Someone ate an uncooked bat. Someone, somewhere, for some unfathomable reason. That one act has turned the world upside down. Among the plethora of lifestyle changes that this deadly, omnipresent virus has induced, in the absence of household help, washing dishes seems to be one of the many that I was assigned. Sometimes, I wonder if I drew the short straw. Then, cleaning day kicks in and I have to sweep and mop the entire house. That’s the shorter one for sure. Anyway, there is a silver lining here. Or maybe its light gray. Staying at home, running errands and checking chores off my list in the absence of any maids and cooks has given me some perspective and significant time to think. Random thoughts float in lazily, as if wafting in after a sumptuous Sunday brunch. Some stick around, some wander off, and some metamorphose into butterflies.
Circle back to 2016. It’s a warm, sunny Sunday in San Francisco. In my hipster best (cuffed jeans with a J. Crew shirt, boots, and Warby Parker glasses), I am patiently waiting for overpriced toast at Universal Café in the Mission with my then girlfriend C and her roommate G. Wonderful humans, I must say. As I sip on a single-origin Blue Bottle pour over, C starts telling G about how back home in India, I have a small army of people to help around. For some reason, she finds this fascinating and amusing. I guess it’s the novelty of a far-off land and an inscrutable lifestyle. C also tells G everything. To an uncomfortable degree! C also amuses easy. With her inability to cut a long story short, C goes on describing how things are at my home (without ever having visited. This information is all based off interviews), how many drivers and cooks and maids and guards are in our employ. G, of course, listens with rapt attention. To her, this little tidbit of information about the far off, foreign land 10,000 miles away is just as fascinating as the fact that we have enclaves and colonies instead of blocks (again, C gets excited at little things). At the time, while this is normal to us Indians, having help at home, I enjoy telling these little stories. I enjoy feeding my normal, which, to them, tastes fascinating. We all grew up with maids and nannies and cooks and drivers and help. “That’s how we roll”, I joke. “You guys think India is third world, but we have all the luxuries of the world. Now you know why I hate ironing my shirts, C!”
Fast-forward to 2018. I’ve moved back to India for good (I think). I’m going to the movies with a date. I don’t understand this similarity between the US and India- movie theaters only exist within malls, as if one only watches a film when tired from shopping. Anyway, malls (and hence movie theaters) in India are super cautious. They check your car-its trunk and the chassis-for bombs (but interestingly, never the inside. Again, inscrutable. Could I not hide a bomb under my seat?) After the three security guards have gone through the mini-life I carry in the trunk of my car, I enter the multi-level parking lot. There is a button at the entry of the lot that generates the time-stamped receipt which will later determine how much I have to pay for parking. Among all this automation, I realize that maybe button pressing is too much effort and button presses are considered just as much of a workout as perhaps their bench counterparts. The workout lords have heard me and, behold! Turns out there is a man employed by the mall to press the dang green button for me. He looks at me, smiles, hits the button with the intent and meaning of an executioner, grabs the warm, fresh parking receipt and thrusts it into my face with a “Have a goodday, sah”, as if selling me biscuits of that fame. And in my head, I’m thinking, what even is this man’s job profile. When he retires or quits, what does the mall security HR guy go about searching for- a button pressor? Is that a job. How much does it pay? As I enter the premises, more with my thoughts than with my date, we step onto the elevator and I can swear that the elevator guy has an uncanny resemblance to the parking button attendant. Cousins, I guess, as he asks me which floor I want to go to. Another funny difference- for Americans, the lowest floor is the first while for Indians it’s the ground floor and then the next one up is the first. I say, “fourth” as I see this guy press the shiny metallic 4 on the panel. How many button pressors does this mall employ?
Movie ends. It was pretty good. Something about a Robinhood inspired cop who can’t dance to save his life. It irks me that my date didn’t hold my hand even though I left it innocuously on that armrest between our seats. Isn’t that the universal signal for “I’d like to hold your hand”? Note to self: show more initiative. I drop her off, gas up my car. Attendants who fuel up your car are common. India has had them forever. I’ve even seen them in Oregon. No big deal. And then there are guys who, depending on whether they like you enough or if you’ve bought enough fuel, will, without being asked, clean your windscreens for you. I appreciate that. Going above and beyond. Although I doubt that that buys the gas station my loyalty. And then there are two guys to fill up your tyres if they seem low on pressure. Two hose yielding professionals, each with the seriousness of an anesthesiologist and the pace of a government bureaucrat.
Back to the present. Soap suds shoot up in the air, trying to take flight, and then crash into the sink. And all these thoughts come back to me, along with my recently learned concepts of macroeconomics and cyclical and structural unemployment. I’m an MBA now, sir. I must think about and comment on the state of the economy. What else is LinkedIn for? Now, I’m thinking why I was boasting about all of this to C and G. Is it really a boon to have so much help? People to cook and clean and drive you around are one level of help. They come in because, while I can do those tasks myself, on a daily basis my time is more valuable than the value that comes out of doing them. My time, I argue, is better spent making PowerPoint presentations than, say, the bed. Which is a cogent argument. But the next level of help- the button pressors as we now know them- why do we need them? Are they adding value? Are they saving me anything? Are they really earning their livings? Or is the mall just increasing the numbers that it employs?
In conclusion, I think that we’ve created jobs out of thin air. Jobs where there weren’t any. Jobs that don’t serve a purpose or add value or solve a problem. And in all likelihood, the button pressor is paid some INR10,000 a month, if that. The mall is happy that it generates so much employment. The government is happy because unemployment levels are low as elections close in. The button pressor is happy because he works at a mall, wears a uniform, and puts in an honest day’s work. He doesn’t realize that he isn’t gainfully employed. It’s the nation that’s sad. It’s button pressor 10 years hence that’s sad. When he realizes that he could have upskilled and become an elevator repairman instead. When he realizes that 10,000 doesn’t cut it anymore because his kid has to go to school and his mother has hospital bills. The mall, the government, and to a large degree you and I, have simply stifled any shards of ambition the button pressor might’ve had. Unemployment stays in low single digits. The numbers indeed do lie.
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