The Economics of Carelessness

By Joshua Jiji Varghese

Right from the time one is born, a statement he/she constantly comes across is to “not be careless” or be “a little more careful” when doing things. Why is it so important to not be careless/be very careful when getting things done? Is something lost in the process when doing things haphazardly? Will doing things with full commitment augment the result? All these are questions one might think about when told to do so. This article aims to involve a combination of self-realisation, introspection and self-assessment followed by a will to change aiming to sensitize citizens on the costs associated with carelessness.

People can be careless about anything. Right from their daily chores, schedules, tasks, etc. to their relationships, finances, jobs and even certain highly important tasks. This can have catastrophic impacts and can also hinder the smooth process of anything. Below listed are some of the most common ways in which people tend to be careless and the various costs they can be subjected to doing it.

1. Forgetfulness: Forgetting something is a trait humans across all ages and spheres of life tend to possess. It is a trait that has grown across ages. Forgetting a thing to be done or something to be taken can ruin the smooth flow that the process was under and might bring a need for things to be restarted or even aborted. This even has the effect of nullifying the benefits of the things done till now. For example, Suppose, a person forgets to take his mobile phone on his way to his work. He remembers it and comes back. For this, he spends some of his precious time to come back that he could’ve spent on his travel, fuel costs incurred to come back home and as a result, he is going to be late to his office which could result in a pay cut.

A sum of Rs. 154 crores was collected in fines from Delhi alone during Covid. Of these, the highest number of offenses were for not wearing a mask and a majority of the people reported that they forgot to wear it rather than not wearing it intentionally due to certain conditions. Also, by idling in daily traffic every day, a car loses up to 0.6-1.2 litres of fuel. This when multiplied into extra trips or even excessive idling could result up to 3 litres of wastage.

2. A miswritten answer in an exam: The victims of this form are many. Haphazard reading, misinterpretation, forgetting a part of the question while attempting the answer, all contribute to it. As a result, the final score will be lower than expected and it can have ghastly implications. Marginal shortage of cutoffs, drop in aggregate, failing an exam could all be the various results of this form.

Nearly 34% of all attempters report making a careless mistake in an exam. With an average loss of 8% marks, a NEET exam candidate had once reported that due to a misinterpretation of a question, their mark was 5 marks less than expected, resulting in a drop of rank by more than 3000 ranks.

3. Rushing: Rushing often occurs when people are given more than ample time. Yes, you read it right! Having more time than what is required leads people to procrastination which is a waste of time. This piles up task towards the end of the deadline forcing them to rush through it, resulting in them overlooking through necessary aspects pertaining to the task. This tendency to overlook even has the capability to render work incomplete, thereby, nullifying the efforts. This time, if invested in doing some other work would’ve resulted in better productivity.

It costs an average employee, $8,875 due to his procrastination, resulting in lower productivity and motivation to work further. Also, in a survey conducted amongst school go-ers and young working population, many of them reported losing around 1.5-2 hours due to internet procrastination.

4. Excessive involvement: Just like how rushing was the end product of procrastinating and piling up tasks, rushing could also come into action when a person is excessively involved in multiple tasks. This forces him to rush through his tasks. Time is a scarce resource. This scarce resource, if over-exploited could lead to unproductivity in a given task and could even result in inefficient haphazard work. As a matter of fact, any resource exploited over its carrying capacity yields negative returns. Also, in the process of going behind all these things, we tend to lose out on many important things such as sleep, relationships, leisure time, etc. Costs incurred include a bad impression in front of the person who assigned you the task, wastage of time which resulted in nothing as well as losing out on other precious non-monetary aspects of life. Sleep deprivation, caused by overburdening of individuals with work, costs companies with more than 1000 employees, approximately $1 million a year.

5. Destruction: Careless handling of equipment, machinery or even any of the day-to-day tools that we use could lead to accidents or injuries to ones self or even to others around. This could lead to massive costs which are incurred for rehabilitation of the equipment and even for recovering from injuries. For example, if a person is careless while using a stove at his house, the fire could spread causing minor to major damages to his property and could even injure him badly. No salvaging can be done without incurring a massive cost. When considering an individual’s case, a recovery could even be impossible if the intensity of damage is massive and could even paralyse him and make his body more prone.

In 1979, the worst commercial nuclear plant incident in the history of the United States occurred at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in Pennsylvania. The incident occurred when shift workers working between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. failed to recognize a serious change that nearly resulted in the meltdown of the nuclear reactor later that day. Thousands of workers were injured badly and the plant was damaged as well.

Through all these scenarios, one can infer that massive costs (direct and indirect) are incurred whenever someone falls prey to carelessness. Post that, salvaging oneself out of it could involve massive costs. The simple remedy to this is just by paying a little more attention while doing chores. Being careful is a very cost effective process, both while being careful and in its implications in the future. It is better to get a $10 Sandwich of good quality right now, rather than get a cheaper one for $5 and later incur another $100 as medical expenses, which is being careless with your health.