Friday, October 23, 2015
Peter Diamond Econ 490: Gift Exchange
This example might be completely wrong, and have nothing to do with what the article was about, but I think the two are related so here it goes.
My example of gift exchange would be Secret Santa. For the longest time now, I've been a part of Secret Santa at Christmas time. What Secret Santa is, is that everybody gets assigned a random person, and they have to buy that person a gift. This is a great idea, and everybody enjoys seeing what other people think they would like. There is one problem though. The creators of the game, at least in my situation, is that they didn't put a limit on how much you can spend. In theory, you might get better gifts, but the problem is that every player is in a different financial situation.
This leads to people buying different levels of gifts, making the people who bought cheaper gifts look bad. It ends up being a competition of some sorts, because you want to spend the most and look like the best friend compared to the other players. The problem, is not that other people make more money and can therefore buy better gifts, the problem is that the rules should have never been made that you can spend however much you want.
If the rule was, for example, that there is a limit of $60 on a gift, then everybody can spend the same amount, buy great gifts, and still lead to healthy competition. Instead of trying to see who can spend the most money, players would see who can do the most with the same amount of money.
This relates to the piece because like the author said, it's not a big deal that some kids have more marbles than others, it's a big deal that they got to create the rules before others had a say in it. Having a lot money is totally fine, but creating an unfair system is not. Let everybody have a say in the rules, and then make an executive decision.
Trust me, I want to have just as much money as the next person. But I also want to do the right thing.
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Let me divide my comments between the giving of actual gifts in the office - under a Secret Santa regime or otherwise - and then what you said about everyone being part of making the rules.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of Secret Santa till I became an administrator and if memory serves it worked pretty well the first time in that the gifts were mainly gags and based on the personality of the recipient. Gags show appreciation without getting into the money thing. I think gifts as the money thing don't belong at work most of the time, with the exception of a work milestone - like a 10 year anniversary on the job - or having a baby or maybe a kid graduating from high school, which I'd call life milestones. Giving for that is a kind of recognition just for being there, which is okay in my book. Other sorts of gifts I find problematic, such as one employee sells girl scout cookies in the office. It is impossible to be polite and say no in that circumstance, so I think it really shouldn't be done. But I'd much prefer people to have good judgment about it than to have office rules.
One last case where I think actual gifts are okay is when one employee goes through a hardship and then others might bring food over to their house or do some other home work favor to ease the burden. When people are down helping them out makes sense to me.
Back to secret Santa, it doesn't quite fit the Akerlof model because people do expect to be recipients and in a direct sort of way. We're mostly interested in people being willing to be Santa when they don't expect to get any present themselves.
Now on the last part about being there to write the rules, in a new association that seems reasonable. In an ongoing operation that somebody joins later, the rules are already in place and normally simply get embraced by the newcomer if they don't seem too arbitrary. That's the way I was with the Secret Santa. They had done it the year before, when I didn't work in the office. So I just went with the flow on that one.
I agree that there's definitely a proper time and place for gifts in the workplace. Work anniversaries, having a baby, and being there for someone in need definitely fit that mold. The girl scout cookies is definitely tough because you can't say no. Some people might want to buy them, but have more important things they need to spend money on. And they can't say no because it'll look bad.
DeleteRegarding the Secret Santa and the rules, it makes sense that you probably can't expect to change the rules if you are joining after it's been going on for a couple of years. Maybe if enough people join later and realize that the rules don't make sense though they can vote to change it. Might be a possibility. They also could start their own Secret Santa and see who joins.