Today a person was telling me how one way that he is able to motivate himself to find the best deals is that he actually tracks how much money he saves each month based on his efforts when it comes to things like using coupons or strategic price matching. As a result it becomes like a game to him to see how much more he can save next week or month.

While that may sound weird, funny enough a lot of people do that when it comes to their bank accounts where seeing that dollar amount going higher is like a challenge for many to see how high they can get it to go up. Who would think something as simple as that could get people to work harder and earn more huh? I suppose it’s mainly about the sense of accomplishment that what you are doing has an immediate visible impact which encourages you to keep doing it.

I heard some interesting stories the other day about various people who despise their jobs and would constantly say they are going to quit. Ultimately they don’t though and when asked why they mention that the money is okay. The interesting thing is that their negativity continued to spread apparently such as them telling new employees how crappy the company was.

If you had an employee like that where technically they did everything well at their job but behind the scenes they were acting as a cancer of sort in terms of morale would you keep them around? Most people would probably say no but at the same time would probably keep them too. I know in a business environment it can be tricky too as technically if the person isn’t doing anything wrong in the actual job then it can open a whole can of worms if you let the go.

It’s almost like the reverse problem where people normally say every company is greedy and just wants money from people but at the same time this can definitely be true when it comes to the other way around. I think either way if anyone is doing anything 100% just for money then it usually won’t work out very well in terms of quality and giving one’s best efforts.

I have seen it many times before but it is always interesting to hear this. Essentially, Christmas is coming up and usually that is when businesses scramble to get their products out for the shopping season. For consumers that usually means scrambling to find those hot products too as they stock up. Today a person was telling me that he was going to apply for this seasonal job at a retail store for the sole purpose of getting this hot release coming as this way he will know immediately when items will be arriving. This isn’t like a student either as it is someone who is rather well off and self employed.

And yes, people were saying why waste time as if he wanted it that badly he could even just pay someone to line up. But of course that then led to him saying things like how it would be fun to try something a little different and that it’s temporary anyways. I was thinking too while on paper he probably sounds like he will be the worst employee ever as he is working to try and make it easier to find items, ironically the business will probably get a good worker as he doesn’t care about the money and is pretty clear in terms of what he is offering and his background kind of shows what he can accomplish.

It must be really weird as a hiring manager I bet though which is kind of funny too as like in this case it’s a seasonal position and so the applicant has an expectation it is temporary anyways. However, I bet in most cases the hiring manager would think it makes no sense even if the person is coming in and will do the job with professionalism while being a team player. At the end of the day I think it is more about the experience though. Like in this case he most likely wants to experience how it is like being on the inside of the crowd rush. It’s not so weird to me anyways when you think of it with that perspective.

This sure made me wonder how productive this was. I was hearing that the way one person keeps himself accountable when it comes to things like his finances is that he lets everyone knows about the dumb decisions that he makes such as over spending on various impulse purchases. He mentions that this way it semi encourages him to avoid decisions like that as he doesn’t want to frowned upon by everyone.

I guess in some ways it would work in the sense that you are being honest about the things that your doing and therefore are more open to change. I guess the biggest issue would be if you are one to say you are the way you are then I don’t think telling people will make much difference as many times in those cases people are simply looking for sympathy which would feed their old habits. Although, I must say in general it’s better to let people know I suppose as you never know who may be reading it and could offer assistance afterwards as I know finances are usually one of those things people are reluctant to talk about unless they are like millionaires.

I was reading today about some tactics that a business used to help motivate its employees to try and exceed sales goals. One thing that usually motivates people is knowing that they are in competition with some else. For example, franchises often have contests where the store who makes the most sale in a certain day will receive prizes for all its staff for example.

The interesting thing was reading how in this particular case the competition was non existent as everyone ends up as the winner regardless. How often would some actually check the numbers too when you think about it as if your store manager told you that the store won for example people would immediately just start celebrating while reaping the rewards. I guess when you think about it they aren’t really hurting anyone by doing stuff like that and if it helps to motivate people then I guess you can argue it’s almost like telling a child that if they do good then you will give them a gift.

I don’t think that would have ever worked at the places I worked in as usually I had access to numbers for others as well and so that is where the motivation comes from in terms of trying to do better.