The Shut-In Economy

I'm sure pretty much everybody who hires a cleaning service knows how to clean a toilet.

The self-sufficiency and egalitarianism of doing one's own chores used to be a note of middle class pride, at least in the once strong middle-class industrial areas of the country.

These values were further facilitated by the post-war boom in home-labor saving appliances (washing machines, etc.)

Many of us who grew up in such a cultural context have a more difficult relationship with others serving us, and we don't feel it gives us an increase in status, but rather it feels almost like a moral failing. Of course, with the ever busier nature of our lives and the availability of low-wage workers, it's quite hard to stick to those morals, hence the inner conflict.

People I know who grew up in US cities or other countries where a significant service-employed underclass exists don't seem to have issues with being served. From what I've seen, being able to afford service labor in those places is actually a status symbol that people strive towards.

I do feel I should do something more ambitious. So my brother for example keeps telling me to just get a job at a coffeeshop, go out and meet new people through work again. My bills are such that I easily could, but in that case I'd feel like I'd be wasting my time and should be doing something productive. I don't have anything against menial work but I'm sure I'd regret it in 6 years if I'm 30 and feel like I missed the boat on another career.

So I currently do basic programming from home which pays the bills just fine but I'd like something new. I'm not really a programmer though, just have a tech interest and did it on the side as a hobby, and grew that into a business. But it's definitely not professional software engineering. More like how your nephew can build you an ecommerce shop online with some plugins and basic scripting and could make a living out of that, but no ecommerce company would ever hire him to build products, only I know a bit more than your typical techie-nephew but not quite enough to work as an engineer.

My uni background is in business & management which is absolute shit in terms of skills/knowledge. It's very much an experience-based industry. Business fundamentals is something you can do in a 2 month course, not a 4 year undergrad program. And so as a recent graduate you spent too much time learning too little, and have 0 experience. It'd definitely be fun to be a project manager, trying to blend the engineering and the business side of things as I feel I have a good enough intuition for both. But that's a role you get in your 30s with experience, not as a recent grad. Positions that are available to me are mostly sales. So a buddy of mine does ERP sales. And it's just not me, cold-calling people, having people shit in my ear 99/100 times and and preparing 1 hot lead for someone up top who rakes it in the next day for years, and then become that person. But the labor market for non-engineering things is just really brutal for recent grads. There are still jobs but everything requires a few years of experience at least. Let me know if you have any ideas haha, I'm at a loss, business school is one big joke in terms of employment. It's like it's the 80s and I just spent a few years mastering the typewriter.

Anyway got off on a tangent there. So no, no guilt on doing something 'fun'. I also wouldn't quite say that nothing is fun. If you'd teleport me onto a jetski right now, I'd have a blast. And to borrow from another comment, somehow I'm much more inclined to download a shooter game than to go to a shooting range even if it was free and around the corner, despite the fact the range would be a bigger thrill. I can't explain it, it sounds ridiculous. Same with friends, I enjoy hanging out with them every two weeks when someone keeps asking to hang out and I give in and we set a date, it's always, without fail, a fun evening. But I'm completely fine not arranging that myself for months. I wish I desired to do the things I end up enjoying once I do them. That desire isn't really there. It's like being a guy not attracted to girls at all, not feeling any emotion or sexual interest in a gorgeous willing girl across the street, as if you were gay. But once you do get around to visit the girl for whatever reason, it's genuinely fun. Again I can't explain how or why, just how it is/feels. Pains me to say it's a bit like that with my girlfriend, too. Absolutely love and adore her, pretty girl, too, sex is great and it's all there, but I've barely got any desire for it. I'd say it's a chemical thing, like a particular thing in my brain just doesn't fire because of it. But, and this is almost like a sad doctor's joke... I have no interest in going to the doctor to get it fixed. Kind of hilarious. Despite wanting for things to go back to 5 years ago (in terms of my mental state), I don't really care enough to pursue a solution.

Anyway hope that covers your question ;)

I feel like having a person deliver food or do my laundry is at the other side of the spectrum. I can do both things, and its obvious that those who are working in those jobs roles are not in the economic bracket to afford it themselves.