How much is your time worth?

[Rich_NYS]

~snip~
I hit on the points you made when I mentioned renting vs. getting to know people vs. family/friends. If a family member or friend wants my car for an appearance, I will move my schedule around to make it happen. If someone invites me to a meet and greet of sorts, I'll case-by-case it. Otherwise, if a stranger wants my car somewhere, yeah they gotta pay reasonably. This was far from reasonable.

~snip~

This is exactly how I operate. Well said man..!

Operative word in this whole debacle is: stranger.

[Shep]

What's the lowest you will take?

[DMCVegas]

[DaraSue]

He actually did come back and try to see if I could still do it because the car that was closer to him was in the shop, but it turned out he lived near a stadium and it was going to be a game day so I once again noped out. I still feel a little bad since I did offer to do it for $75 and he really didn't come off as a jerk in our interaction so maybe he was just clueless about what things like this cost. But that was going to be a long day and that stadium has one road in and out of it that turns into a parking lot when there's a big event, so... nope.

[DMCVegas]

You don't owe this guy a damned thing, so what could you possibly have to feel bad about?



That slight sting you feel? It's just the growing pains of getting used to telling people "No." It goes away after a while, and starts to actually feel good. That's when you know you're in full control of your life.

Go on. Enjoy your car and your life on your terms.

[Shep]

Amen.

As a former pushover, I can definitely say that there's a lot more benefit than you can ever realize in having a spine these days. But perhaps more importantly, renting your car out should definitely be a purely business transaction. Which means working up a price on an invoice with a preset formula rather than just winging it.

If a customer doesn't want to pay, they don't get the services. It's that simple. Rules are rules. The businesses that bend the rules for customers that simply don't want to obey are the ones that flop. This is different than bending the rules for established customers in good standing for a very good reason: catering to customers that don't care about money means the business doesn't care about money either. Good customers are worth keeping. Troublemakers aren't.

But again, in future cases, if you work the price higher to start with, and come down a bit, both parties will feel good about it. That's my best advice. Having fun with your car means you feel good about all that happens to it. That event as a whole had a lot that didn't sound like it would be fun.

[DaraSue]

Postscript: I definitely feel like I made the right choice turning this gig down, b/c I had to get up at 9am yesterday after falling asleep after 3 and it just wouldn't have been a good day.

Everybody here made valid points. I just get this feeling of nameless dread whenever I have to make somebody unhappy (for reasons that probably go back to my childhood, but this is DMCtalk not Dara'sTherapySessiontalk so I'll spare you all the TMI, lol).

I do place an intangible value on the joy my car brings others, but not to the point where I want to massively inconvenience myself financially or temporally for it, so I'll be more careful about realistically pricing gigs in the future (no pun intended)...

[davidc89]

Probably to touch on what other people said.... In the end it's your car. If they want the car that bad, they will pay you what you want. "Lucky for us" there aren't many DeLoreans out there... So if they want it bad enough they will pay. It sounds more sinister than I am intending, but it's true.

I tend to do things for cheaper, or free, if it's something that will benefit me or if it's for some sort of charitable event. Any time I rent my car out, I always think like a business owner.

[PJK]

So let me get this straight. It is the general consensus of this forum that $25 is the difference between a person who will and will not "respect your time, your car, or you as a person" and the difference between respecting and "disrespect[ing] the DeLorean" $25???

People have argued that the initial offer of $75 was a "generously low price." I'd be willing to bet that the guy had NO idea what the "going rate" is for renting a DeLorean. I have no idea either.

I think it might be reasonable to assume that the guy was hoping to surprise his kid on his/her birthday, and was hoping to do it as inexpensively as possible. No malicious, disrespect, or ill-will intended.

In contrast, people on this forum view his offer of $25 less to be evidence that the guy is a person who will not "respect your time, your car, or you as a person." I think that is a bit harsh based on what I've read.

The main point of my post was to try to get people to consider that the guy might have been hoping the owner was someone who was just looking for an excuse to drive and show the car. The initial offer of $75 would suggest to me that the owner wasn't looking at his as a business opportunity. I wouldn't have made a counter-offer (not my style), but there are a LOT of people who view everything as a negotiation (independent of their ability to "respect your time, your car, or you as a person."). I realize his offer was "1/3 of the initial offer", but let's be honest, it was still $25 less. The forum can make it fraction/percentage if you want to make it sound more nefarious, but if you can accept that some people will make a counter-offer, how much less would be reasonable? Again, it was $25.

At the end of the day, I just think it is giant leap to conclude that someone who made a counter-offer of $25 less ($25 dollars!) is a person who will not "respect your time, your car, or you as a person" and is "disrespect[ing] the DeLorean." That is a pretty harsh characterization of a person on pretty thin "evidence." I just need more.

The fact that so many people on this forum would jump to this conclusion about a person's character so quickly is a poor reflection of this community. I'm done.

[Michael]

No Mr. "20 posts to my name and I'm done" you don't have it straight. This guy took an extremely generous offer and tried to lowball it even further. It was an insult to her time and her(I'll say it again), extremely generous original offer.

Few months ago, my new neighbor got wind I was selling my old work van. I was selling it for 1,000 dollars. Already below market because I wanted it out of my driveway. He waltzed over, looked at it for exactly 11 seconds and said with a straight face "I'll give you 200 bucks".

I take offers like that as an insult and the only people who operate like that are assholes.