Money Doesn’t Buy Everything
A few weeks ago I was strolling my shopping cart out of our local Walmart and heading toward my car to load the contents of my latest spending spree of life-sustaining goods. As I put the bags into my car, my shopping cart was sitting in the parking place right next to my car. A young man that appeared to be in his mid 20’s wearing an orange high-vis vest came running by my car and shouted out to me,
“Leave your cart right there, I’ll grab it on my way back”.
I wasn’t very far from the cart corral or the cart return area and I told him I would just return it to make his job easier but he yelled back to me,
“It’s my job to collect and round up all the carts in the parking lot, I’ll take care of it, sir!”
So I decided to test his loyalty to his job and he seemed sincere about what he was doing so I got into my car and did the distasteful act of being too lazy to return my cart and I drove off. I looked in my mirror and notice this young man had not wasted much time in fulfilling his commitment to his job and grabbed my cart. He looked right at me and notice I was watching him and he gave me a smile and a thumbs-up! As I drove through that parking lot, I decided to turn around and flag him down. Once I was able to catch up with him, I rolled down my window on my car and I offered him a job! I offered him a job at twice what he was making at Walmart to come work for me in my company!
This young man just smiled at me and said, “No thank you, sir, I’m happy right here!” I was beside myself! Twice the money, better work, and I don’t know how many more interesting things lay before this young go-getter if he came to work for me! I offered him more money but still, he continued to deny me. This was becoming personal for me and I was wondering if he was playing a negotiation tactic on me but no matter how much I offered him, the answer was still no.
As a successful businessman, I generally get my way in all things business but in this exchange, I was beaten. The moral of the story is that money can’t always buy the people you want in your company and that there are people out there that are very satisfied with the work they are doing. The next time you see a young person doing a low-level job with superlative efficiency, remember, there is nothing more satisfying than a person doing a job they love!
Daniel J Bockman
