Futon Barter

So, last Sunday, I purchased a Futon through Craigslist. On my trip back from picking it up, I lost a piece. A certain plastic part that fits in a wood slot, so it can slide up and down the rail when you change from couch to bed. A part that I would never be able to find in a hardware store. I don’t have any tools for machining such a part, though it would not have been difficult to do so. I opted to goto on of the three machine shops on campus and inquire wether or not I could have such a part made. (Since the futon has 4 of these parts, I provided an example to be replicated). The man in charge of the shop had a policy of not allowing crazy college students to use his machines until after they’d taken his class (a policy made from past experience). Since it is currently summer, the class would not be available until Fall. But, being a really nice guy, and sensing that I would not really want to pay him a full-time rate for making such a small piece, he offered to trade me for it. He’d make the part, I’d clean his shop.

After only a day, he called me back, with a remarkably nice part. (It actually looks better than the 3 other such pieces that have acquired much wear from the previous owner.) He claimed that it took him only about a half hour to make, so I began to clean two of his machines, which didn’t take long. During the process, I noticed one machine, in the corner, that was in dire need of cleaning, and I offered to do that one as well, since I finished the other two so quickly. I convinced him to allow this cleaning, which took an entire hour (and I was hot and sweaty at the end of it). He was actually impressed with the detail of cleaning I did on that machine, and I know it saved him much work, because it was a difficult area to get into (luckily I have a slender body frame).

So, I got a custom piece for my futon, and the machine shop got 1.5 hours of ‘free’ manual labor. I’d consider that a fair and equitable exchange. Capitalism works.