The Key To Prospering In the Current Economy

Reading today's Bleat something jumped out at me. I think I may have an insight, it may not be original, or it might be. I'm not sure, either way, I'll ram it down your throat whether you want it or not.

At the end of it he wrote:

New comics, and of course buzz - with a new video around 11 AM or so. See you there! (Note: I finished the video around 10:30, and realized I'd been at the job, in one way or another, since 8:30 AM. Didn't feel like it. Didn't feel like work at all.)

Seems to me, that's what all businesses should look for, especially in jobs that require lots of brain work and enthusiasm.

You want to hire people to do jobs that they would be happy to pay you to do, but rather than use that against them to keep them underpaid, pay them enough so that they don't feel like they need to turn their obsession into a hobby. By paying Lileks to do what he'd been giving away for free for years, the Star Tribune has just gotten a much greater value out of an asset that they'd been undervaluing for far too long.

Seems like that's what PIXAR does, and why they've been able to succeed so wildly at making films that gross hundreds of millions every time out. Every job doesn't lend itself to finding the perfect obsessive to fill the job. And not every obsessive would do a job worth paying. But when the two come together just right, it's magical, and lucrative for all involved.

The entire economy can't run along on Eudaimoniacal principles, but it's getting increasingly possible to make many jobs and workers fit together harmoniously. Humans being human, the trouble that will happen is the friction between the happy workers doing their dream jobs rubbing elbows with the drones just collecting a paycheck. Folks can't help but try and bring the happy ones down a peg or two.

Joy comes from within, but sometimes it needs an assist to flourish. It's fun watching how clearly joyous Lileks is at the moment, and contrasts greatly with his months of dread and trepidation before his new found bucket (though some of his writing during the trepidatious period was his best). One danger about obsessives getting paid to do what they love to do, is they might forget that there's life outside of their obsession. When you enjoy what you do, and get rewarded well for doing it, you might forget that "off" is not only an option, but a necessity.