ward
Participating member
- Location
- Unincorporated Clackamas, OR
I had arrived a little late to the last quote of the day. He was a retired fellow, amicable, with a new Prius in the driveway. We looked at about 20 shrubs and trees to which he had fastened bits of orange tape on the limbs and branches that he wanted to get a quote on removing. No full pruning, no dead wooding, just individual branches. He was going to compare my quote to others, on these individual branches we were going to be taking off. (BTW, how much does it cost to take off one thumb sized branch off a single japanese maple?)
As the harelike man was hopping around through the shrubbery, I felt like I wasn't able to keep up. $5? $2.50? I mean, how much does it cost to remove only one pinky finger sized piece of boxelder? My mind was fuzzing over. The rabbit was outpacing me, as I was scribbling down my notes as fast as I could keep up. He knew how to make sure I couldn't keep up with the insanity of the pruning analysis. Surely, this pruning visit was going to cost him no more than $25!!
Then I thought for a moment back to an old story--one of Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Briefly, if the hare is ahead of Achilles, but Achilles has to first traverse the distance to the hare and that distance yet again and so on ad infinitum, it will be impossible for Achilles to ever get to the hare.
The answer, of course, is that Achilles motion is not infinitely divisible relative to the Hare's finite motion.
Well, I thought 'neither is my time infinitely divisible either!'
The client was an excellent candidate for the hourly/day rate and was given the work quoted on this basis.
I'm not sure if I'm going to win the race on this one because someone else might just fall prey to a harebrained scheme of quoting. But at least I solved the paradox!
As the harelike man was hopping around through the shrubbery, I felt like I wasn't able to keep up. $5? $2.50? I mean, how much does it cost to remove only one pinky finger sized piece of boxelder? My mind was fuzzing over. The rabbit was outpacing me, as I was scribbling down my notes as fast as I could keep up. He knew how to make sure I couldn't keep up with the insanity of the pruning analysis. Surely, this pruning visit was going to cost him no more than $25!!
Then I thought for a moment back to an old story--one of Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Briefly, if the hare is ahead of Achilles, but Achilles has to first traverse the distance to the hare and that distance yet again and so on ad infinitum, it will be impossible for Achilles to ever get to the hare.
The answer, of course, is that Achilles motion is not infinitely divisible relative to the Hare's finite motion.
Well, I thought 'neither is my time infinitely divisible either!'
The client was an excellent candidate for the hourly/day rate and was given the work quoted on this basis.
I'm not sure if I'm going to win the race on this one because someone else might just fall prey to a harebrained scheme of quoting. But at least I solved the paradox!
