WHAT MAKES YOU RICH

Today I became obsessed with these shoes. I crave them. Badly. After eyeing them all day on Instagram and imagining myself walking around like this in the olive ones with a slouchy sweater and my jean cuffs rolled, I've decided they are the perfect synthesis of modernity and leather, masculinity and grace, and my feet need their effortless guise for the cool undertones of October afternoons. I've already considered selling our dining table to pay for them.

I'm going to tell you a somewhat related story that my father-in-law shared with me.

In order to take advantage of cheaper labor costs, an American manufacturer moved one of its production facilities to a remote region of Mexico. The manufacturer hired 250 hourly workers and paid them only 25% of what American workers were paid for the same job. But in a region where standard of living was the lowest in the country and annual family income was about $1,200, the workers were becoming rich, earning more in one month than they had been in an entire year. 

Something strange happened. After about six months, just when the employees had become well trained and the plant had reached optimal productivity, the workers began quitting. And within just a few weeks, half of the employees no longer came to work and productivity plummeted. 

Having thought his employees were elated to be earning so much money, the plant manager was baffled and asked his shift managers to talk to the workers who were left to find out why everyone was quitting. After two days, this was the report: the workers had more money than they could spend. There were no shopping centers or malls for hundreds of miles, and the only stores were one-room shacks in small villages where only the barest of necessities were for sale.

And then the plant manager had a brilliant idea. He had hundreds upon hundreds of catalogs sent to the plant from leading retailers all over the United States and Mexico. He had clothing, tools and sports equipment catalogs hand delivered to workers who had quit, and catalogs with toys and bicycles for the children. Within two weeks, everyone was back to work and productivity soared. For many years the plant was the American manufacturers' most profitable production facility.

I really should just stay off the internet until spring.


photo credit here.
my amazing father-in-law.