Reputation

Ever since about middle school I have had a reputation as being quiet and laid back, which is often misconstrued as being shy. People like to assume that since I would rather listen to others than hear myself talk, I must be a extremely introverted. This can get a bit annoying but people are usually quick to realize that I just don't care to be involved in everything that is going on.

While this reputation exists in basically every aspect of my life (friends, work, school, etc.), I will focus on it in a work environment. I once had a job that included a lot of driving and people usually did not want to take their cars even though we got paid a fair amount per mile. While I never made an effort to drive, as it is occasionally nice to just sit in the passenger seat and relax, I would always volunteer myself if nobody else wanted to. I feel that there is no reason to make a big deal out of something so small, and arguing over something so unimportant does not lead to anything worth while. Basically every time I am asked to do something on the job, even if it is from somebody that has no authority over me, I go ahead an accept it because I find it easy to say yes, which I feel reflects my laid back attitude.

Just today I was at work and my supervisor complimented my ability to stay calm and collected, especially when faced with a high volume of work. While this is an example of one of the benefits of being laid back, having a reputation can yield a mixture of results. For example, the fact that I say yes to a lot of small tasks makes it easy for people to approach me with new tasks, which can lead to more work than I can handle.

I am sure that if everyone in an organization had the same attitude and reputation as I have then things wouldn't run very smoothly. An organization needs people of many different reputations in order to achieve things efficiently in my opinion.

There are definitely points in my life where I would like to stray away from my reputation in order to have a bit more control of situations, but my reputation mimics my true personality so it is often hard for me to actually go through with such actions. I feel that I will someday begin to transform my reputation in a way that helps my career goals be met, but for now I am very content with my reputation and its influence in my life.

I can not think of a situation where I would have the opportunity to cash in on my reputation in favor of some immediate game. I would be very interested to hear of any possible was that one could cash in on a laid back reputation.

Triangle Principal Agent

One summer I didn't do very well in my job search and ended up getting a job as a delivery driver for a local pizza place. Not a great job but with tips and a car with decent mileage I was about to make a pretty good amount of money. It was very easy but every once in a while I would encounter a principal agent problem that was rough to deal with because it was not my fault and not always easy to resolve.

The process was basically an assembly line. The cashier would get a call and take the order, then the cooks would make the pizza and put it in the oven. When it was ready somebody cut it up, put it in the box and called the name of the driver who was to deliver the order. Easy process, generally very efficient. However, every now and then I would get to the house and hand the person their order and they would take a look to make sure it is right. A lot of times if it was wrong, the person would just accept it if it was basically the same thing. There was this one time that I was given the wrong thing and when I arrived at the customer's house to deliver it, they were very angry to see that it was wrong and since they were paying in cash, they refused payment. With the position I held I had no ability to offer the customer anything to make up for the mistake. The company did not like to waste money so they were very hard to talk with on the phone when things like this go wrong. Therefor, I was usually just stuck in the middle of this, trying to satisfy the customer who I have to deal in the present, and also satisfy my employer who I have to make sure if fine with everything I do so that I do not suffer any consequences in the future. I am not entirely sure if this qualifies as a principal agent problem, but it at least has similar qualities in that I am working to satisfy two parties at the same time.

The whole tip situation is another example, and this one is probably experienced by every worker who relies on tips. If customers do not tip I do not receive any money other that the very low hourly wage. It is an issue because the employer doesn't make up for that by throwing a little extra money your way, so I just feel like I wasted gas by driving there because I would have made the same amount of money by staying at the store. I think it would be fair for the company to give me a couple bucks in that situation, because they wouldn't have made any money in that situation if they did not have anybody to deliver it. This is a principal agent problem because I am getting treated unfairly by both sides when this happens.