Group Dynamics

In the TV show, The Office, the firm realizes a conflict with a surplus in their budget. The accountant specifies that if they do not spend the surplus, then they will receive less money in their budget for the following year. Pam, a receptionist who spends all day sitting, hopes that the money is used to purchase new chairs for the office. Others are frustrated with the poop performance of the old copy machine and believe that the best allocation of the surplus is for a new copy machine. Michael, the branch manager, is put in a difficult situation because he needs to decide whether to purchase a new copy machine, new chairs, or perhaps report the surplus to corporate and receive a personal bonus for himself.

The latter of the three is the most selfish, and although he contemplates it he wouldn't jeopardize any of his relationships with his employees/friends over it. Essentially, Michael doesn't benefit from either purchase but he does need to make a decision. Some people didn't have an opinion and didn't care which was purchased. 

Eventually, everyone agrees on chairs because they would rather have something rather than nothing while Michael gets a bonus. This was the breaking point where all people realized that the firm would benefit from either purchase. After the purchase was made, the office was united and happy again. As for a post mortem situation I am not entirely sure if the problems could have been avoided. Both chairs and the copy machine are essential to the operating of the firm, but only some employees use the copy machine a lot and some employees sit more than others. Depending on the person, they would most likely rather have a new purchase that they would use the most. The only conflict of personal interest was that Pam, the receptionist, sits all day and also has to use the copy machine often. In this situation, I would probably go with what Pam decided because she would be making copies anyways.

Team vs Individual Production

Over the past 15 years I have dedicated majority of my life to playing hockey. Every weekend was spent on the road for tournaments in Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, and many other states. Practices were 3 days a week for about an hour and altogether it took a lot of time away from other activities.

One of my best coaches made a statement that changed my opinion on my teams and also relates to this topic. He said "of all the teams that i've played on, the ones that were most successful were the ones that no one cared about earning themselves an individual scholarship, we all just wanted to win" which hit home with me since I was worried about earning myself a scholarship at that time.

What I took from his quote was that if all 20 something of my team mates and I put our efforts into helping one another succeed as a group, we would all earn ourselves scholarships somewhere down the road. It definitely made me feel like I had been a bad team mate growing up, because I always knew my personal stats and how I compared to everyone else instead of simply worrying about my team's record and chance at winning a championship together.

Another way I thought of looking at this approach in relation to hockey is how players determine their actions during a game. I find myself passing most of the time instead of shooting. I take just as much pride, if not more, in getting an assist as opposed to a goal. Another famous quote that I have heard is that "great players make those around him/her look good" which has always resided with me. If i hadn't scored or "contributed" to a team's win on paper then I was discouraged, but I also took pride in making plays and putting my teammates in positions for them to score or succeed.

In this case I believe that it is a share-the-spoils approach to have put my personal interest of earning a scholarship aside and done my part as best I could to make my team successful. As for the players now, only 2 kids went on to earn scholarships and one of them was drafted to the NHL. Now looking back on it, the player that was drafted was the least selfish of everyone on the team and didn't get much personal recognition at the time. He worked hard every day and scouts/coaches saw that which got him to where he is today.

In the future, I imagine that I will be working on a team or teams in my career. Each person will hope to eventually earn themselves a promotion, but should not sacrifice the success of the group. In order for our firm to maximize production we will each have to contribute as best we can and let everything else fall into place as it should. That doesn't mean that individuals can't put in extra work on the side or present individual ideas to distinguish themselves. As long as the first priority is to benefit the group then anything else would be considered pulling a rope for one's self.

I am curious to see how a work team environment will compare to that of a sports team, but I do believe that the concepts are interchangeable.

Income Risk

On coming to the University I was in the division of general studies because I hoped to try to transfer into business or engineering, but wasn't sure what I wanted to do. After a couple semesters, my GPA wasn't ideal for getting into either program so I declared a major in economics with a business minor. I figured that for job eligibility this was the next best thing for me because I hope to work in finance. Every academic decision i have made has been with the intentions of getting the best job after college that i possibly can. 

The past 2 summers I spent my time taking 2 classes to get ahead on credit hours. This past summer i needed to take out a subsidized loan. I wasn't as concerned about the loan because it is subsidized, but once i graduate it will accumulate interest. With this in mind, I worked 40 hours a week all summer and opened up a savings account just in case i need it to pay off that loan upon graduation. After only 4 months i have a quarter of the funds to pay off the loan and still over a year and a half left in college. 

I have 2 older siblings who have entered the job field and made mistakes that I am aware of now. My older sister wasted money and loans by living in the city and going to a private college. My older brother took way too long to take his CPA and ended up just getting a job in sales. After seeing their experiences, I decided to try to go into finance and save as much money as I can starting now.

Personally, I would use illinibucks if it meant that I could choose classes earlier. It would be beneficial for me in that i could choose classes that fit my schedule and perhaps review teachers or select a teacher that I have had in the past. For example, Professor Vazquez teaches econ 102 and 302. I had him for econ 102, did well in the class, and hoped to have him as my professor for econ 302. Students in the college of business had priority in choosing classes, so by the time i was able to, his classes were full and i took the class with a different professor.

My question would then be, if i purchase a spot in line, can someone else purchase on ahead of me or would the first spot be the most expensive and the price declines relative to the place in line. If the price were too low, then students would take advantage of them and the market would become much more competitive for each class selection. I don't think that the price could be too high. As far as I'm concerned, I could only have benefitted from having the voucher whether i was able to use it for just econ 302 or if i could use it for every class selection.