating at home, as industry has increased leisure time, but some still go out with varying frequency
rich: have always paid people to do work for them.
Hmm, I never thought of cooking my own meals as a middle class luxury, but it's true.
Thanks for the birthday wishes by the way! My old cell phone died so I have lost both your phone number and most current email address.
I hadn't considered it either, until I read a discussion of Nickel and Dimed, where the author found that her plan to make large quantities of, say, lentil stew and have leftovers all week were thwarted by her lack of cooking facilities. I think she lived in a hotel at one point.
Do you still use your yahoo address?
Yeah, a relative of mine lived in a hotel for a while, and worked in several convenience stores - even though he walked to work he couldn't keep his weight down.
Yep, still use it!
Post a Comment
<< Home