Truthdig: The Do-It-Yourself Economy

[marmar]

The Do-It-Yourself Economy

Posted on Jul 16, 2008
By Ellen Goodman

I finally drew the line at a dinner invitation. My husband wanted to try a much-touted restaurant that presents you with a platter of raw foods and a hot pot. The prospect of this adventure in dining didn’t exactly thrill me. If I want to cook my own food, I answered rather testily, I’ll eat at home.

Until then, I had drifted along with the do-it-yourself economy. I bused my own lunch trays. I booked my own movie tickets. I checked myself in at hotel kiosks. I even succumbed when an upscale seafood restaurant expected me to swipe my credit card through a handheld computer as if I were in a supermarket.

But maybe it was the election-year rants about the offshoring of American jobs—ranging from those of steelworkers to those of computer programmers—that finally got me. The outsourcing of work to other countries has produced endless ire. But what about the outsourcing of work to thee and me?

For every task shipped abroad by a corporation, isn’t there another one sloughed off onto that domestic loser, the consumer? For every job that’s going to a low-wage economy, isn’t there another going into our very own no-wage economy?

I’m not just talking about do-it-yourself gas pumping, which is by now so routine that the memory of an actual person washing your windshield has receded into the mists of AARP nostalgia. Back when gas cost $2 a gallon, self-service was offered at a discount. Today, gas is more than $4, and, in most parts of the country, full service—a retronym if there ever was one—is available only at a premium.

What’s happening on land is happening in the air. We are now expected to book our own itinerary, print our boarding passes and do everything at the airport except pat ourselves down for liquids. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080716_the_do_it_yourself_economy/

[screembloodymurder]

1. So true.

I can't talk to my Dr. anymore, and Heaven forbid you need an answer for a question they haven't programmed the computer to ask.

[Demeter]

2. Okay--Since There Are No Serfs and No Serving Class

and that's why our ancestors came here (exception being the enslaved prior to 1864), I'd say get over yourself. Be glad you don't have to WALK from Boston to California--yet!