By Brad Flory
JTV
Last week I was confronted with a sight shocking to anyone who can recall when self-reliance and practical labor were still fashionable.
Driving past a store parking lot, I saw a strapping young man – he was about the right age and physical condition to be a college lacrosse player – with a flat tire. But he did not change the tire himself. Instead, he stood by as a guy wearing a yellow vest changed the tire. Mr. Yellow Vest appeared to be almost 60 years old.
My first instinct was to blame contemporary parents.
“Don’t people teach boys how to change tires anymore? Do they think their little princes are too precious to touch a lug wrench?”
Blaming parents was wrong, though. The real culprit is the App Age, an era that began with the triumph of smartphones. Young people raised in this period behave differently because they are conditioned to do almost everything with apps. I imagined the young guy with the flat tire automatically pulled out his phone and called up an app to summon roadside assistance, never stopping to consider changing the tire himself.
Now for a true confession: Last year I became my own version of old Mr. Yellow Vest, except I was summoned by people who dislike shopping for groceries instead of people with flat tires.
For a few months, until I grew bored with it, I was a contractor for an Internet-based service whose customers use an app to schedule the purchase and delivery of groceries. Perhaps becoming a grocery shopper for hire was a pathetic downward spiral in the arc of my life, but I did not see it that way at the time. I viewed it as a modern-day adventure to explore the Gig Economy.
At the start, I expected my customers to be fairly affluent working parents who think they are too busy for grocery shopping. There were some of those, but not enough to make a stereotype. Just as often, I delivered groceries to trailer parks.
My most regular customer was a lady who lived far out in the country. I never saw her because she always instructed me to leave her groceries on the porch. I speculated that she had a social anxiety disorder.
Early one morning, I bought food and delivered it to a food truck. The owner gave me zero for a tip, which I always remember when I patronize food trucks.
One delivery was to a fleabag motel that catered to the homeless. When I arrived with the groceries, I found a man and woman and a yippy little dog living in a small room crammed with personal possessions meant for better times and a better place.
Those experiences taught me that the App Age has already influenced behavior for all stripes of humanity, not just young, tech-addicted people. I also learned to be wary of the Gig Economy if grocery shopping and changing flat tires now qualify as job skills.