Features / Paying people to have the time of your life / Karina Mantavia
Paying people to have the time of your life
Karina Mantavia
In a central London office a small group of people are engaged in some
serious phone-bashing. In half an hour they have booked a helicopter flight,
picked up dry cleaning, negotiated with umpteen builders, reserved an
apartment for six in a funky part of Amsterdam, arranged a millennium party
and a parachute jump, and ensured a heater gets moved exactly 1m to the
left, so that new kitchen units will fit.
This is the office of Ten UK, otherwise known as Time Energy Network, the
first company to bring American-style concierge services to Britain.
Offering what it calls the ultimate in lifestyle management, Ten UK claims
to sell something its customers find increasingly at a premium: time.
"This will be the defining business of the first 10 years of the next
century," insists 29-year-old managing director Alex Cheatle. "With global
isation and better technology, life has become more complex; so many
possessions, so many options. But people don't have the ability or time to
manage them all, so they want an expert to do it."
Concierge services are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the United
States economy - and now interest is being shown in Britain. Though Ten UK
has just 150 members, demand for its services has spread from the south
coast to Scotland. The new year will see offices opening in Manchester, Bath
and Edinburgh; by the end of 2000 the company aims to cover 75% of Britain,
with 5,000 members.
Britons have the longest working hours and the highest proportion of working
women in Europe. This, combined with a rise in dual incomes and
single-person households, may explain why the "time famine" is so pronounced
in London and is spreading.
It is the quest for elusive, hassle-free quality time that motivates most
members, however. Oriel Gordon, 29, who runs an advertising agency with her
husband, understands perfectly the time-pressed needs of today's
professionals. "Our parents used to get home at 5.30 and that was that. Now
people put the emphasis on work, and it's embarrassing talking to plumbers
or arranging your holiday while in the office. This is a PA for your
lifestyle."
The level of involvement with each member means more outlandish requests may
be followed through, too. These range from finding a dog psychiatrist to
tracking down the ideal present for a football-crazy husband - a ball signed
by the 1968 Manchester United team.
So how much does a service like this cost? Each member forks out an annual
fee of $800, then pays according to the nature of each task. The company
insists members pay no more for a service than if they had found it
themselves, "and they will always be quoted the cheapest rate".
The exception to this is when staff have to go out of the office. If a
member needs a watch to be picked up from the other side of London, or
shopping from the supermarket, he or she is charged $19 per half-hour.
There are those within concierge services' target market, though, who find
the idea repellent. Laura Aron, 28, director of a London public relations
firm, says: "It lacks the personal touch, especially if you're redoing your
home. It's your home, for God's sake. If you don't have time to look after
it, maybe you've got your priorities wrong. However career-driven I am, I'd
never let other people organise my life."
Is it healthy for an already stressed, exhausted, work-obsessed culture to
use a service that simply enables it to work more? Paul Aldridge, managing
director of Entrust, Britain's second such company, which set up in March,
believes so. "It is definitely healthy to reduce stress," he says. "This is
the start of a lifestyle change. People are beginning to think about what's
valuable and what's not."
But Ten UK's small staff, with backgrounds in everything from art dealing to
multilingual tour directing and event management, will still have some
convincing to do. "There's a barrier in Britain," Cheatle says. "A lot of
people still don't understand it, because it's a rethink about how you live
your life."
The Guardian Weekly 18-11-1999, page 23
