The Writers Coin

The other day I was in the car with some friends, all traders, and they were talking about work. The discussion was all about trying to find a balance between making good, aggressive trades without losing a lot of money and playing it safe.

It got me thinking about how traders’ bonuses are given out: they typically get a percentage of whatever money they made for their firm. So that’s why they want to be very careful about the balance between making lots of money and losing it—their bonus depends on it.

And it got me thinking: What if everyone got paid according exactly in proportion to how well they did their job?

For traders, it’s pretty easy to figure out—all you have to do is look at the numbers.

For the rest of us, well, it’s a little more complicated.

Is there a way of breaking down what you do into a formula that you would feel comfortable with? Something as clear cut as a percentage of what a trader makes? Would this be more or less fair than the current system?

If it was done well, it would at least eliminate some of the drama and jealousy involved in knowing what coworkers make. Maybe.

Can it be Done?

Could you really boil down everything you do into a formula? If you work in a sales position or a job where you can directly measure how much money you make for your company, then it’s easy. You just follow the money.

But for those of us that don’t, what should be in the formula? Let’s try to take a crack at the kinds of things that would need to be included:

• Job performance: This would be really subjective, but it would kind of be like getting a grade. Say from 1 to 10. If you have quarterly reviews and you let your employees know where they stand every step of the way, this would make them work harder (presumably) to get their “grades” up. It may not have worked in school, but you weren’t getting paid in school (at least I wasn’t).
• Beyond the job: Tough to quantify, but it would again be measured very subjectively by the bosses. Same 1 to 10 scale that measures what you bring to the table that’s outside your given duties. In other words, do you go beyond the scope of your job or not?
• Extras? This is where it gets tough. What else do you bring to your job? Another language? Specific software knowledge no one else has? This one is kind of hazy.

I’m not sure what else you could possible throw into this formula, but either way it sounds like it would be at the mercy of the bosses and their opinion of your job, which is kind of how it works now, right?

Gaming the System

Sure, some people would try to game the system by just sticking to whatever “factors” make up this formula we’re talking about.

But if you construct the formula correctly, you wouldn’t care if employees gamed the system—it would lead to an increase in productivity and the business would be better off.

Everyone would win. Right?

I’m guessing most people wouldn’t want a system like this at their job—it’s just too rigid and strict. Plus, it’s at the whim of whatever the bosses decide goes into this formula.

But I think it would be an interesting experiment if done right.

What do you think? Would this fly at your job? And if so, what else would you put into that formula?

Some Interesting Reading

• An interesting Newsweek article from a trader’s perspective.
• This Wall Street Journal piece goes over the current landscape of traders and how they make their bonuses.

Photo by Petrick2008

This post was included in the Carnival of Internships, Careers & Employment

A lot of people out there still don’t know why the economy has crumbled, why their 401(k) has tanked, and so many people are losing their jobs. Mostly, it’s because the people explaining the mess aren’t very good at it. They talk in a language that goes right over people’s heads.

Or it’s just plain boring.

So I found this video that tells you the whole story in a very entertaining, informative way.

Here is the credit crisis:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

If you prefer a more personal representation, here is a cool analogy that compares the mess banks have gotten themselves into with an Antarctic expedition, which is a pretty cool metaphor when you think about it:

The credit crisis as Antarctic expedition from Marketplace on Vimeo.

I’ve been reading and following all this stuff very closely, and even I learned something from these videos. It’s important for all of us to really understand what happened so we can be informed when it comes time to vote or even handle our own finances so that in the future we’ll all make better decisions.

So thank you very much to the makers of these two videos. You have both done everyone a great service.

This post was included in the Carnival of Personal Development.
This post was included in the Carnival of Financial Planning.

This week shall henceforth be known as “Free Week.” Every post this week is going to focus on one thing I’m passionate about that you can do for free. From listening to music to getting into shape, you’ll find it here.

Buying a new computer can be really expensive. I should know, I just finished saving for my own new computer this month. It’s exciting, that’s for sure, but spending that kind of money isn’t easy.

