The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment

by A. J. Jacobs

  Emboldened by Mr. Naveen’s triumph with my parents, I decide to test the next logical relationship: my marriage. These arguments with my wife are killing me—partly because Julie is a much better debater than I am. Maybe Asha can do better:

  Hello Asha,

  My wife got annoyed at me because I forgot to get cash at the automatic bank machine. . . . I wonder if you could tell her that I love her, but gently remind her that she too forgets things—she has lost her wallet twice in the last month. And she forgot to buy nail clippers for Jasper.

  AJ

  I can’t tell you what a thrill I got from sending that note. It’s pretty hard to get much more passive-aggressive than bickering with your wife via an e-mail from a subcontinent halfway around the world.

  The next morning, Asha CC’d me on the e-mail she sent to Julie.

  Julie,

  Do understand your anger that I forgot to pick up the cash at the automatic machine. I have been forgetful and I am sorry about that.

  But I guess that doesn’t change the fact that I love you so much.

  Love

  AJ

  P.S. This is Asha mailing on behalf of Mr. Jacobs.

  As if that weren’t enough, she also sent Julie an e-card. I click on it: two teddy bears embracing, with the words “Anytime you need a hug, I’ve got one for you. . . . I’m sorry.”

  Damn! My outsourcers are too friggin’ nice! They kept the apology part but took out my little jabs. They are trying to save me from myself. They are superegoing my id. I feel castrated.

  Julie, on the other hand, seems quite pleased: “That’s nice, sweetie. I forgive you.”

  I shoot off another e-mail to Asha:

  “Could you thank her for forgiving me for not getting cash? And tell her that I, in turn, forgive her for forgetting to tell me about the Central Park date with Shannon and David until I overheard her talking about it with a friend.”

  The next morning I get CC’d on another Asha e-mail to Julie.

  Am happy you forgave me for not getting the cash. And I am glad to do the same about the Central Park date with Shannon and David.

  It’s human nature to forget. Perhaps, I could do better by having Asha put up a calendar and sending us reminders about these little things.

  Love

  AJ

  Good. At least this time I got my little dig in. But Julie just brushes it off—it’s hard to trump a hugging-teddy-bear apology note. Like it or not, those damn stuffed animals improved my marriage. Asha should take care of all my bickering; she’s my better nature.

  Meanwhile, Honey seems to be lavishing me with even more adulation these days. She tells me that she waits eagerly for my e-mails. I’m beginning to feel like David Koresh without the guitar or weapons stash. It’s a little stressful. I’m forever afraid of disappointing her, of not being creative or brilliant enough to merit her acclaim. On the other hand, maybe she’s just doing her job and actually despises my white imperialist ass.

  At the least, I figure I can take advantage of the exaltation. I ask Honey to write an entry in Wikipedia about me and my book, The Know-It-All. It reads in part:

  A. J. Jacobs is a not so unheard of international figure, who can threaten the most au courant wizards with his knowledge. . . . [He] is a writer and editor of phenomenal grey matter.

  Perfection.

  Friedman quotes outsourcing advocates who argue that we should embrace it as an opportunity. If someone else is plugging away on the lower-end tasks, that frees Americans to work on higher-end creative projects. Makes sense. After all, Jacobs is the creative genius with phenomenal grey matter. The world is better off with me focused on the high end.

  But lately, Honey has started sending me unsolicited ideas— and some of them are pretty good. Granted, there are a few clunkers in there, and the English sometimes needs to be decoded, like a rebus. But there are also some winners: Honey suggests Esquire conduct a survey on what women want men to wear. Could work.

  The point is, she’s got talent. If Honey is a guide, the Indian workforce can be just as innovative and aggressive as the American, so the “benefits” might not be so beneficial. We high-end types will be as vulnerable as assembly-line workers. (Friedman’s other pro-outsourcing argument seems more persuasive— that free trade will open up the huge Chinese and Indian markets to American exports.)

