Right there, that’s the mentality part I’m referring too.

“my clock” it’s their time too — you’re equals — paying for a service does not make you superior to them. You need to pay them because you do not have the skills (or time) to do it yourself be thankful, not entitled.

When I was about 5 years old, I had just started school which meant my dad returned to work as one of the local bus drivers. On many occasions either myself or my older brother got sick at school, like any parent my father would come pick us up. But rather than having to call in sick or take the afternoon shift off he used to take us with him (sometimes even pick us up in the bus en route).

At first there was a monetary necessity to doing this, as my parents needed the cash but after doing this a few times, and my brother and I getting to know the other drivers at the bus depot after hours whilst they completed paperwork, my father’s boss decided to give my dad our school bus route.

This meant that my parents no longer had to pay for afterschool care for us, he could pick us up from school, do the bus route and we’d ride the bus until the end and drive home with him — and we enjoyed it!

My father’s boss never had to do that. In fact he could have easily branded my father as unprofessional for having two kids running around the depot after hours, but we were well behaved, the other drivers loved to entertain us and after doing it a number of times it showed my fathers boss that it was fine.

There are many factors which make this possible, our age, the type of job, etc. But the plumber I had over just the other week whilst I had this in draft (hence the example) made me think about this memory.

Why couldn’t that plumber have, say a 7+ year old even, who’s self-sufficient, doesn’t need childproofing, etc with him? Sure there’s probably legality issues around liabilities, etc, but I’d even challenge those — my father deserved the same working flexibility I now have, why don’t others?