The Employee Incentive Program
A story about perks and payoffs
“Hey, Jerry, can you get these back on my desk by Friday?”
The folders landed with a thump. Alex peered down over them.
“Cost you five bucks.”
“Aw, come on.”
Jerry shrugged. “I’m snowed under. You could always give them to Frank. He only charges three.”
Alex looked dispiritedly at where Frank examined something stuck under his thumb nail. He peeled a bill out, handed it to Jerry.
When he was gone, Jerry called, “Hey, Frank, pay you two bucks to look over these files.”
Frank didn’t look up from his thumb. “You know I charge three.”
“Two or nothing. Your choice.”
Frank gave his thumb a last disconsolate look, sighed. “Fine.”
Frank’s work would be full of errors but correcting them was easier for Jerry than doing the main body of work himself. Not a bad exchange.
Charging nominal sums for daily work had been introduced under the innocent guise of an “employee incentive program.” The new CEO, full of free market ideals and Silicon Valley ideology, had wanted to shake corporate America by its starched shirt collar. Employees, he insisted, should let their talent determine their worth.
Jerry saw the merits. Saw the idealism. Saw the way the system could reward those in high demand. But he also knew that if a system existed it could and would be exploited. Loopholes would be rigorously plundered.
Accounting made the first move, forming a bloc, caught somewhere between a communist paradise and monopolistic corporation. With no opposition, prices skyrocketed. Filing expense reports was virtually eliminated overnight. Jerry heard about one rogue accountant trying to make a side profit. But then that guy turned up on Wednesday with a split lip and a new attitude.
In Jerry’s department, such a strategy was impossible. It required a level of group cohesion absent amongst the social misfits that had washed up on the shores of Data Analytics. But that just meant other strategies were necessary.
The key, Jerry realized, was pricing. His work was generally believed to be better than that done by his colleagues. So, if his work was a lot better but his fees only a little more, people would come to him. And if he farmed out the work for less than he charged… he opened up his profit margin.
It took him two weeks to effectively replace the head of the department. He became the gatekeeper, setting the prices, farming out the work, looking over everything, keeping the quality where it needed to be. No-one else in Data Analytics exactly liked the system, but it was either live with it or get good enough to replace Jerry. And no one was incentivized enough to do that.
Except Barry.
Except, even then, the work was still coming to Barry through Jerry. People just assumed Jerry had gotten even better.
Or they did until Barry grew a big mouth and started telling people it wasn’t Jerry really doing the work. Started saying Jerry was just a front for the whole department. And then Barry started trying to undercut Jerry. Started trying to cut Jerry’s margins down to jack shit. And Jerry had just bought himself a nice TV. He had monthly payments all of a sudden. Was he supposed to just take that? Was that what the new CEO was incentivizing him to do?
Jerry wasn’t a violent man. You don’t end up in Data Analytics if you’re violent. No, those people ended up in Sales. And sure it was another monthly payment for Jerry to keep up, but paying the Sales thugs was cheaper than having Barry screw up his whole business model.
Barry was out “sick” for a week. He really was Jerry’s best worker. So, the work was really stacking up.
So, Jerry just stopped checking everything over.
And nothing happened.
No complaints. No returns. They kept on just paying him. They kept on assuming. Jesus, why was he trying so hard before? Because when he wasn’t checking over the work, he could take on even more. As much work as he could farm out. There were no limits.
Alongside the new TV, now Jerry had a new fridge. He thought he might even upgrade his dishwasher.
Then Barry came back to work.
Jerry went and smoothed things over, of course. Well, to make sure Barry was going to fall in line. Barry said sure.
But then Barry wouldn’t take the work. Wouldn’t do anything. Just sat there. A waste of space in Jerry’s analytical empire.
But Jerry had learned to manage without him. Except then Joan stopped taking on work. Then Alyssa. Then Mike too. It was like a rash. Like a cancer. They wouldn’t do the work. They refused to be incentivized.
Jerry went to sales. He could afford to up his prices. Could afford for them to send a message.
Except then Barry, and Joan, and Alyssa, and Mike were all out “sick”. And it was a lot of work that Jerry was trying to farm out now. The remaining analysts had to really crank stuff out.
And then someone noticed. They came to Jerry with the work. He couldn’t really defend it. It was sloppy. Full of obvious errors. Stupid errors. He made excuses, thought perhaps he’d handled it, but then they came back with all the work, months of it, and the errors were everywhere. You could see them growing. Like a rash. Like a cancer.
Omnipharm went bankrupt three months after that. Half its employees were out sick. Those remaining were barely competent. The production lines had ground to a halt. The recalls had become an epidemic.
Jerry watched the CEO on TV explaining how it wasn’t his fault. The interviewer asked him exactly how it had happened. The CEO threw up his hands.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Everything we did, and it’s like the people there weren’t incentivized to work at all.”
Thank you for reading Something’s a Little Off. If you’re interested in sampling a few other stories, and reading an excerpt of my upcoming novella, why not check out the sampler linked to here?