Back to the desk

During the long weekend, I didn’t think about work at all. After the departure of the family and the tea party, we were out again yesterday, for lunch with friends. I didn’t have a twinge of conscience - I’m quite able to put work to one side without a qualm – at least when I’m not at home. However, this morning the post arrived, and I became aware of numerous letters for action or filing mounting on my desk – and the washing had started to accumulate too. So I’ve started ploughing through it again. And of course, I haven’t finished the VAT and I haven’t done anything to my novel in progress, nor a story for the Writers’ News comp, nor worked on the first three chapters of Tainted Tree. I’m back on the treadmill again.

M took the New Scientist on the train to a job today, and left it at the job. That was a pity because I wanted to look again at the article on making decisions. The particular thing I was interested in was the ‘sunk cost fallacy’. I remember that from the Economics section of the Social Science foundation course. I think actually that the New Scientist explained it better, because I suddenly clicked that what it actually means is ‘throwing good money after bad.’ Everyone knows about that. M bought himself a Range Rover about eighteen months ago (second hand) with a gas conversion. Unfortunately, the gas is not working properly, so he’s having to go over to the expensive petrol option. His idea – to get it repaired, so that it does work. My idea – send to the scrap metal dealers. Spending money on it because we have already invested money in it is a case of sunk cost fallacy.

I don’t know if it quite applies to the other phenomenon – that is buying something to wear and then finding (when it’s too late to take it back) that the colour or the fit is not quite right, but you wear it anyway, to kind of justify it. I’m sure there must be a name for doing that. Perhaps it’s just plain meanness.