Merits, now what?

I am usually a merit-based thinker. If I can't justify trying, I won't try. If it doesn't merit energy, I won't give my energy to it. I am not unique in thinking this way, but it was only recently that I discovered it was wrong.

Three weeks ago I got a new job in a restaurant. A pretty damn good restaurant. I am connected to the owners of this restaurant in a very convoluted fashion, but that doesn't matter; my connections got me the job.

Before I started, I got some of the best advice I have ever received. I was told that had I gone out and found the job on my own, I could do whatever I wanted as the only thing I would be hurting is my own reputation. However, now that someone else's name is attached to mine, in that they vouched for me to give me this job; if I screw around, I tarnish both of our reputations.

It really stuck.

I started three weeks ago, and "fuck it, I don't need to put the extra effort in" turned into "fuck it, I'll give it all I got."

After the first week, the two people I worked closest with told me what a great job I was doing and that I was helping them out a ton.

After the second week, the same two people told me that they were talking me up to the other restaurant workers and that I was basically indispensable now.

Now, that I have just worked my last day of the third week, one of the chefs came up to me and offered to throw my name into the mix for a promotion. He liked how much I was busting my balls today.

Three weeks has managed to change my thought process. I now only see the biggest flaw is right in the DNA of merit-based decision making: the reward is rarely seen before you embark. It would have been nearly impossible for me to foresee a possible promotion after three weeks, but it has happened.

The worst case scenario now that I have tried my hardest is being congratulated by my peers, being respected, and being able to hold the job without worrying about losing it. These things have already happened, and I expect that they will continue to.

Had I half assed it, the best case scenario would have made me the mediocre guy. Nothing special, nothing worth talking about to other people. No promotion. No feeling special. No being told that I am 'indispensable."

Ethical Decision Making

Let me present you with an ethical dilemma:

You are standing at the switching station on a train track; you have the option of making the train go either right or left. The train is moving too quickly to stop before you guide it on its eventual path. On the right track, one man is tied up; on the left, five men are tied up. If the train goes to the right, the one man dies; if it goes to the left, all five men die. Which way do you direct the train?

Although it is tough to let one man die, it seems reasonable to let him perish in order to save the five on the other track. Killing one to save five is much better than killing five to save one. (unless the one man possesses the cure for cancer while the five are all serial killers, this is not the case though, in this hypothetical, all six men are identical.)

Now here's a slightly different dilemma:

You are a doctor in a hospital. In five rooms, you have five men who need five different organ transplants. They will all die without the transplant in the next day and there are no available organs to give to them. There is a sixth man who is capable of giving his organs to each of the five men, letting them live, but killing the donor. Do you kill the man to save the other five?

Instinctively no. But is the situation much different, or any different, than the train track scenario? What separates them?

The Economics of Speeding Tickets

I was just driving back to Montreal with my dad after spending a weekend in cottage country. We passed a sign that labeled all of the fines and penalties associated with driving a certain speed on the autoroute; in big bold lettering, it stated that if you drove 160 km/h, you would be hit with an $895 fine and 10 points taken off of your license.

Whoa.

Wait, really?

After seeing this, I got my dad to calm down and slow from 130 to 110, where tickets are rarely given.

I thought that $895 was a little steep for a speeding ticket but soon changed my mind and wondered if it was steep enough. $895 is breaking the bank for people riding in their rusted out cars who are barely scraping by with the heavy increases in gas prices. $895 is huge for people who can't afford to drive. $895 is huge for everyone who doesn't drive 160.

The target, then, for the $895 speeding ticket is for the people who can a) afford the cars that go 160 km/h, and therefore, b) afford the big ticket.

It's stupid of me to assume that everyone in a BMW has thousands of dollars to throw away, but it shouldn't be that hard to come up with the cash. A cancelled newspaper subscription, the 'basic' satellite TV package, non-name brand food, a cheaper bottle of wine each night, all will contribute to $895 in savings over six months. In this case, the big ticket is a deterrent against going 160 but not enough to stop it.

Let's say the province raised the ticket to $20,000. I don't know many people who have a disposable $20,000. When the ticket price goes up and sits on a level with the price of private school tuition for a year, a new car, food for a year, people will not drive 160. 

It boils down to necessity and ability: the rust bucket drivers can barely scrape enough cash together to buy gas at $1.50 a litre and therefore do not drive at speeds that would tax them nearly $900.

Unlike the less fortunate drivers, the execs in their BMW's, can manage with a $900 hit. If anyone wants to stop people driving at 160 km/h, make it unmanageable for everyone.