Friday Observation. What Does Time Cost?

This week's attention was drawn to how money can serve not only as an equivalent of goods or services, but also as a surrogate for seemingly irreplaceable values, such as health, morality and even relationships. At the same time, many small things and processes go unappreciated and neglected - they consume a great deal of time, yet monetising them is nearly impossible.

These reflections were prompted by a fact that flashed somewhere in the media about an inmate who spent nearly a year in prison, but as it later emerged - the court had made an error. The wrongly accused person naturally wished to recover for this "mistake" both the lost earnings and a moral compensation, since a working man in the prime of life, torn from his daily work and family, would have somewhat deserved it!? However, the court ruled that the lost earnings were to be calculated mechanically by multiplying the time spent in prison by the legal salary of recent months, being unable to calculate the "price" of moral suffering, or instead of the sum claimed recognising only a negligible portion of it. Well, at least something in this way.

It is fortunate that no health complications arose during the imprisonment which would manifest later and would be nearly impossible to link to the judge's or official's "mistake". It is fortunate that in the meantime the wife did not leave, or that the child, from distress, did not become a failing student at school, requiring a private tutor to be hired to return to the normal rhythm. Oh, and making payments legally rather than in cash, so to speak - would work out cheaper. None of that has either a price or a measurable value. Also beyond measure is the time and energy spent "scraping" against officials' thick-headedness. One clumsy "mistake" by an official amounts to only a couple of hundred lats. In the best case.

In the worst case, as has often been proven in administrative squabbles with the state or local government, proving that you don't have donkey's ears, the value of the mistake is zero.

The value of a mistake is also variable at the everyday level - for example, if a neighbour managed to flood another neighbour. Unintentionally, of course, but still… Most likely they will reach an agreement on the estimate of material and labour costs, but the "hassle" that follows from sourcing materials, obtaining them, the inconveniences during the repair - that too will remain without a price or measurable value.

At the same time, men give women flowers, women give men ties or socks, hoping to compensate for the time they could not dedicate to one another. And there - time seems to acquire a value...

Have a lovely weekend!

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