
The Dumbest Task I Ever Outsourced - mtlynch
https://mtlynch.io/dumbest-task-i-ever-outsourced/
======
mtlynch
Author here. Happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback about this
post.

~~~
jaclaz
Questions:

>Bill

>The final cost for Jaclyn’s three and a half hours of keyboard cleaning:
$95.55.

But you miss to state what the offer was, it seems to me you knew from the
start you were going to pay US $ 95.55 for 3.5 hours of "house cleaning" at
26,00 each.

Or was the offer (say) 1 hour and it took 3.5 hours?

Or was the offer only stating the rate of 26,00 per hour?

Feedback:

1) It is IMHO _that_ dumb

2) the first two "lessons" you learned from the experience are wrong.

Namely, if you decide to outsource something, you should outsorce it to a
professional, which will charge you - say - 90 US$ per hour to do professional
keyboard cleaning (in one hour time) and won't have you around during the
process.

~~~
mtlynch
Thanks for reading!

>But you miss to state what the offer was, it seems to me you knew from the
start you were going to pay US $ 95.55 for 3.5 hours of "house cleaning" at
26,00 each.

>Or was the offer (say) 1 hour and it took 3.5 hours?

>Or was the offer only stating the rate of 26,00 per hour?

It's the latter. Each TaskRabbit contractor charges a different hourly rate
and you pay them for however long the job takes.

>Namely, if you decide to outsource something, you should outsorce it to a
professional, which will charge you - say - 90 US$ per hour to do professional
keyboard cleaning (in one hour time) and won't have you around during the
process.

I'm not sure I understand this feedback. As far as I'm aware, there are no
professional keyboard cleaning services that deliver turnaround time of less
than one hour and costs only $90. I don't think there are even professional
keyboard cleaning services period.

~~~
jaclaz
>It's the latter. Each TaskRabbit contractor charges a different hourly rate
and you pay them for however long the job takes.

Without having an (even if approximate) estimation of the time needed?

So - in theory - the cleaner could have taken another 3.5 hours (or another 35
for the sake of the reasoning) and you would have paid her for that time?

> As far as I'm aware, there are no professional keyboard cleaning services
> that deliver turnaround time of less than one hour and costs only $90. I
> don't think there are even professional keyboard cleaning services period.

Well, maybe not in NY, if you were living in Calgary you could even have had
your keyboard professionally cleaned for free:

[http://www.onsitecomputercleaning.ca/freekeyboardcleaning.ph...](http://www.onsitecomputercleaning.ca/freekeyboardcleaning.php)

~~~
mtlynch
>Without having an (even if approximate) estimation of the time needed?

>So - in theory - the cleaner could have taken another 3.5 hours (or another
35 for the sake of the reasoning) and you would have paid her for that time?

If neither the client nor the contractor stops it, it can go on indefinitely.
There are probably limits in the app for how many continuous hours a worker
can bill. But she finished at midnight, and I was probably 30-60 minutes from
asking her to wrap it up.

>Well, maybe not in NY, if you were living in Calgary you could even have had
your keyboard professionally cleaned for free:

>[http://www.onsitecomputercleaning.ca/freekeyboardcleaning](http://www.onsitecomputercleaning.ca/freekeyboardcleaning)

Oh, neat. I think that's actually for companies though. They say it's so you
can decide whether you like their services enough to clean all of your
equipment. I imagine they wouldn't agree to give away free cleanings to
private residences.

