Last year I had to make a decision that really showed me how much compensation can influence behavior. I was working a part-time job that I actually liked. The environment was easygoing, my coworkers were friends, and the schedule fit well with school. It wasn\u2019t stressful, and I felt comfortable there. The downside was the pay. I was making just a little over minimum wage, and there wasn\u2019t much opportunity for raises or growth.<\/p>\n
Around the same time, I got offered a different job that paid $3 more per hour. It didn\u2019t sound like a huge difference at first, but when I actually did the math, it added up fast. Working around 20 hours a week, that was about $60 more each week \u2014 close to $3,000 more over a year. As a college student paying rent, utilities, gas, and food, that money wasn\u2019t small. It meant less stress about bills and more breathing room financially.<\/p>\n
I told myself at first that money wasn\u2019t the main thing. I liked my current job. It was comfortable. But when I thought about it realistically, the higher pay made me feel like my time was being valued more. It wasn\u2019t just about the extra cash \u2014 it was about fairness. If I was going to give up my time, especially while balancing school, I wanted it to feel worth it.<\/p>\n
I ended up accepting the higher-paying job. What I didn\u2019t expect was that I would actually work harder there. Because I felt better compensated, I felt more motivated to meet expectations. Looking back, compensation didn\u2019t just influence my decision \u2014 it influenced my effort too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last year I had to make a decision that really showed me how much compensation can influence behavior. I was working a part-time job that I actually liked. The environment was easygoing, my coworkers were friends, and the schedule fit well with school. It wasn\u2019t stressful, and I felt comfortable there. The downside was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15057,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/3"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/rossisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}