Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, June 3, 2024
by Neil Senturia
You all know what DIY stands for — do it yourself.
Mike Norton, a Harvard professor, has written about DIY, and his key insight is that “building or creating something yourself leads to a sense of pride and satisfaction, regardless of its imperfections or market value.”
It is sometimes called the “IKEA effect.” You highly value something just because you did it yourself.
All right, let’s get to it. My dishwasher breaks. I go to YouTube to watch a video on how to fix it; nope, no luck. I go to the manufacturer’s website; no help. All right, I give up. I call an appliance repair company, which for $79 will send a man to come out and troubleshoot.
Now it gets interesting. A pleasant Russian fellow, Vladimir, comes to the door, very professional. It is clear that he knows his stuff. After about 11 minutes, he stands up and says, you need a new rotor motor.
OK, how much? He says parts and labor are $612. I am impressed with his demeanor and skills, and I begin to ask him questions. He is from Belarus and has been in San Diego for five years. In Belarus, he was a doctor, an M.D. internist. Given the rules and the laws and the regulations, he cannot practice medicine in America, so he decides he will learn to be a repair technician.
Huh, I have a doctor fixing my dishwasher. He says, “Better an M.D. fixing your dishwasher than a repair technician doing your brain surgery.” You got me there. How much is the motor part? $412.
Then I am afflicted by a touch of DIY. I go to the dishwasher website, and I find the motor cost is $119. I call Vladimir, and I ask why he is charging $400, and he gives me a spectacular, classic, irrefutable American answer. “Everybody needs to make a profit.” You can’t argue with that.
Wait, maybe, after all, it’s just a motor. I take a chance and buy it online. Wonder of wonders, the part arrives, it is the correct part and I install the motor and it fits. The dishwasher turns on, and my bride thinks I’m a genius. I tell her to go buy a pair of shoes with the money we saved. But we all know it’s not the money, it is the pride you take in figuring it out by yourself.
But then I am also thinking that our country needs physicians, Vladimir is talented and worked for eight years in a hospital in Belarus, then he comes to America and ends up telling me I need a new motor.
I don’t understand exactly how the medical health care system works, but if I need to have my appendix removed, I am going to give this guy a call.
I am big fan of doing things and going to meetings, in particular the ones where I am pretty sure it is a total waste of time. The reason, of course, is that when you have no expectations, you are more available and accessible to possibilities that you had no idea you were looking for — and maybe they end up finding you.
A friend of mine gets fired. More than a friend, he has worked for me a few times, and I admire his diligence and work ethic. I invite him for coffee, just to give him a shoulder to lean on. So tell me about this company that had the audacity to unceremoniously fire someone as talented as you. The outrage of it. How could they?
The industry he had just left was law firms and foreclosures. Lots of rules changing monthly from the folks servicing the mortgage payments. I wondered if there might be a fit for my little AI company that I just started. You know how this one ends. The shoe fits perfectly.
He has domain expertise, he knows the pain points and the problems and after another hour, he has a new job — CEO, running our new little company, targeting the industry that just showed him the door. Revenge. Redemption.
No plan, no intention, no agenda, just wanted to be nice to someone. Go figure.
Rule No. 809: “Breathe through your eyelids,” Annie from Bull Durham