Why Should I Pay You?

Here we go again:

A controversial program in Georgia would offer students cash to study and many are against it.

According to opponents, why should we reward students for studying? My response: Then why should we punish them if they don't? After all, "if they don't study, then they fail!" So? Let them fail.

How's that working out for us?

Once again, modern American sensibility has it that the only proper reinforcement is negative reinforcement. This is why our country sucks so hard nowadays. After all, these people absolutely despise the idea that we should be paid extra for doing a better job, so why should we even bother?

I am not going to get paid extra if I am nicer to you or serve you faster or make you more pleased with your experience at my company... so why should I go the extra mile? Especially since the worst thing that's going to happen to me is that I may get fired and have to find another job... that pays the same amount.

So the customers complain, then the companies complain, then the economy suffers and everyone complains - but you mention raising the minimum wage, offering bonuses, paying people what they are worth, or enforcing laws on illegal immigration that limit these assholes' options for hiring cheap labor - and nothing gets done! They laugh at you, change the subject, belittle your "knowledge" of the topic, but they never admit that they simply do not want to reward us for doing a better job because they don't want to spend the money!

They want something for nothing and they want more for even less and if they don't get it, they go into convoluted economic theories, trot-out questionable statistics, and fall back on outdated "ethics" which they have no right to force on others!

Why reward people at all? Let's just kick everyone's ass when they don't do as well as we think they should! Oh wait... that's - we do that now, don't we?

© C Harris Lynn, 2008