Great fun but, sadly, this post also reflects an unfortunate change in attitudes that seems to have come about in the last few decades.
I refer to what seems to be a suspicion of generosity, particularly where money is concerned.
Of course, such an attitude is not new and is associated medically with Paranoid Personality Disorder. However, I am nor referring so much to those diagnosed with an extreme and all encompassing form of this suspicion but with what seems to me to be a more general conditioning that seems to have come about across the community.
As someone who attempts to offer help where I can and who, although having little, find preoccupation with money or wealth beyond what is necessary to meet simple living expenses as a false & defective value. I have on several occasions experienced the response portrayed in the article.
As an example, a local charity group was once referred to me as someone who could build them a web-site and maintain the technical side of it for them. I agreed that I would willingly do that for them at no cost for my time or hosting on my own server.
They were very appreciate and keen to go ahead and I subsequently mapped out a site outline and presented it to them. They were very enthusiastic and asked for it to be given a particular name, rather than the sub-domain name i had allocated to it. I
explained that I could orgnaise that for them but that there would just be a cost to them for their registration of the name, at the time around $12 per year.
I never heard from them again, in spite of making several follow up calls. Later, I disovered that they had payed a business around $1200 to 'build' a very limited one page site with little flexibility for quick change or their own input.
I know that I tend to be long-winded so I won't give further examples, although I have many, some involving actual financial cost and others simply the rejection of 'favours' for what seemed a simple disbelief, i.e. suspicion that someone would do a job without payment.
As a final comment, the article also reminded me of a policy adopted by Rollei, a quality german camera manufacturer in its day, noted for its twin-lens reflex camera. They actually advised sales staff and retailers *not* to discount the camera, despite excellent margins that would have allowed reductions whilst still giving good profits, because they had set what would now be a RRP particularly to attract clients of a certain income or wealth level. Their justification was that selling the cameras at a lower price would cause potential purchasers to be suspicious of their quality - this despite their already excellent reputation.
So, as good a laugh as this piece generates, it does raise some serious questions about how we have come to determine value, not least the tendency to assess worth by market value rather than inherent quality, loyalty, service standards or 'affective' domain indicators encouraging trust.
