Re. 1: You get what you pay for. Always have. Always will. Since all that any of us truly possess to sell to make our daily bread, eh, is time, then skilled time is worth more than unskilled time.

Re. 2: Go you!

Hm. I've been absent from this blog-o-sphere for a bit, not entirely intentional nor unintentional. Odd answer. I've got the app for smartphone to read LJ. After the most recent upgrade, it logged me out automatically, and I've just not logged back in there. Turns out, apparently smartphone is the place/entry point I've been reading the most. At least here.

1. "Skilled labor doesn't come cheap; cheap labor doesn't come skilled." Discuss?

I am fascinated to learn that the skill of How Not To Be Exploited comes packaged with any other useful skill a person might acquire.

A good point. I was looking at it from the point of view that, for example, the absolute lowest bid on a contract is not likely to produce the best quality work, especially when that bid also quotes the shortest time frame. It's possible that contractor is simply so good that he/she/they can do the work that quickly and cheaply, but I think the possibility is greater that they've underestimated the time and effort required.

And pernishous has a point about the market being saturated or over-saturated leading to low prices even for highly skilled work.

But this would also suggest that "cheap" and "skilled" are relative terms. In a highly saturated market, a skilled $10/hr plumber may not be cheap compared to the $2/hr plumber. But the $10/hr plumber (in Mumbai) may be more skilled than the $100/hr plumber (in Tokyo).

This reminds me of a method I've heard recommended for selecting a bid on a job that's been bid out. Drop the high bidder, because he's probably padding; drop the low bidder, because he's probably cutting corners. Average the other bids, and select the bidder who comes closest to that figure.

*nods* That works if you get enough bids, they cover a wide enough range, and you're not required to take the lowest one.

Was it Chuck Yeager who said something like, "Knowing that I'm sitting in something built by the lowest bidders doesn't exactly fill me with confidence"?

Well, it seems to me that skilled labour comes cheap when there is an over-supply of skilled labour, and when folks are desperate for work and taking anything they can get, one may well end of with cheap labour that comes ready-skilled...

A valid point.

Congratulations on acquisition of new Adobe skills! Like so many of my students, I forgot it was a two-part question...

Point 1 reminds me of the phrase "Fast - [Good|Accurate] - Cheap: Pick Any Two," which has certainly been my experience over the years.

Re: Point 2, congrats!

I think it's important to note that there is one rare exception to #1: In some situations, a highly-skilled worker can complete a task in a fraction of the time of a less-skilled worker, resulting in a huge savings of time and thus overall cost. But this is pretty rare, and is typically when you're dealing with someone who is essentially a master of the work in question.

That's true. There are things I can do in Excel in 30 seconds that would take someone else (who doesn't know about Text-to-Colums) hours or days.

"There will never be a product that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are that man's lawful prey."

This quote used to be on the wall of every 31 Flavors store in the country when I was growing up. Sometime in the last 20 years or so, it disappeared... and the quality of their ice cream went so far down that I no longer patronize them at all. I don't think those two things are coincidental.

It's not exactly about cheap labor, but I believe it to be part of the same continuum.