I have an idiot friend who doesn't understand how money works. They also don't like being called an idiot in public, but small matter ... who needs fragile friends? It is not really their fault however - they would see eye to eye with many others in the world, few of whom are truly useful to me in the grand scheme of things.
So this one absolutely loves to ask me why my time has a price tag of X, where X as of today sits around ＄1,000/week, for casual engagements. I must have explained it a hundred times ( facetious) by now ... a price tag is a supply-side offer, and is completely unrelated to any demand-side rationalisation which might motivate anyone to accept that price. For all practical purposes, all price tags in all markets are pulled out of someone's arse. All that needs to be noted is that ＄10 is not ＄100, and ＄100 is not ＄1 million. My job as a supplier is to advertise my price clearly. I don't need ＄1000 urgently, and I have more important things to do, so there is zero pressure to sell time - my sales target is zero. I haven't offered, or accepted anyone else's offer, to negotiate, so I have no obligations to analyse either supply or demand from any party whatsoever.
Often enough, when I say my time is limited for friendly assistance, they ask me why I am busy, and it is extremely tiresome to repeat myself : I have other things to do. Unfortunately they also think it is their business to have me provide an updated list of my current activities, which in the past I have provided perhaps ( again facetious ) a hundred times before.
Begrudgingly, they typically then turn to the following argument : "you choose not to be employed, therefore your opportunity cost is zero". Here is where I make special efforts to avoid offending the fragile inquisitor, on a regular basis. I try to explain that just because someone chooses to work for minimum wage, it doesn't mean their opportunity cost is minimum wage. Of course, the absolutely mid mind cannot fathom why anyone would work for less than the maximum pay they could command, so usually at this point I have given up trying to issue free tuition in economics, and I have turned to a discussion of how I am no longer motivated to engage ( which further triggers the snowflake ).
Ah well. Commoners. I remember in 2010 a similar type of chap ... friend of friends, dropout management consultant, working for Rocket Internet's Malaysian invasion. They told my headhunter flatmate that they couldn't fathom why I was asking for ＄1,000/week ( then, the USDMYR was 3.45, today it is 4.67 ). I couldn't understand why they couldn't understand it was cheap.
Yes, I think I am cheap. I haven't raised prices by much in 15 years, lol.
No one is expected to take me seriously. But if my attention is demanded, it comes with a small and simple price. Subject to negotiation, if I can be incentivised to raise my sales target for time to greater than zero, I suppose.
Generally, I remain committed to the notion of falling back to minimum wage work whenever needed for the entirety of my life, and dying a natural death when I can no longer work. It seems horrifying to some people, but I find it to be the most natural thing of all. It keeps life simple.
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