A Georgetown student with a part-time job in finance is willing to pay about $60 a week for a personal assistant to do his laundry, make his bed, schedule his haircuts and taxi him around town, Georgetown University’s Vox Populi blog reports.
The student posted an advertisement on Georgetown’s Student Employment Office Web site, sparing little detail about his expectations: “As my PA you will receive an email once a day by 9 a.m. with a task list for that day and a time estimate for each task. Important tasks will be bolded on the list and must be done that day (even though everything on the list should theoretically be finished on a daily basis). At the end of the day you will send me an email telling me what tasks are incomplete or that all tasks have been completed.”
The student, who is not named in the article, evidently plans to get his money’s worth: He’ll give only half an hour’s pay for doing a cycle of laundry that takes an hour and a half, since the task involves “a lot of waiting around.” –Simmi Aujla
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9 Responses to Driving Mr. Lazy
eric_gates - October 20, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Aside from the “waiting around,” there is nothing wrong with this student’s plan, in fact, there is almost everything right with it.For the same reason, if a friend asks me to help him move these days, I ask “how much would it cost to hire some reasonable mover to do this work?”Then (sssshhhh) based on the answer, I write that friend a check for that amount.The reason? I am good at something. Very good at it. Why should I spend my time doing something I am not good at INSTEAD, or recovering from doing the thing I am good at?Now, if that same friend wants to come over (or invite me over) for some dinner and chat about books or baseball, that is on the house.
tmccool - October 20, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Well, this certainly explains alot about the folks who work on Wall Street.
susandel - October 20, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Basically, what the student wants is someone to be at his beck and call and do his every whim and to pay the person very little for so doing (and in the case of waiting for the laundry) paying nothing. For years, quite likely the mother of the student did this. Now, the student will undoubtedly not find anyone to take the job. Then it seems likely that the student will look around for someone to marry who would do it. Women of Georgetown, don’t fall for it. Not even if he’s a George Clooney clone.
llgrasmick - October 20, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Not all that new. I knew undergrads in the 1970′s (at Duke) who always sent their shirts out to be cleaned. I remember teaching one rising senior how to iron a shirt — something he had never even seen his mother do!
celdjt12 - October 20, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Nietzsche’s last man!!
blue_state_academic - October 20, 2009 at 9:11 pm
This smells of a hoax. You listening, balloon boy?
timebandit - October 21, 2009 at 8:46 am
Oh man, that’s brilliant! I wish I had a PA. Though, $60 a week seems unlikely to generate much interest. Still though, if we thought about say, $200 a week or more, for doing some light household chores….?
texasmusic - October 21, 2009 at 9:38 am
We’re talking $60/week for a couple of hours a day vs. $200/week full-time. If the task list he generates is enough to make a full-time job, I’d say $60 a week isn’t going to cut it. Although our hero doesn’t seem to understand wage and hour laws if he thinks he doesn’t have to pay someone to wait around for the laundry. If the employee has to be present, he has to be paid. Not really an efficiency expert either, is he, despite the idea of hiring a PA? Why wouldn’t he have the PA work on another task while waiting around for the laundry, thus “earning his keep” rather than wasting time watching the soaps or reading the National Enquirer?
dubious - October 22, 2009 at 9:25 am
While the humor of this story has value, I am reminded of a former Duke University athlete who took on a similar job to assist a political candidate. He toted around cell phones, hand sanitizer, snacks, water, and gladly did any demeaning grunt work necessary to assist his boss.The athlete’s name is Reggie Love. His title is now Special Assistant to the President of the United States.