I don't know how your company works but at mine we have a profit target associated with our annual bonus. By eliminating that waste I am helping to ensure we hit that target so I get paid. Imagine if I let it slip and we missed our target by $200,000 that would be dollars coming right out my pocket.

It's an effort vs benefit calculation. Can you say how much of that savings will translate to dollars in your pocket? In most large companies, we can't. And when you're in a company making tens of billions, a saving of $200K is rounding error.

Then there's the psychology of it: If enough other people work extra long hours to get those savings, they're not getting a larger bonus than me who isn't. When you scale this kind of reward incentive, what you'll get is most employees not bothering - they'll get the bonus anyway.

Value per hour might be a little low there, but they have certainly done more to align incentives with employees than my employers have. I do get bonus, but it is a fixed percentage based on getting above "meets expectations."

I'm curious, would you say any of your motivation and feeling of reward in your job comes from doing a good job, or helping your organization achieve it's goals? Or does your motivation and reward (what gets you out of bed, what makes your job tolerable or enjoyable) come mostly/only from maximizing your paycheck? Or other things?

In the chain below you are kind of talking past each other.

So let me try to clarify what the other posters are saying to you.

It's not that pay is the only thing that makes a job tolerable or enjoyable. It's the fact that compensation/rewards do not necessarily follow nor reflect the work done.

So in the above cases, you do more work outside your intended role and find some kind of optimization that saves the company 250k/yr. And you make say $80k/yr. You have now provided almost 3x your salary in terms of economic value to your company but if they do not provide an economic reward for this effort, it acts as a demotivator. Though there could be other things that make the job tolerable or enjoyable, you potentially now are dealing with a poisoned pill. Nothing can counter that poison of being rewarded for such improvement than a good job, what else have you done for us today?

The problem someone like me has with your query is the (somewhat arbitrary) separation of "job" with "rest of life".

I seek non-monetary rewards. I like doing interesting and/or meaningful work. But I define what that means to me, and short of starting my own business, it is rare that an existing job will give me more interesting work than what I can do in my spare time.

Hence, the incentive is to maximize my spare time. Sure, I could look for an interesting project at work, but once you factor in all the organizational constraints (will not have much autonomy, must make money, etc), it's not even half as interesting as my own projects in my spare time.

So I optimize for spare time.

Why would I help my organizatiom reach its goals of the organization is not interested in helping me achieve mine ?

For me I hate bosses, performance reviews, meetings, etc. I'm cantankerous and angry but I have always had a knack for finding and solving major problems on my own.

From my experience if you have a track record of doing a good job working autonomously and you can demonstrate that you contribute directly to the business's financial interests people just leave you alone and if they don't there is a good chance the boss's of those people will tell them "just leave him alone". Be someone's golden goose and in most organizations you can do whatever you want.

Thats part of what you're paid for obviously. Aside from that your success in the org is tied to its success to some degree.

I understand your mentality from low wage workers but I dont understand it from people in software who clear anywhere from 100k to 700k a year.

Apart from that, doing a good job is a character thing. You should do a good job for yourself, not try to fit in with the slugs.

Hm, I'm not sure how that answered my question? Although I see you are not the GP poster, I'm interested in your answer too, sure.

I figure people are motivated by different factors at work, in different proportions.

I could guess what you meant by that sentence, but I might get it wrong, and then where would we be.

But ok, are you meaning that sentance to suggest that what gets you going in the morning, what makes your job tolerable or pleasurable to you, is exclusively maximizing your income, and that you think this is the way everyone should be, because... uh... I'm still not sure how to relate that to your sentence/question/rhetorical question, honestly. Like, if your organization is interested in helping you achieve your goals, then are you motivated by something other than maximizing your income? Or still just by maximizing your income, either way? Are you telling us that your goals at a job consist of maximizing your income, and that's it? And this is true either way, regardless of whether the organization is interested in helping you achieve that?

My income is a reflection of the value I bring to a company. If I do something extremely valuable without getting a raise or a bonus or a promotion then the company is not valuing me enough and I should look elsewhere.

If I work for a for-profit company you can't expect me to do extra work for free. If I wanted that type of life I would have gotte a job in another kind kf venture

So, I'm curious, what aspects of your job would you say are what makes a job tolerable or pleasurable to you? Just maximizing your income, or are there other things? Getting along with coworkers? Enjoying solving programming puzzles? Anything?

Or is this a stupid question, because all jobs are equally intolerable to you, they all suck the same, there is nothing that makes one more tolerable or even pleasurable than another, at least not enough to matter, in your experience?

