Making Money from Home: Anthropology and Vinyl Siding
Revelations come from the oddest sources. While watching the Nanny Diaries, I heard Scarlet Johanson say that the biggest problem for any anthropologist studying a particular sociological model is that being exposed to this segmented group of people eventually leads to a total assimilation with them and the only way to stop this process is to immediately remove yourself from that environment.
Simply put, the environment you place yourself in shapes who you will become.
Listen to a little story about me.
Before I came to America I was making good money, wearing cashmere coats, driving nice cars, and eating out whenever I wanted. I had never done a day’s worth of manual labor in my life.
When my country’s economy went belly up, I lost everything and came to the United States to find a new beginning.
I didn’t know anybody, didn’t have any money, and the only place that would hire me was a construction company.
My environment all of a sudden changed: from business-development to vinyl siding installation, from cashmere coat to Carhart overall, from a good food to McDonald’s, from sedans to pickup trucks, from my friends with college degrees, clean clothing and intact teeth to a bunch of stinky beat-up dentally-challenged rednecks.
I felt like a square peg being driven into a round hole but at the same time it was kind of funny. Until I noticed that my entire value system was degrading to match that of my co-workers! I began to debate whether or not Burger King was better than McDonalds and wearing anything but coveralls started to feel weird. I even laughed at people who bought sedans because they wouldn’t have any place to put their tools!
At some point it stops being weird to wear a bandana in public places and to admit that you are making only $10 per hour.
It sucks you in! It starts to feel normal and acceptable!
Before I knew it I became a construction worker from some Jerkwater, USA and I actually spent a few years doing construction before I found enough strength to pull myself out of this situation and to come back to being an entrepreneur with clean clothes and clean car.
Now, just a few months after I left my Carharts behind for business casual clothes, I don’t eat whoppers and I don’t go crazy over the Lowes’ sale flyer.
If I had told those guys I used to work with my plans to become a successful Internet marketer or my dream of owning my own home-based business, how do you think they would have reacted? Seriously, I would have sounded crazy.
Was it hard? You bet!
Do I regret any of the hard work I put in? Not one drop of it.
One more time: Being exposed to a segmented group of people eventually leads to a total assimilation with them and the only way to stop this process is to immediately remove yourself from that environment.
What defines your environment?
