* * * * *
                                        
                        You can't make it look too easy
                                        
> As I mention in the video, what’s really interesting is that this locksmith
> was penalized for getting better at his profession. He was tipped better
> when he was an apprentice and it took him longer to pick a lock, even
> though he would often break the lock! Now that it takes him only a moment,
> his customers complain that he is overcharging and they don’t tip him. What
> this reveals is that consumers don’t value goods and services solely by
> their utility, benefit from the service, but also a sense of fairness
> relating to how much effort was exerted.
> 

Via Hacker News [1], “Dan Ariely » Blog Archive Locksmiths « [2]”

Even Richard Feynman [3] knew this trick back in the 40s:

> I didn't need any tools, but I'd go to my office and look up the number of
> his safe. I had the last two numbers for everybody's safe in my office. I'd
> put a screwdriver in my back pocket to account for the tool I claimed I
> needed. I'd go back to the room and close the door. The attitude is that
> this business about how you open safes is not something that everybody
> should know because it makes everything very unsafe. So I'd close the door
> and then sit down and read a magazine or do something. I'd average about 20
> minutes of doing nothing, and then I'd open it. Well, I really opened it
> right away to see that everything was all right, and then I'd sit there for
> 20 minutes to give myself a good reputation that it wasn't too easy, that
> there was no trick to it. And then I'd come out, sweating a bit, and say,
> “It's open. There you are."
> 

“Los Alamos From Below: Reminiscences 1943-1945, by Richard Feynman [4]”

You can't make it too easy else people will question the work required to
make it look easy. I'm reminded of this joke: A large mainframe computer is
broken, so the company sends for a computer repair technician. The technician
comes in and sits down in front of the mainframe computer for a few moments,
opens one of the cabinets, pulls a card out and replaces it, then says, “That
will be $5,000.”

“Five thousand?” says the company owner. “You just came in, sat for a minute
and replaced a card. How is that worth five thousand dollars?”

“Well,” said the technician, “It's $100 for the new card, and $4,900 for the
time and effort for me to learn which card to replace.”

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2007385
[2] http://danariely.com/2010/12/15/locksmiths/
[3] http://www.feynman.com/
[4] http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/34/3/FeynmanLosAlamos.htm

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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