New Job: Professional Organizer of Children's Summer Camp Luggage

(Photo: New York Post/David McGlynn)

If you're a wealthy, professional parent, you may be getting your kids ready to attend an exclusive summer camp in a few weeks. The camp administrators have sent you a packing list. But you don't have time to put all of that stuff inside the luggage! You need a professional organizer, such as Barbara Reich.

Reich is a professional personal organizing consultant. People hire her to get their lives arranged neatly. In the past few years, she and other professional organizers have found that there's a market for getting rich kids' belongings properly packed for summer camp:

Two years ago, she had one trunk request. Last year, she had five trunks, and this year, she has packed 10 trunks — and it’s not even Memorial Day.

Professional organizer Dayna Brandoff of Chaos Theory has at least four camp-packing requests on the books and expects at least 15 more in June.

Some of her clients have requested she recreate their child’s bedroom so they can feel completely at ease in their air-conditioned bunks.

“It’s really about bringing the feel of home to camp,” Brandoff told The Post.

Reich charges $250 per hour. A single packing job can earn her as much as $1,000. To many clients, it's worth the expense:

“I talked three people off the camp ledge,” Reich told The Post. “For a lot of mothers, particularly when their child is going away for the first time, it’s very stressful. Clients will say, ‘I need to touch and feel the sheets for softness.’ ”

I found this article via Marginal Revolution, where many of the comments are negative toward the clients. I don't understand. Why would you get mad at a rich person giving you the opportunity to make money by engaging in a small amount of work?