A couple of months ago, I ordered a small part for my stove from Sears, it was billed to my credit card. When the part arrived, it would not fit, so I called them up and sent it back. They emailed me a UPS packing slip so I could return the part, which I did the next day. Phone calls, (including being on hold for what seemed an eternity) plus driving down to the corner for the UPS drop off cost me a couple of hours of my time.

My last month’s credit card billed showed the purchase, but this month’s did not have a credit to my account for the cost of the returned part.

So I got on the phone again, called the customer service number on the website and sat through an hour of muzak and commercials until I finally got a real person, who quickly resolved my problem and let me know the check was in the mail (my credit card account will be credited for the cost of the part). So I spent about another hour doing this, most of it spent sitting on the phone listening to muzak and a syrupy voice trying to sell me stuff. Fortunately, my land line is billed by the month, so it didn’t cost me a fortune in telephone charges.

Using my salary for my last job as a guide, I figured I will be refunded about an hour of my salary as a credit on my next credit card bill. Now if you count the time I spent last month undergoing a similar hassle ordering the part, having them send me a return UPS ticket, and mailing the part back, I figure my total labor cost is about triple the cash I will receive in my refund. It is also an administrative cost that Sears has passed on to me, because they sent me the wrong part. From a strictly accounting point of view, I should have just let them keep the money and saved myself the time and effort. Time, after all, is money.

Labor saving devices don’t necessarily save any labor, except perhaps for the vendor, they just pass the administrative costs on to the consumer.