I'm just taking guesses.

I'm also curious how long you've been working in this field.

I like my profession => I want to earn as much money as possible doing it => if I work my ass off and you don't reward me I will look elsewhere

It's not that difficult. As I already said, if I didn't want money I would have worked as a volunteer or something

Right, I understand that you want to earn as much money as possible, and if you don't feel you are being compensated adequately, you will go somewhere else.

That probably describes many, most, or all people, but isn't an answer to the question I was curious about.

I am not sure why you are refusing to answer to my question while still engaging in the discussion, but I guess I should take it as an answer that, in fact, no, nothing at your job contributes to whether you find it more or less tolerable or even enjoyable than another, except how much you get paid?

I am also curious, although I assume you won't answer, whether you'd say you generally "like" your jobs or "hate" them, or just don't even think of them in those terms, or what. And still curious how many jobs you've had, and how long you've been working in the field.

None of my motivation comes from doing a good job as defined as "increasing company profit."

I care about two things:

1. My own pile of cash. I will work until I die, as I like the technical puzzles. But I also want the ability to casually walk away at any time.

2. The technical puzzles. I care about the code and doing fun things with it. Whether it goes to prod? I do not care. Whether it brings in new revenue? I do not care. I will push interesting new tech I want to learn and find some reason to make a case for it, even if it is not a sincere case.

I feel that you are conflating the GPs point. The things that make your job tolerable or enjoyable don't matter if you don't feel like you are being fairly rewarded, and vice versa.

Even if these optimizations and improvements are enjoyable, why would I spend my precious energy and focus on them if I'm not going to be rewarded appropriately? I would rather save my energy and focus for things I care more about.

Reward is also part of the enjoyment. If you are not being acknowledged and rewarded for impactful work it lessens the enjoyment of doing such tasks.

Paycheck only most days. Shipping something of quality on ship days.

The employment is a means to funnel money to the valuable aspects of life.

Plus, if the waste is someone's pet project or initiative, you might get into trouble if you imply they had poor judgement in green lighting it.

It's fun being a sysadmin sometimes. I tripped over a similar cost savings and instead of opening up a ticket I just spent 30 sweeping up the unneeded resources.

Later I ran the numbers and realized this alone covered about half my total cost to the company. You don't often get feedback that direct about your impact on the bottom line.

You spent 30 seconds? Minutes? Dollars? (Virtual) brooms? Aargh so confusing! But well done!

It really is strange that the people doing the actual work don't automatically get most/all of the profits. If 10 of my friends were to dig, plant, and maintain a garden and then I gave them only them a small portion of its fruits and kept the rest for myself they would rightly be very upset with me.

You're literally describing business. That's how all businesses work. The gardeners get the market rate for being a gardener regardless of whether they're working on a residential masterpiece or somewhere mundane

Ok? I'm not sure what your point is. I said that it's strange and clearly unfair and something that's rational to criticize and want to change. Not that it doesn't exist.

If you provided the tools, land, plants, etc (I.e. the ability to create a garden in the first place) then you could argue it's fair that you keep most of the profits.

"Providing land" really doesn't fundamentally even mean anything, humans didn't create the surface of the Earth. Providing means making or doing something, like making a meal or providing medical care; "providing" land just means someone marked off a square on the Earth and so generously offers not to shoot others for making use of it. (Thinking about it - there would probably be a fiction of "providing" atmosphere and sunlight too, if there was an easy way of gatekeeping it like land area.)

In a broader context, if you mean preparation of an area for development by landscaping it and running utilities and roads to it, that's done by other workers, not owners.

The owners aren't providing tools and plants either, those are being assembled, grown, and transported by other workers, who again should be receiving most/all of the profit. Obviously you need other workers to organize all of this which requires both finesse and significant self-responsibility, much like a heart surgeon or a civil engineer, but much like heart surgeons and civil engineers I don't see a reason for them to make more than 5-20x as much as the person with the easiest job.

I get why, as the organizing of the work is a critical task for any of that to happen. This is no small task to be fair, as you may notice in how few community gardens exist. Employees also get enormous risk reduction.

But in most of the work world, I get the same pay whether the crops I grow are bountiful and valuable or scarce and full of worms. I certainly don't get more converting a wormy field into a bountiful one.

So I just won't.

I think you just described capitalism. Or feudalism.

I mean, yeah. That's what it is.

Do you find value in having a good reputation?

A reputation as a capable drone? Yes. A reputation as a go getter? No.

Reputation also includes playing a lot of games. You can casually claim credit in interviews for things you didn't do.

That whole situation is gross.

Which one?