Random Musings

Money. One can never have enough of this damn thing. It is the focal point around which most of our lives revolve. The poor crave for it, the middle layer complain about it and the top are never satisfied with it. It seems quite drole that we don’t want to openly talk about it as it considered to be as taboo a topic as sex or Net connectivity (cough cough).

An interesting article I read mentioned how in an MNC workplace where bonuses are offered, a person would rather get a 10,000 $ more than his peers (thereby accepting an overall lower compensation) rather than all of them getting an equal higher pay cheque. I would rather be in the 2nd category and quietly pocket the extra proceeds and pat myself on the back for the good job done. I guess its more of an ego issue and ‘oh look at me and my l-e-e-t bonus’ guys who would make #1. I guess as you go up the chain you will bump into #1 blokes. Welcome to 1835 some might say , but every time I read about stuff like this , it boggles the mind.

Ok, so some might say money can’t buy happiness. I’ll go along with that for now. But what’s happiness is another big issue that can be debated. For some people its love, Friendship, commitment and well LMV. For me its money. Period. McDonalds has gone so far as to employ a CHO (Chief Happiness Offer) to see that things are smooth in burger land! I would like to blame (conveniently) James Hadley Chase novels for my outlook in this regard. The only motive of the protagonist (Ex con, shady insurance salesman, scribes) would be to lay his hands on the dough and scram. [Of course along the way he did have his share of fun ;) ] I see a kid in the audience raising his hand – “What about Bill Gates (or Slim Helu conflicting reports on #1) what can he do with so much money”? Well bill ol’ boy, you can give me what you think is excess for you. Even 0.00000001% is enough to get me started to fund my doomsday nuclear device, a small pet peeve of mine for some time. Meh, or a bunch of voodoo dolls, same difference. Lot of punks on my ‘list’. You will be too if you don’t agree with me.

The concept of Anderson's long tail doesn’t work here. It says that the combination of all the niches would eventually overrun the big cahuna up on the head. Yea…No. Since the chaps at the end of the tail would never co-operate to join forces due to the inherent distrust amongst humans (Prisoner Dilemma), we will forever doomed to be fragmented. Adam Smith’s extension of the invisible hand told us that the rich needed to be protected from the poor and this law almost seems to be prophetic now. I don’t blame anyone at the end of the long tail( Im right there at the bottom) as I would be the same and never be so dumb as to give out my hard earned bread to a bunch of idiots . Might as well invest it in
US- 64. Oops wait did that..yea not a nice feeling. Damn you. And yea Oracle too.

I guess there has been enough HR bashing. With such weirdo’s running around (ok fine me too) it must be hella hard for them to understand what motivates you and me. So the next time someone says money is not important to them, you can rest assured that when he is even a buck short of it, he will go insane. We claim to be rational and assume that everything works according to the blueprint we design internally. A black swan just floated by.


PS: The title for the ignorant is a cheat code for Starcraft.

Posted by Raghav on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 2:29 AM | Permalink