In the U.S. we are culturally taught that we are supposed to dislike our work, especially if it isn't prestigious. If you dance around and have fun at work in the U.S. people look at you weird and generally discourage any such thing. But there's no reason not to bother enjoying your time.
I can think of one: the same reason Steve Jobs paid himself $1 a year.
Managing incentives is tough. If you try and reward someone for a task, you may find the incentives at some point misaligned.
Let work be fun, and you open yourself to work being sacrificed to protect the fun.
Therefore: abolish fun.
I haven't made an eloquent case for it, but I think that's the reasoning, and I'm not sure it's wrong, frankly.
The only reason Steve Jobs and any other executive pays themselves $1 on a W4 is because their income from other means of compensation gets taxed less than regular income. They aren't doing it as some sort of show of "look how much I love my job!"
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I can think of one: the same reason Steve Jobs paid himself $1 a year.
Managing incentives is tough. If you try and reward someone for a task, you may find the incentives at some point misaligned.
Let work be fun, and you open yourself to work being sacrificed to protect the fun.
Therefore: abolish fun.
I haven't made an eloquent case for it, but I think that's the reasoning, and I'm not sure it's wrong, frankly.
The only reason Steve Jobs and any other executive pays themselves $1 on a W4 is because their income from other means of compensation gets taxed less than regular income. They aren't doing it as some sort of show of "look how much I love my job!"
But the important part of life is the fun. The work is only instrumentally useful to get to the fun, not really valuable in itself.