Rewarding the Unproductive
On Tuesday, I was in the office being a total bum; I was browsing the internet and being completely unproductive. During my scouring, I came across free tickets listed on my firm's craigslist equivalent that my firm was giving away to employees. The tickets were for the John Mayer and Sheryl Crow concert that night at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts; I jumped on the tickets.
After trudging through rush hour traffic to get to the South Shore of Massachusetts, Lawrence and I were highly entertained by the performers. Sheryl Crow is amazingly fit and has a surprising number of hits. Guiltily, Lawrence and I sang along to many of her songs. John Mayer is always entertaining with his song improvisation and constant rambling about nonsense inbetween songs. The crowd was of course filled with crazed teeny-bopper/college aged girls, all drooling over the man. Guiltily again, Lawrence and I knew most of the songs, bobbed our heads, and sang along. We had a great, guilty pleasure of a time, happily adding this concert to our list of unexpected adventures this summer.
What gets me about the whole experience, though, is that I was rewarded for being completely unproductive. Those in my firm who were working hard with no time to check our firm's craigslist and had no chance of getting those $76 seats. True, I can't be one to complain given that I am a culprit here, but I can't help but reflect on the skewed incentives. Here I am, about to quit, browsing the internet, and not adding to the firm's productivity at all, yet I get to take a guest with me for free to see popular musicians.
What's wrong with this picture? This skewed incentive system is one of the many reasons contributing to my departure from the business world, and I am only exacerbating the problem by participating the way I have. Still, I can't help but take advantage of free tickets or other such incentives. I'll be leaving the firm in a couple weeks, boycotting business if you will, so shouldn't that be a statement enough of my disagreement with it all? What's the harm with enjoying some free tickets for a night that would have gone to waste anyway?
I suppose this sort of reasoning is exactly what propogates the whole skewed incentive system I'm so righteously against, but in my last two weeks, I can continue this sort of reasoning as a way of "sticking it to the man". I'm taking advantage as much as I can before I leave to show how bogus the system really is. That's it... I'm sticking it to the man. Heh.
After trudging through rush hour traffic to get to the South Shore of Massachusetts, Lawrence and I were highly entertained by the performers. Sheryl Crow is amazingly fit and has a surprising number of hits. Guiltily, Lawrence and I sang along to many of her songs. John Mayer is always entertaining with his song improvisation and constant rambling about nonsense inbetween songs. The crowd was of course filled with crazed teeny-bopper/college aged girls, all drooling over the man. Guiltily again, Lawrence and I knew most of the songs, bobbed our heads, and sang along. We had a great, guilty pleasure of a time, happily adding this concert to our list of unexpected adventures this summer.
What gets me about the whole experience, though, is that I was rewarded for being completely unproductive. Those in my firm who were working hard with no time to check our firm's craigslist and had no chance of getting those $76 seats. True, I can't be one to complain given that I am a culprit here, but I can't help but reflect on the skewed incentives. Here I am, about to quit, browsing the internet, and not adding to the firm's productivity at all, yet I get to take a guest with me for free to see popular musicians.
What's wrong with this picture? This skewed incentive system is one of the many reasons contributing to my departure from the business world, and I am only exacerbating the problem by participating the way I have. Still, I can't help but take advantage of free tickets or other such incentives. I'll be leaving the firm in a couple weeks, boycotting business if you will, so shouldn't that be a statement enough of my disagreement with it all? What's the harm with enjoying some free tickets for a night that would have gone to waste anyway?
I suppose this sort of reasoning is exactly what propogates the whole skewed incentive system I'm so righteously against, but in my last two weeks, I can continue this sort of reasoning as a way of "sticking it to the man". I'm taking advantage as much as I can before I leave to show how bogus the system really is. That's it... I'm sticking it to the man. Heh.
posted by Christina at 12:21 AM
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