  Regardless, if I end up on a street corner with a WILL EDIT FOR FOOD sign, then at least I’ll know that I’ve lost my job to decent, salsa-loving people like Honey and Asha.

  Despite three weeks with my support team, I’m still stressed. Perhaps it’s the fault of Chicken Dancer Elmo, whom my son loves to the point of dry humping, but who is driving me slowly insane. Whatever the reason, I figure it’s time to conquer another frontier: outsourcing my inner life.

  First, I try to delegate my therapy. My plan is to give Asha a list of my neuroses and a childhood anecdote or two, have her talk to my shrink for fifty minutes, then relay the advice. Smart, right? My shrink refused. Ethics or something. Fine. Instead I have Asha send me a meticulously researched memo on stress relief. It had a nice Indian flavor to it, with a couple of yogic postures and some visualization.

  This was okay, but it didn’t seem quite enough. I decided I needed to outsource my worry. For the last few weeks I’ve been tearing my hair out because a business deal is taking far too long to close. I asked Honey if she would be interested in tearing her hair out in my stead. Just for a few minutes a day. She thought it was a wonderful idea. “I will worry about this every day,” she wrote. “Do not worry.”

  The outsourcing of my neuroses was one of the most successful experiments of the month. Every time I started to ruminate, I’d remind myself that Honey was already on the case, and I’d relax. No joke—this alone was worth the thousand dollars.

  I’ve outsourced my marriage and filial duties, but somehow my son has gotten overlooked. It’s time to delegate some parenting to the Jacobs support staff. Julie is out watching her childhood friend do a stand-up comedy gig, and I’m stuck alone with Jasper. It’s 7 P.M., Jasper’s bedtime, but I’ve got to write some semi-urgent e-mails. No time for hungry caterpillars or jumping monkeys.

  “Mr. Naveen? If I put you on speakerphone, would you be willing to read to my son? Oh, anything. The newspaper’s fine. Yeah, just say his name once in a while. It’s Jasper. Okay, I’m going to put you on now. Okay, go ahead.”

  A pause. Then I hear Mr. Naveen’s low but soothing voice: “Taiwan and Korea also are subscribing to new Indian funds in their markets.” Jasper isn’t crying. I’m tapping away on my PowerBook. “European Union . . . several potential investors . . . parliament.” I glance at Jasper again; he seems perplexed but curious. “Aeronautical engineers and technicians.” Jasper seems to like aeronautical engineers. “Prospects of a strong domestic demand.” After three minutes, I start to feel guilt-ridden. I’ve officially begun to abuse my power. Why didn’t I just turn on the Wiggles? Then again, Mr. Naveen’s lilting voice is so comforting; if there were bright-colored cartoons of strong domestic demand, this would be ideal.

  Speaking of the Indian domestic economy, it’s looking pretty rosy. My team is good, cheap, and absurdly eager. They will do anything short of violating the Geneva Conventions. And with most of the tasks—online shopping, thank-you notes, research— my crew saves minutes or even hours of my day. Admittedly, the outsourcing of my life is sometimes counterproductive—an illfated order of an eggplant dish from a nearby restaurant comes to mind. But overall, it’s working. To me, it seems the future of outsourcing is as limitless as . . . blah, blah, blah.

  You know what? I’m kind of bored writing this piece. I’m going into the other room to enjoy some Entourage on HBO. So I’ve asked Honey to finish up writing this article for me.

  Once, I was watching I, Robot with my wife and I thought Life would become so easy with a robot. Then, the next instant I thought not just a robot but more of a humanized robot. In the book The World Is Fla
t, the author wrote about an interesting job that could be outsourced to India, which provoked me to have a Remote Assistant. Though I have never seen Honey K. B., I speak to her almost everyday when she calls me. Though our communication is not visual, I still know that she is a reliable assistant. Our interactions that we have had through mails and telephonic conversation never made me feel that she is miles away from me. To conclude I would say I did not get a robot but yes a Human like me who can think and work for me.

  Yes, America, we’re cooked.

