I’m not the most romantic person in the world. I think fart jokes are appropriate on a first date and I’m dreadful at organising outings. But I think it’s time I pulled my weight and treat my partner to a special night in. With the new season of Game Of Thrones premiering next week, I have decided to host a date night in Westeros, with all that implies. I’ll be using Airtasker to help me out. (Insert ‘Red Wedding’ joke here…)
Image credit: HBO
The whole idea of the “sharing economy” has exploded into a fully-fledged business model that has infiltrated many aspects of everyday life. You can use your own car to take passengers through Uber and GoCatch, rent out a spare room through Airbnb and you can even sell yourself on Airtasker. Well, you can sell your time and effort, to be exact.
Airtasker is an online marketplace where you can outsource pretty much any task, from getting somebody to pick up your favourite takeaway and ice cream to hosting themed events. I’m not so good with planning events in my personal life. Considering my ideal date night would be sitting at home, playing The Division and eating junk food with my partner, I thought I had better enlist some help to plan a romantic night in with my significant other.
Airtasker recently asked Lifehacker Australia to test out its service using pre-installed credit. So I’ll be trialing just how well Airtasker can help me organise this GoT-themed date night from start to finish; everything from catering (Medieval-themed, natch) to decorations and costumes.
To be honest, I have my own reservations about this whole experiment. The idea of having strangers enter my apartment and muck about with stuff does make me a bit queasy. Also, the people offering their services may not have the qualifications to perform certain tasks. As far as I know, there’s no vetting process done on Airtasker — instead, you just have to take their word for it.
These are probably concerns for a lot of people who have considered using these kinds of online marketplaces for help. But I’m willing to give Airtasker a go and see where it takes me. Hopefully I’ll be able to provide some honest insight on the service to you guys.
Screenshot of the listing I made on Airtasker.
The listing for the job is already on Airtasker, in case you’re interested in checking it out. I’ve set a $700 budget which will include expenses incurred and service fee for the Airtasker that pick up the job.
Obviously, this amount of money is a bit excessive for a standard run-of-the-mill date night but if you’re doing it for a special occasion such as Valentine’s Day, a proposal or anniversary, that could be money well spent to make your partner feel better appreciated.
Who knows? Maybe you’re confident that you can pull off an epic Game of Thrones date night and want to take on the task. If so, hit me up with some suggestions on Airtasker! I’ll be picking who to assign the job to tomorrow. Stay tuned for Part 2 later in the week.
Comments