For this reason, I will be talking about a company that did not harness my natural longing to do good. Over the past summer I was an intern at Enterprise, there are some good connections with the readings and my experience that I want to talk about. My job was essentially to check people into the cars they were renting, and with that I was trying to sell them on coverages/upgrades/toll passes. Each month I made Enterprise close to $30,000 on top of what these customers reserved, by selling those previously mentioned items. With that amount I was the top selling intern, and positioned myself each month to win $300 as a bonus for my success. This means that a multi-billion dollar company only rewards 1% to it's best sales person. Looking at this further, 99% of the money I was able to bring in was given to people who are making a significant amount more then I was, like managers and all of the higher ups. If this wasn't frustrating enough, Enterprise is a very customer service based company, which is a good thing usually. However, in order to actually receive that $300 bonus the customer service score at our branch would have to be above corporate average. This score was calculated by surveying 100 random customers, if the customer was completely satisfied it would raise the score but if they were anything but that it would go against it. With that said, at the end of the internship I was only paid out on one of three bonus I should have received.
The gift exchange mentioned above clearly shows the selfishness that exists in corporate institutions. In the first article, Haidt talks about how children have the natural tendency to share when there is collaboration. At Enterprise, there was clear collaboration, if not for me doing my job and selling customers products the higher ups would not be making any money. We both are doing very different jobs, but we both are pulling on a very intricate string that when pulled releases lots of money. Instead of sharing the money, the vast majority of it is kept and not dispersed evenly. I do think that most if not all companies act selfish, and it is the selfish systems that we are surrounded by that make us become selfish at heart. We become the very ones who will be put in a situation where we are pulling on an intricate string with someone else, but instead of sharing the wealth that is released we will choose to keep as much of it as we can, and it will be a significant amount more then someone who is doing a job nearly as important.
Let me take a step back from what you wrote and talk about car rental from the customer's point of view. I find the process quite stressful most of the time I've done it, typically after an airplane trip, and I'm a bit disoriented and quite suspicious of the people at the counter. In my case, I've learned to have my regular car insurance cover car rentals, so I don't want additional coverage, and depending on how long I will stay at the destination and what I will be doing while there, I will determine whether to pre-pay for the gas or not.
ReplyDeleteOftentimes, this happens at night and I don't immediately inspect the vehicle to see if there are dents or scratches. That can come back and haunt you. I've had one really bad experience about that.
So the question is if you look at this from the customer's view, the company's view, and the employee's view is there a win for all where the marbles really are shared. I will give one more reason why they answer is no.
If you book a rental car through an online site like Expedia, they typically array the available cars by price and within the class of vehicles that you are interested in, you book to get the lowest price. So the companies want to look competitive that way but then want to tack add ons to the price once you've booked with them.
The same thing happens with airline tickets.
Now one issue for you to consider, not as a intern but as a regular employee, is whether people stay in this job or if there is a lot of churn. The bonus you talk about makes the most sense to me for a regular employee who is doing a good job - because the company wants to retain that person. Take that out of the equation and I don't see sharing the marbles happening in this sort of situation.
I worked at O'hare so I can confirm that you are not the only one who was stressed out and not in the mood to talk to us at the counter. Most of the time, the customer was uninterested in the coverage just as you, but most of the people were interested in toll passes/fuel. There is a definite problem with the inspecting cars at night, to fix that they are using tablets that have a flashlight function on them to help inspect the vehicles.
DeleteI think the way it is set up now is the way it will stay, there is no way for everyone to win. At least the way it is now, the company makes tons of money, the employees can pay their rent, and the customer get a necessary service.
There is a lot of churn at Enterprise, the starting position is very demanding and it doesn't pay the best. The hours you work are hard and the people you deal with are stressfull, all of this together is why people leave. That is the only situation where the marbles are shared, but they certainly are not shared very evenly. I'm hoping that other companies have structures for sharing the marbles more evenly.
I think that you bring up a lot of great points about selfishness of companies. In many ways, I think that the way that you were treated as an intern is similar to how many interns are treated by companies. Sure, there are the companies that try and pamper the interns to make sure they want to come back to the company full time, but in many instances interns are just looked at as cheap labor.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I think we differed in was our portrayal of the articles, the NYT article in particular. I personally read the article thinking that the way that these children acted echoed how adults would act in a way. In one situation, you were correct in saying that children want to be fair and share. But there were also situations where the children weren't natural to share, like in "finder's keepers" or just a dumb luck scenario. I think that these scenarios are supposed to foreshadow what adults would act like as well.