Rational Choices: The Newspaper

I decided last week – as a rational choice – that I will pay the old man that works in the guest house I’m staying at 5 Rupees per day for bringing me the newspaper (The Hindu) every morning to my door. It is a good deal for both of us. The newspaper costs 3.5 rps, so I decided – also rationally – that I’m happy to pay the extra cost of 1.5rps for the service of having the newspaper under my door every morning. He was happy because he is also earning money – and apparently – his cost of doing the job is equal or less than 1.5 rps per day (I actually think he already goes to get his newspaper, so he is basically not incurring in additional costs).

In order to close that deal I had to incur in a great deal of body language, since the guy doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Tamil. However, everything seems to be working fine, and we agreed that he will bring me the newspaper at 7:00am.

The first day of our experiment (yesterday) I woke up at 8:00am, and there was no newspaper under the door. I checked again at 8:20am, nothing. Finally, when I left the room and the guest house around 9:00am the guy gave me the newspaper downstairs. So still, I felt my utility is going up. Still not as much as being able to read the newspaper in my room during 30 minutes before I leave, but still, an increase in my utility. However I told him – again making use of my poor body language skills – that I want the newspaper under the door if possible. He said “yes”.

This morning, however, we turned to another modality. At 7:00am someone is knocking my door – actually there is a very noisy bell – and woke me up. It was his wife (who also works at the guest house) with the newspaper. So at this point I just realized that under this new modality – of waking me up at 7:00am – the rational decision of buying the newspaper for 5rps is decreasing my utility (being delivered this way). I think I’m ready even to pay another 5rps in order not to have them knocking my door so early. I feel I’m worse off than before the newspaper (the benefit of sleeping until 8:00am is higher than the benefit of even having the newspaper at that time).

So at this point, as a rational individual, I must make another choice : either try to explain him again that I want the newspaper under the door, but I don’t want them to knock the door, just leave it there and I’ll pick it up (if anybody knows how to say this in Tamil please leave it as a comment) – or just telling him “no more newspapers”, and I’ll just buy the newspaper on my own on my way to work, and paying only 3.5rps and assuming the other 1.5rps as cost of my time. This last option is – I assume – bad for him, because he’ll stop earning for the service.

For me, both measures have costs associated. The first one is the cost of trying to explain him for half an hour with body language that single sentence, and the second one is – aside from walking under the sun on my way to work to buy the newspaper  – is that I won’t be able to read it in my room before I leave.

It seems to me that the former is less costly than the later. It is funny that what started as consumption decision to raise my utility became a decision making on how to avoid disutility.