LA Times on offshore personal aides
Naturally, I started with the cheap one, a new outfit called Sunday ( www.asksunday.com). For $29 a month, the assistants at Sunday would do 30 tasks for me.LinkThe rules were simple: Each task could take no more than 30 minutes, and each had to be something that could be accomplished, ahem, at a distance: These assistants, I learned later, are mostly in India.
The assistance-at-a-distance model ruled a lot of things out. The assistants could not pick up my dry cleaning or go stand in line to mail a package.
But I was surprised at how much they could do. Once I had registered at the website, I uploaded some personal data, such as my frequent-flier account numbers, and the names and phone numbers of my dentist, hairdresser and doctor. If I wanted an assistant to make purchases on my behalf, I could also load credit-card information in encrypted form.
Sitting on my couch at 1 a.m., I dashed off a flurry of requests via e-mail:
* Contact all my frequent-flier airlines and inform them that I had recently changed my last name and wanted my accounts updated.
* Schedule a teeth cleaning for sometime in the next few weeks, any time before 9 a.m.
* Make an appointment for a haircut.
* Find out how much an airline ticket to Las Vegas would cost on Labor Day weekend.
Within 30 minutes, there was an e-mail in my in box saying that my requests were being processed. By noon the next day, the folks at Sunday had sent a list of flight options, a confirmed dental appointment and a date for my haircut.
There was a snag on the frequent-flier accounts: The assistant found out that only I could change the name. But thoughtfully he had prepared a list of what each of seven airlines required in the way of documentation and where to send my requests.
Quickly accomplishedWow, three and a half things knocked off my list before noon. And it had cost me only $4!
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sounds pretty good to me. i get exhausted just thinking about my list of to-dos...
Wow. We're outsourcing our own laziness.
If you have a Mon-Fri 9/5 job and 2 and 1/2 kids these little time savers are worth much much more.
I would not give my credit card numbers and such to a service like this. Sometimes you're just begging for info to be stolen.
I find this kind of depressing since the way I gained my entry into the world of publishing was by being and editorial assistant. I think that the more these little pathways to companies are closed locally, the more it hurts us all in the long run.
It's offshoring gone mad!
People in the west have never had such a surplus of free time, and yet we are "too busy" to need a personal assistant somewhere in India. If people dropped all their techno-geek-junk I bet they would find themselves with a lot of spare time... start with the mobile...
Dude, I have no mobile and no blackberry. But yesterday I worked from 6:30 until 4:00 then came home and made house from 4:30 to 11:30. With 5 kids and a working wife, what little time I have is precious. If I can off-shore some of my daily headaches to India for 30 bucks a month, and use that time to play a game with my kids or spend a little quality time on myself, it seems like a no-brainer.
What takes longer, writing an email asking somebody to make an appt for your hair, or making an appt for your hair?
Risser, I understand your situation, but it basically teaches your children that there are two classes of people. You—and your family—that lives in the U.S. And then the folks in India who do your work for you. I never grew up having hired help beyond hiring the occasional painter or mover and my parents worked and managed to raise a family of 3 kids. I really don't understand people who are so busy they have no time for the important things in life. Work less and just spend more time with your kids. It's not hard.
It takes you seven hours a day to "make house?" What does that even mean, if it doesn't include playing games with the kids?
Interestingly, this is the kind of stuff AI agents are supposed to do in semantic web... but cheap labor often outdoes algorithms.
@Jack: Yes, it really IS hard. The system of things we're living in makes it almost impossible to do anything like what you suggest.
The average family in america must have at least 2 fulltime jobs per home in order to make barely enough money to live a lower-middle-class lifestyle. This robs us of so much time and energy that we rarely do any of the really important things in life like raising our children and thinking deeply about anything.
It's not like those people over in india are our slaves or even our employees or butlers or anything. They're just working a job like everyone over here. And it's not even a rough job.
There are actually services in this country that offer something very similar. My wife was thinking about starting one up since she's so good at handling those type of random tasks that people like me are always so terrible at managing.
But I told her to get her shoes off and get back in the kitchen. Papa needs pie! ;)
Um. You paid some Web site $30 and then gave them your credit card numbers, FF numbers, and other personal information? And you're comfortable with that?
I got a better deal; send ME all that info and I'll send YOU $30!
For those interested, my girlfriend and I have had an offshore assistant for over a year now (he was a Valentines day gift).
We've posted about the successes and the failures on our blog.