319. Two Branches Episode 9 — 2.5 Hours putting together an Ikea cot

From 8pm this evening until 1030pm I was putting together a cot that we bought from Ikea earlier this week.

We already have one cot (the same one) and our original plan was to have the twins share the cot for the first 4-6 months or so. However they scuppered our plans by growing up too quickly. At around 6 weeks it became obvious that we’d need to invest in the second cot much sooner that we had anticipated.

So today I spent 2.5 hours putting the cot together. At a per hour rate it would have been far cheaper for me to pay Ikea to put it together for me but this thinking has a few flaws:

1. It assumes that during those same 2.5 hours I could instead be doing work that I could be getting paid a lot more for. The reality is that I didn’t have any paid work to do so it becomes redundant
2. For Ikea to put it together you need them to deliver the item. I collected the item myself
3. It’s my baby’s cot. I simply don’t trust the Ikea delivery guy to put as much care into constructing it as I would. There job is to get it done as quickly as possible and to move onto the next customer asap. My priority is making sure it’s solid, sturdy and safe. The Ikea guys could definitely have done it much faster than I, but in this case speed wasn’t my main concern

To be honest, I could have done it faster but there was no real point in rushing it so I took my time. At least now I have some confidence that it’s as safe as it can be (unless I misread some of the instructions…).