jchawks Author

After watching the video on the Hawthorn Effect, I thought about all the jobs I have worked and realized that only one of those jobs truly had a ‘Hawthorne Effect’.

I have only ever worked in four different jobs. One of which I quit due to school and other schedule related issues, Two of them closed down (one for not enough revenue and one for remodeling) and One of which I currently work at now. Out of these four some have attempted something close to the Hawthorne Effect but either it didn’t work out for the business to do so or the company only did so, for lack of a better word, half-heartedly. The job that I am currently working at is probably the best example I have at the Hawthorne Effect. Once I got to the job and talked with the main manager of the place before and after hiring, I felt that the place was a lot different from my first three jobs before this. That alone instantly motivated me to do well at the job. When hired I was told that I had a break, PTO (Paid Time Off which was something I didn’t know existed before this job) and a chance to sign up for a healthcare plan. All of these things I have never heard of before then. The motivation I felt before skyrocketed. I wanted to do well for this job because I felt that they are treating me well. I have been working at this job for almost three years now and I still feel the same way about it. Not just because of the stuff stated above either but because of the co-workers and managers too.

This brings me to the question of describing a supervisor that I had worked with and whether or not they were good at what they did. In this case, the supervisor at my current job has always been very motivational not just to me or their own section that they supervises but to all of the employees in the company. They always try to make their workers feel like if they have any sort of problem or work related issues that we can talk to them about it. They would also ensure that everyone is doing well physically (if worker looks unwell or if worker might be doing something that could cause injury) and mentally (asks if worker is ok/needs a moment if stressed). They make me, probably they rest of the company too, feel like they understand that we are all human and have our own personal quirks and we have things to deal with outside of work. However, said Supervisor also makes sure that everyone knows what the job is, to ask if we have any questions about what to do on said job and that the job gets done. The only way I can describe it is that they understand and try to accommodate but they also know work needs to be done. They somehow balance the two. This supervisor always finds someway to get the two to balance which I am slowly understanding is hard to do sometimes. Compared to other supervisors I have worked for, they are  the kind of supervisor or manager I want to try and be someday.

Thank you very much for reading.

After Reading Chapter 7 here are the questions that stood out to me in the number 6 ‘Learning Objective’ on page 248:

What obligations do we have to future generations?

If I had not read the chapter and answered the question with just the knowledge I had before that I would have stated that we have much obligations to the future generation. We come from different generations and what they left us and taught us had an impact to us. So why shouldn’t we look back and ponder what we can do to at least stabilize a decent grounding for the future? However, as I had stated, once I had read the chapter I realized the difficulty of that process of change and the thoughts of the future generation in general. Not everyone is going to agree to do something to possibly help future generations if it hinders something they can utilize for their own gains in the present. That’s not to say that I don’t think that said present gain could be used for what they think is their possible future but I am saying there are multiple choices people have for either present use or future use. What a person decides to do with those choices is completely up to them. Let’s say even if everyone agrees to try and preserve resources for the future generations, who is to say that that is what the future generation wants? An example I’ll make is this one; Person X does not care for things like parks and mountain hiking trail or things like that but is more focused on the now for themselves in big cities and invests in corporations where as Person Y is opposite of Person X. Person Y does everything they can to protect the said parks and resources for they future child, Person Z. When Person Z Is born and Person Y passes away, who is to say that Person Z will become like Person Y? What if Person Z decides to live  like Person X does? Point is, we as people can try to do what we think is best for the future but do we really know what is best? With these thoughts in mind, I still have the same ideals that I had but I feel like I am more open to the fact that there is more than just a ‘black and white’ point of view. There is a ‘gray’ area. So, for me, I’m going to try to do what I think is best for ‘my’ future generation and I understand everyone else in the world has their own vision of that. I now say whether or not we have an obligation to our Future Generation is complex and Completely up to moral opinions.

Does nature have Value in itself?

Following up with the last question, I kind of view this question in the same way. One person may see that nature has value in multiple different ways and would want to put a lot of stock into protecting said value where as another person can only see 1 or 2 ways that nature has value and not put any other thought into it. This question, unlike the question before, however has more concrete evidence to prove one side is more logical than the other. If a person is looking at nature for its beauty and wonderment then it is based off of opinion. If a person is looking at nature for its resources and livelihood then it is based off of facts. This is all dependent though on how nature itself is viewed. This brings it back to how the main basis is moral opinion.

So it is fair to say that both the questions really can only be answered with one persons opinion or that the question cannot really be answered.

 

To finish this module, the question was asked to us for our opinion on if pollution costs should be put more on the companies that cause the polluting or the costs should be put on the people that stand to benefit from protection and restoration. My belief on this is that I think it could benefit from a little bit of both. Both parties should pay. However, I believe that the companies that caused the pollution should do a bit more of the pay. As of right now, in my mind, this is slightly fair (I say slightly because I know that the companies, corporations, and people that benefit from the protection of resources will have their own say as to why this is unfair) way of pollution compensation. The way I’m thinking right now is we all benefit in someway to both the protection of the environment as well as the polluting of it. If both parties agree to that statement then it should work out for both parties. Then there’s the fact I said more payment to the companies/corporations on this. This is because I think if that polluting in the way that they do is the only way they can think of doing their business with no other alternatives then they should at least pay for the potential damages that follow up with their choices other than the main choice they are working with (thought process being a paper mill can do more damage to the environment then just the deforestation of trees and how much the environment is impacted by that one thing). So maybe something like 60/40 or something like that. I don’t know. That’s just my thought process as of now.

Thank you very much for the read.