Ask why the price of everything is going through the roof and “inflation” is the go-to, seemingly obvious answer.
A chat with the guy working on my house recently, though, got me wondering if there might be other factors at work.
“Jobs like this,” he told me, gesturing towards his handiwork, “keep things ticking over nicely. But the big commercial jobs, like the one I’m pitching for tomorrow; they’re the ones you’re after. A few of those and you’re looking at retiring when you’re forty.”
It occurred to me that this was the exciting talk you used to hear from budding novelists, or musicians striving for that breakthrough album. Now it seems everyone wants a piece of the same action, even if their capacity to delight the masses extends no further than tiling over a roofspace.
And what are those dispensing “the big commercial jobs” to make of such lofty ambition as they try get their head around the eye-popping quotes in front of them?
You might not object to paying for materials and the upkeep of those deploying them for the time the job takes, plus a reasonable profit margin on top. But what if you know you’re effectively being asked to finance a quarter of someone’s pension fund? Someone who plans on every day being Saturday before he’s even hit middle age?
How good do those value-for-money assurances look now?
It’s inflation all right. Inflated expectations: on your dime.
Notepad on Life 
Leave a comment