Not to derail this completely, but only about 60% of the US population have jobs. The rest are either too young, too old, too sick, criminal record, credit/security risk, drug history, too unemployable, too skilled/expensive to hire, whatever. So applying a metric of value that only has meaning for 60% (and dropping) of the population to the entire population is a mistake. Also at least anecdotally I can't get overtime pay so my opportunity cost is about zero. True, I could look for short term contracts or take up day labor, but ... If it takes me less labor hours to repair something on the desk than to drive out to the apple store and wait in line and drive back, I'm ahead of the game. As a skilled artificer I have disassembled and repaired mac minis in less than this journalists three hours. Getting to the optical drive in a mid 2011 mini is not amusing.
Anyway the relevance is I've been rolling this around in my head for awhile WRT a local disabled veterans group. The prison industrial complex has completely captured the "recycle old desktop PCs" market but I think the disabled veteran group could enter and take over the phone/tablet glass replacement market. One UK journalist took three hours, and cultural similarity between US and UK would imply as a journalist she probably never held a screwdriver before in her life. In comparison two disabled veterans working as a team, each with an arm shot off (or cognitive brain damage, or in wheelchairs, or PTSD anger issues, or whatever) might take an entire 8 hour day and still might not succeed, but if the primary purpose is therapeutic giving a feeling of usefulness, and social interaction, and maybe some manual dexterity, who cares?
I've little contact with the disabled veterans group other than being a non-disabled ex-dotmil guy who makes donations once in a while. There's nothing "disabled veteran" about this idea, so someone else in another area could likely apply this idea to any disabled services organization. Anyone want to "steal" this idea does it with my blessing. No idea how to turn this into a startup other then existing competitors, but if you can do it, best of luck.
Anyway the relevance is I've been rolling this around in my head for awhile WRT a local disabled veterans group. The prison industrial complex has completely captured the "recycle old desktop PCs" market but I think the disabled veteran group could enter and take over the phone/tablet glass replacement market. One UK journalist took three hours, and cultural similarity between US and UK would imply as a journalist she probably never held a screwdriver before in her life. In comparison two disabled veterans working as a team, each with an arm shot off (or cognitive brain damage, or in wheelchairs, or PTSD anger issues, or whatever) might take an entire 8 hour day and still might not succeed, but if the primary purpose is therapeutic giving a feeling of usefulness, and social interaction, and maybe some manual dexterity, who cares?
I've little contact with the disabled veterans group other than being a non-disabled ex-dotmil guy who makes donations once in a while. There's nothing "disabled veteran" about this idea, so someone else in another area could likely apply this idea to any disabled services organization. Anyone want to "steal" this idea does it with my blessing. No idea how to turn this into a startup other then existing competitors, but if you can do it, best of luck.