  CODA

  This is me again, A. J. Jacobs. That was one problem with the aftermath of this experiment—when people e-mailed me about the article, and I’d write them back, they were suspicious. “Is this A.J. or is this Asha?”

  So just so you’re sure: it’s me.

  The article had an unexpected impact when it came out in Esquire in 2005. I started to get inquiries from people who wanted to outsource their own lives. I referred them to Brickwork and Your Man in India. A few months later, and perhaps nudged along by the response to my article, both those companies started departments devoted to personal outsourcing. “Virtual assistants,” they’re called and there are now dozens of employees at each. It’s a real business. In fact it’s getting so big I’ve heard complaints from some readers that the Indian assistants are overloaded. The tasks take too long to complete, and the results are unimpressive.

  I must confess I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Yes, these companies usually provide a good service. But what if my experiment helped take jobs away from American assistants?

  I was feeling really down about this, actually. Then, six months after the article came out, a man wrote me. He said he works in technology and had lost his job the previous year to outsourcing. He’d been looking for a new job to no avail. After he read my article, he decided to hire someone in India to look for a job for him. That’s right: he outsourced his job hunt! And the beauty part is, it worked. The Indian outsourcer found him a new job within a week. So maybe there’s hope for American ingenuity after all. I’m crossing my fingers, anyway.

  I still have Asha on retainer. Or actually, Asha recently switched jobs. So I now have her colleague Sunayana on retainer. I pay a fee of ten dollars a month and an additional ten dollars an hour. I use them every couple of weeks to make rental car reservations or research, say, George Washington’s marriage.

  Asha meanwhile sends me Christmas cards and digital photos of her cute two-year-old son. Honey wrote an “Ask Honey” column for Esquire for a couple of months after the article came out. She’s now getting her MBA in India.

  One of the calls I got in the wake of the article was from a young man named Tim Ferriss. He said he was a first-time author trying to write a business book. Something about how to make money running an herbal supplement company while not working so hard. And he wondered if he could reprint large chunks of my article on outsourcing. I said, sure. Why be a jerk and say no? Why charge him? He’ll probably sell a hundred copies. Cut to: Six months later. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss hits number one on the New York Times best-seller list, and Tim (whom I love) becomes a massive celebrity.

  In short, I need to outsource my business decisions.

  BRAD BLANTON

  The founder of Radical Honesty, Brad Blanton.

  Chapter Three

  I Think You’re Fat

  Here’s the truth about why I’m writing this piece:

  I want to fulfill my contract with my publisher. I want to avoid getting fired. I want all the attractive women I knew in high school and college to read it. I want them to be amazed and impressed and feel a vague regret over their decision not to have sex with me, and maybe if I get divorced or become a widower, I can have sex with them someday at a reunion. I want Hollywood to buy this piece and turn it into a movie, even though they kind of already made the movie ten years ago with Jim Carrey. I want to get congratulatory e-mails and job offers that I can politely decline. Or accept if they’re really good. Then get a generous counteroffer from my boss.

  To be totally honest, I was sorry I mentioned this idea to my editor about three seconds after I opened my mouth. Because I knew the experiment would be a pain in the butt to pull off. Dammit. But I didn’t want to seem lazy, so here I am.

  What I mentioned to my editor was this: a movement called Radical Honesty.

  The movement was founded by a sixty-eight-year-old Virginia-based psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. He says everybody would be happier if we just stopped lying. Tell the truth, all the time. This would be radical enough—a world without fibs—but Blanton goes further. He says we should toss out the filters between our brains and our mouths. If you think it, say it. Confess to your boss your secret plans to start your own company. If you’re having fantasies about your wife’s sister, Blanton says to tell your wife and tell her sister. It’s the only path to authentic relationships. It’s the only way to smash through modernity’s soul-deadening alienation. Oversharing? No such thing.

  Yes. I know. One of the most idiotic ideas ever, right up there with Crystal Pepsi and spa retreats for AIG executives. Deceit makes our world go round. Without lies, marriages would crumble, workers would be fired, egos would be shattered, governments would collapse.

