My first year of college I was attending Lewis and Clark College in Portland. During that time, I was especially close with two friends, Mark and Chris, who I had met through class. Mark was always looking for work and often he did a good job at finding miscellaneous jobs that paid well. One three-day weekend Mark asked me and Chris if we were interested in making some money in our spare time, as we had a longer weekend. Both me and Chris were interested and took Mark up on his offer. Mark explained to us that the work would be through an independent contractor that he knew, and he had previously paid him quite well in past jobs. However, Mark explained that the pay and jobs were always different, and we probably wouldn’t know what we were doing and how much we were getting paid until we arrived.
Saturday morning me, Mark, and Chris showed up ready to work at a drop pin that the contractor had provided. The contractor explained that we would be tearing up a sidewalk. However, he wasn’t able to get a jackhammer until the next day so we could start today with the sledgehammers and pickaxes he had. The contractor said he would have a better idea about the pay by the end of the day. At this point we trusted Mark that the pay would be well, especially considering the difficulty of the job without a jackhammer. So, we went to work on the sidewalk. It was not until the next day that we found out about pay, the contractor said that we would each be getting paid $180 for the two days of work. We had been there for about 7 and a half hours the previous day and were expected to do about the same this day. Chris thought this was absurd, he did not believe that this was adequate compensation for the work we were doing. Therefore, the whole second day his effort was reduced. I agreed that the compensation was lacking, but I had already committed so I was determined to finish the job.
This situation exemplifies some of the key disadvantages of job-based pay. Where pay structure and job evaluation can be subjective and how it does not encourage high performance. This situation was also frustrating for me and Mark at some point because it felt as if a free rider effect was taking place because Chris had checked out the second day, while me and Mark continued to work hard for the same amount of pay.
