105 | The Cost of Availability

As a kid, I remember friends’ parents who were doctors and carried a pager around when they were on-call.

Maybe I’m unique, but the pager did not seem cool. Maybe it was novel, but it wasn’t cool.

Any time I saw someone interact with a pager, they were being disrupted, they were annoyed, or their stress level changed pretty quickly.

The cost of this kind of availability was extremely high - missed sporting events or recitals, baseline dread of the next notification, tension in a marriage, shuffling of schedules, disappointment, miscommunication - the list could keep going if we wanted it to.

I think most people could recognize that being available around the clock, even for a day at a time, had a high intangible cost - it was obvious to see because the person had to physically leave whatever they were doing in order to “pay the bill”.

It’s funny how in a couple of decades, we’ve transitioned to every person on the planet carrying a “pager” around.

Slowly, we’ve all opted into the novel (not cool!) doctor lifestyle without realizing that the cost of availability hasn’t changed.

We don’t have to leave the space, we don’t get an invoice, and we don’t even have to swipe or tap to pay the bill, but you better believe that the vendor is getting paid in full.