  And yet . . . maybe there’s something to it. Especially for me. I have a lying problem. Mine aren’t big lies. They aren’t lies like “I cannot recall that crucial meeting from two months ago, Senator.” Mine are little lies. White lies. Half-truths. The kind we all tell. But I tell dozens of them every day. “Yes, let’s definitely get together soon.” “I’d love to, but I have a touch of the stomach flu.” “No, we can’t buy a toy today—the toy store is closed.” It’s bad. Maybe a couple of weeks of truth-immersion therapy would do me good.

  I e-mail Blanton to ask if I can come down to Virginia and get some pointers before embarking on my Radical Honesty experiment. He writes back: “I appreciate you for apparently having a real interest and hope you’re not just doing a cutesy little superficial dipshit job like most journalists.”

  I’m already nervous. I better start off with a clean slate. I confess I lied to him in my first e-mail—that I haven’t bought all his books yet. I was just trying to impress upon him that I was serious about his work. He writes back: “Thanks for your honesty in attempting to guess what your manipulative and self-protective motive must have been.”

  Blanton lives in a house he built himself, perched on a hill in the town of Stanley, Virginia, population 1,331. We’re sitting on white chairs in a room with enormous windows and a crackling fireplace. He’s swirling a glass of Maker’s Mark bourbon and water and telling me why it’s important to live with no lies.

  “You’ll have really bad times, you’ll have really great times, but you’ll contribute to other people because you haven’t been dancing on eggshells your whole fucking life. It’s a better life.”

  “Do you think it’s ever okay to lie?” I ask.

  “I advocate never lying in personal relationships. But if you have Anne Frank in your attic and a Nazi knocks on the door, lie. . . . I lie to any government official.” (Blanton’s politics are just this side of Noam Chomsky’s.) “I lie to the IRS. I always take more deductions than are justified. I lie in golf. And in poker.”

  Blanton adjusts his crotch. I expected him to be a bully. Or maybe a New Age huckster with a bead necklace who sits cross-legged on the floor. He’s neither. He’s a former Texan with a big belly and a big laugh and a big voice. He’s got a bushy head of gray hair and a twang that makes his bye sound like bah. He calls himself “white trash with a Ph.D.” If you mixed DNA from Lyndon Johnson and Ken Kesey, and threw in the nonannoying parts of Dr. Phil, you might get Blanton.

  He ran for Congress twice, with the novel promise that he’d be an honest politician. In 2004, he got a surprising 25 percent of the vote in his Virginia district as an independent. In 2006, the Democrats considered endorsing him but got skittish about his weeklong workshops,
which involve a day of total nudity. They also weren’t crazy that he’s been married five times (currently to a Swedish flight attendant twenty-six years his junior). He ran again but withdrew when it became clear he was going to be crushed.

  My interview with Blanton is unlike any other I’ve had in fifteen years as a writer. Usually, there’s a fair amount of butt kissing and diplomacy. You approach the controversial stuff on tippy toes (the way Barbara Walters once asked Richard Gere about that terrible, terrible rumor). With Blanton, I can say anything that pops into my mind. In fact, it would be rude not to say it. I’d be insulting his life’s work. It’s my first taste of Radical Honesty, and it’s liberating and exhilarating.

  When Blanton rambles on about President Bush, I say, “You know, I stopped listening about a minute ago.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” he says.

  I tell him, “You look older than you do in the author photo for your book,” and when he veers too far into therapyspeak, I say, “That just sounds like gobbledygook.”

  “Thanks,” he replies. “That’s fine.”

  Blanton has a temper—he threatened to “beat the shit” out of a newspaper editor during the campaign—but it hasn’t flared tonight. The closest he comes to attacking me is when he says I am self-indulgent and Esquire is pretentious. Both true.

  Blanton pours himself another bourbon and water. He’s got a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek, and when he spits into the fireplace, the flames crackle louder.