I currently work at a campus bar and when I started last year
as a door we had to walk around the bar clean cups from tables, watch emergency
exits, stop fights, etc. The worst part of the job began at 2 am when the bar
closed because we had to clean essentially the whole bar including bathrooms
while the bartenders cleaned the bar. This job is essentially seniority based
which means guys begin as doormen then move up. Some help is given to those
that have fraternity brothers as managers and so forth. So an example of acting
opportunistically at my job would have to be managers advancing their
fraternity brothers quicker than others. It happens a fair amount so that seems
to be a good example of them acting opportunistically since they have the
ability to do so. No one is to blame, they take advantage of the opportunity
they’re given which in my mind is smart. It isn’t morally right since other
kids in a lot of cases work at the job longer and don’t get promoted as fast
which is pretty bad for those workers.
Another point I wanted to touch on was the cleanups. So the
newest door always had to clean the girl’s bathroom, the second newest had to
clean the guy’s bathroom and all the other doors had to clean the bar area and
tables and all the remaining parts of the bar minus the actual bar because the
bartenders cleaned that. Since we would hire new doors every semester, there
are some ‘senior doormen’ who really don’t have to clean. You can throw out
some trash here and there and talk to the head door and essentially get away
with not cleaning for the most part. That would be acting opportunistically
since you knew the newly hired doors would clean up pretty much anything. So last
spring I was a “senior doorman” to say the least but I chose not to slack and
clean little to nothing. I mean I easily could have since I was pretty cool
with all the head doors, but I just chose to clean and even helped some new
hires with the bathrooms from time to time. I don’t know exactly why I didn’t act
opportunistically; I don’t think it was because I was thinking ethically or
whatnot. I think I just wanted to leave as soon as possible because we had to
all wait to leave until it was clean. I think that’s why I didn’t act opportunistically
and chose to help the new hires instead of chill and not do very much.
There is an expression, "there is no accounting for taste," which always give the out in explaining behavior by - that person just has different preferences. So there is not much to respond to if you take preferences as the uncaused cause.
ReplyDeleteIn your story, the issue you might have discussed further is how the other senior doors behaved. Did they help with the clean up, or did they just take leisure while the newer hires did the work? Then you'd also like to get at what their preferences were like. Did they also want to leave as soon as possible? That sounds like a typical preference to me, not an outlier.
If the finding were that the other senior doors did want to leave as soon as possible but nonetheless didn't participate in clean up, then your behavior makes for a little puzzle that needs further explanation. In contrast, if the other doors didn't care so much about what time they left, then while you were different from them in your preference, perhaps your behavior is not such a good example of refraining from opportunism, because you seemed to be maximizing your own preference under the circumstances.