Is It Our Duty To Hire?

There is a concept that I have been thinking about lately partly based on a comment in a book that I read and partly triggered by my trip to Japan. I am still working it all out but I think that it is important and may help make a real difference so please indulge my ramblings as I try to talk it through.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. This series is mostly for young adults but enjoyed by “old” adults also. It is kind of like Friends meets Botswana meets Detecting. But the kind of detecting is whether or not the contestant in a beauty contest has a good character or whether a brother’s wife has good character or which one of the three suitors that a woman beauty shop owner has is trying to marry her for her money (i.e. which one has good character). So I think that you get the idea. The series is all about “good character”. In each story, just as in each episode of friends, nothing much happens and yet the “story” moves forward.

In one of the books the main character Mma Ramotswe discusses the practice in traditional Botswana society of hiring help – kitchen help, a maid, gardener, etc. – and I am not talking about only the “rich” people doing it but anybody who has more than 2 beans to rub together. In the book she (the character) talks about how it is a person’s duty to hire someone and give someone a job. Now, in the story, Mma Ramotswe is barely making ends meet. She owns her detective agency but she hardly makes an income at all, drives an ooooold white van, is foster mother to 2 children, but she has a full time maid plus full time help in her agency. She talks about how by giving a job to someone else you allow them to feed their family and they may even hire someone so that they can feed their family and so on down the line. This is a truly different way than we think in the “West”.

Now Mma Ramotswe could probably buy herself a newer car, or some new dresses, or some new furniture with the money that she pays her maid / housekeeper. She might put some money in her savings account and build up a tidy nest egg with the money that she pays her employee (that she really doesn’t need as business isn’t that great). Yet she knows that by hiring her housekeeper and her agency employee that she is helping them feed their families. That she is making a difference to a host of other people. You might argue that by buying the goods to enhance her life she is helping the store keeper and the manufacturers and the shareholders. Is this better? Is it the same? You could then argue that she is ultimately still doing this because her housekeeper and agency employee will spend their income on food and other goods. The more I think about it the more I think that this is a way of thinking that we should examine a bit more. What if each one of us hired someone to help us? Could we give up one of our vacations to hire some help? Do we really need that new TV, iPod, iPhone, car? How much would we gain by freeing up the time that we spent on the things that we hired the person to do? What if we didn’t feel that we had to “do it all”? What if we could turn that around and say “I don’t have to do this because I will actually be helping someone if I hire them to do it”? Can we change our cultural patterns and social psychological norms to make this change? What would / could a “hiring” revolution do to our economy? To our unemployment levels?

More questions in a minute – back to Japan for a sec. In Japan, in the stores and in the restaurants and in the gas stations, in fact, in any business there are WAY, WAY more people working in them than you would EVER see here at home. You might have 4 store clerks working in a 10’ x 10’ shop. They are all pleasant and never pushy. They greet you when you walk in the door and they are all attentive just in case you might want help. They aren’t like those sales people here on commission that only are nice to you because you might buy something. They don't crowd or pester you making you feel alternately like a shoplifter and prey. They aren't there because a psychological study about shoplifting said that there is a 35% (or something like that) reduction on shoplifting if you are greeted when entering a store. They are just there to help ... if you need it. Even the briefest questioning look on your face or gesture and someone is by your side helping you. Nice. Try that in Walmart or even Macy’s. And you get the feeling that they want to help you. There are enough employees that when you check out they ask if the item is a gift and will individually wrap every one even if they only cost $1 each. They treat the dollar purchases as well as they treat the $500 purchases. You feel special walking out the door (part of that is also the greeting both in and out of the store by all the employees). Could they do that if they had 1 employee working in the store as we often see here? What gets sacrificed in customer service so that the bottom line can be a bit higher and prices can be a bit lower? How much would you pay extra so that each purchasing experience was a joy? Even when I shopped at the 100 Yen Store (equivalent of the Dollar Store I felt like a million bucks (small pun but it amused me). I didn’t feel just a little dirty like I do if I go into a Dollar Store here.

And getting gas is also a joy (funny me again!). You drive up to the pump directed by 2, 3, or 4 gas jockeys. They fill up your tank and wash your windows. They are smiling and polite and quick. They don’t make it seem like it is a chore to fill up your car, that it is a chore to wash your windows, they make it feel like it is the best part of their day. Is it? Probably not but they have such a great customer service ethic that they wouldn’t let you see that it wasn’t. I also don’t get the feeling that they feel that their job in a “lower” class job. Maybe I’m wrong. When did it get in our minds as a culture that if you weren’t working in an office, if you didn’t have a degree, if you weren’t a “professional” that you were somehow lower on the scale than the rest of them. We are a nation built on manual laborers. How have we gotten to the point that manual laborers are frowned on, that they are jobs only good for immigrants, students, parolees, and trailer trash? (I am talking about perception here not reality) I think that we need to re-examine ourselves a bit here. Now, in the west we have self serve which we have pretty well all gotten used to. Is this better? How have we helped our society by eliminating the gas jockeys? Sure the gas station gets a few more bucks added to its bottom line but the customers don’t have “service” and there are a few more people in the unemployment line (and who pays for that?).

The more I look at this concept of it being our duty to hire someone combined with the “evidence” as seen in the customer service culture of Japan the more I think that this could be a concept that could save us. That sounds bold but I really mean it. The west has gotten very greedy, very “me” oriented, very each-man-for-himself focused and I think that it hurts us all. It hurts as a nation, it hurts the economy; it hurts as a culture. Adopting this “duty” could be a step in creating a kinder and gentler world; to creating a kinder and gentler people. It would take us away from focusing on me to focusing on we (sorry for sounding so cliche). Not only that I think that it could save us in terms of our economy. It would help blur some of the lines between rich and poor. It would help us by keeping people working instead of getting into trouble or being on welfare.

So please, throw away your thoughts about having to be superwoman or superman by handling it all yourself. Decide that you will probably be freed up to either earn more income or spend more time with your family or friends or on your own recreations if you had help doing some of the more menial chores or even the chores that you don’t like to do. Think about what you could do with an extra 2 – 3 hours per week or perhaps more. Decide to hire someone – do it for you and do it for them!

I know that I have rambled on a bit and I may edit this post once I solidify my ideas. In the meanwhile, thank you for indulging me. I hope to read your comments about my theory (and believe me I KNOW that there are holes, counter arguments, etc out there).

Have a terrific day!

Ella



PS I worked out with Little John yesterday and my strength class today and my muscles are screaming. I am okay if I bend at the waist to pick something up on the floor but God help me if I try to bend my legs!! In honor of my inner thighs I present the picture of the day.