But sometimes you need to upgrade—computers are notorious for growing old fast, and a slow/unstable computer can cause all kinds of frustrations and problems. Especially if you’re sharing it.

Well, here are some tips to help take your old, run-down computer from slow and annoying to speedy and impressive. It’s nothing like buying a new machine, but most computers just need to be cleaned out a bit and reorganized to show a huge jump in performance.

It’s kind of like taking your car to the shop for a tune up, only you can do this all yourself without getting your hands dirty and without paying a cent.

Just follow these easy steps and you’ll definitely see a boost after it’s all said and done:

• Clean the registry: Over time, this can get pretty clogged up. I use CCleaner to get the job done. Quick and easy.
• Clean the hard drive: Run Disk Cleanup (Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Cleanup) to get rid of some unnecessary junk on your hard drive. You’ll be glad you did.
• Be safe: Make sure viruses and spyware aren’t slowing you down by downloading the best, free protection out there: Spybot Search and Destroy and Avira Antivirus.
• Defrag the hard drive: Smart Defrag is a good one for this. Quick, free, and easy. Can’t beat that.
• Be lean and mean: You know all those little icons on the bottom right of your screen? Some of them have a purpose but most don’t. You can change this so that only the ones you really need come on every time you start your machine. To control this, go to your System Configuration Utility (Start->Run, type: msconfig, then go to the Startup tab) and uncheck any programs you don’t need. You’ll want Avira running to protect you, but otherwise experiment with booting up with as few of these programs as you can. It’ll take a load off your CPU.
• Buy new RAM: This one will cost some money, but it’s money well spent. This will physically upgrade what your computer can do and will give it more room to do multiple things at once. Head over to 4AllMemory, type in the computer you own, and it’ll tell you exactly what memory to buy. And don’t worry, installing this is really easy, just do some searching on Google and you’ll find it. I even found someone going step-by-step on the very computer I have!

After all of that, you should see a boost in performance. If this still isn’t enough, then you may want to consider a new machine, but it’s always good to do as much as you can with what you have before shelling out more money.

Oh and for those of you wary of installing new software you’ve never heard of on your machine, I totally understand. All of the software I mention here I can vouch for and so does CNet, a great source for news and tools. And 4AllMemory is a great store with great customer service. I’m not getting paid to say that, they’ve just been great every time I’ve bought through them.

If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll gladly do what I can to help!

* FYI, my update process didn’t go as smoothly as possible. Which can happen with computers—just be prepared to exercise your patience like you’ve never imagined…

Photo by Vision Valley Photography

I bump into a lot of good content when I’m reading stuff on the web, but I always forget to share it. My bad.

So here are some really great pieces of content I’ve run into recently that I wanted to share:

• Art after death: 27-plus posthumous projects that stand as worthy legacies: A nice compilation from the AV Club that includes some of my personal favorites: Bill Hicks, Tupac, Heath Ledger, Jeff Buckley, and Stanley Kubrick.
• Things we want to experience again for the first time: Another one from the AV Club, this one poses a great question: if you could go back in time and experience something for the first time (again), what would it be? The huge picture at the top gives you a clue as to what I’d like to do—see The Wire for the first time. Again. I love that show, man. It is, after all, the best show ever. Anything else on this list should be on your radar if you haven’t seen it already. These folks have great taste. I think I’d also like to see Requiem for a Dream and read Infinite Jest for the first time.
• Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre @ Wired: This is how good this article is: I hate board games (except for Risk, maybe) but after reading this I was ready to buy Settlers of Catan right there on the spot. Who knew Germany was so into board games?
• What Moneyball Missed: I’m linking to a cached version because the original wasn’t working. But for all the Moneyball fans out there, this is a great read on one thing that maybe wasn’t stressed enough in how Billy Beane created his awesome A’s teams of the early 2000s—the reserve clause. Great stuff.
• Finding Balance Between Time and Money @ GetRichSlowly: Ahh, the debate about time and money. We’ve all been there… JD writes another great post about an age-old topic.