I read posts about connections, or someone got this “taken care of” etc.
What are your thoughts on how the favor bank works, and have you ever used it to your advantage?
If you’ve never heard of it, it’s called many things, Good ole boy network, favor bank, in prison it would be called an ask, solid.
Initially you would have to ask someone to do something for you and then you have -1 favor in your favor bank to them. To even that out you can directly do something for them, or give them something (money usually works)
What would you do when you need to go back to the same person who gave you a favor and you haven’t been able to come to an agreement on you doing something for them, but you need the same favor again. Maybe you get speeding tickets and need them “taken care of” Or getting into a restaurant which you were just told by the hostess “were booked solid for 2 weeks” and you get that awesome feeling because you just called your friend who is the chef or some big shot in town or works there and the phone at the restaurant rings, you know it’s them, and all of the sudden, right this way to your table.
In my experience, it’s not a one-for-one situation , for the most part. I might do five or ten favors for someone before they do one for me, or vice-versa. The important thing is that when I need a favor from the person I’ve done five for, he or she had better come through or I stop doing favors.
My father taught me to always have a balance in the favor bank, and it has worked for me. It isn’t just people repaying the favor, the very act of doing a favor for someone makes you look helpful and responsible. There have been only a few people who try to take advantage, not enough to change the policy.
They're free to think that- and it might work for a while. As long as they come through whenever I need a favor. But if their attitude is "what have you done for me lately- not last week, month or year" , they get a reputation - which means at best , that people start keeping track of any favors involving that person, and at worst means people flat out won't do that person favors. It doesn't really matter , though. Because I have a reputation for being helpful and cooperative, even people I don't have much contact with and who I am unlikely to be able to repay will do me favors.
I have one of my staff members perform some duty that another office is responsible for, but due to geography, that office would incur overtime or inconvenience while mine would not. The coworkers in charge of those offices , in turn, cover for me when I’m on vacation, even though I really can’t cover for them. Most of the favors I do involve work.
I’m having a problem with an outside agency related to my work - chances are either I myself know someone higher in the organization who can help me or one of my contacts does.
I’m taking my son (it’s always my son) to the emergency room, and I call someone who works at the hospital to smooth the way. The person doing this is very likely to need a ride from me 5 or 10 times for every time I ask him to do this. That’s fine, as long as he doesn’t ignore my call when I need the favor.
My husband belongs to a what is apparently a huge network of salesman and contractors- his friend the appliance salesman gives him a deal in the expectation that when the appliance salesman needs a deal on something my husband sells, he’ll get it. That appliance salesman may never need a deal from my husband , and they’ll both be fine with that. The appliance salesman may need a deal from the paint salesman , who doesn’t need anything in return from the appliance salesman , but will eventually need something from my husband .There’s no problem when the person who did the favor doesn’t need one in return- the problem is when the recipient refuses to reciprocate and only wants to get favors and never do them.
The effect of the favor on the person requesting it can be much greater than the effort done by the person giving it.
Here’s a pretty typical sort of favor that I’ve done (and asked for) while working in a lab. Commonly, people are working on experiments that involve ten minutes of actual work per hour, for many hours. And there’s also a pretty big spread on the hours that people are in lab. Sometimes I’d get in as early as 8 (and want to be out by 5), while other people roll in at 11 but stay til 8 or later. So when someone else has to do a 12-hour experiment, they might ask me to do 10 minutes worth of work as soon as I get in. That small effort on my part saves them hours at the end of their day.
So when I’ve done several small favors like that, I can ask for a big favor in return (like doing a few hours’ work on the weekend) and everyone still comes out ahead. I’ve done a couple hours work to save them many more hours, and in return they work a couple hours to let me have a full weekend.
ETA: Of course, if I think someone is taking advantage of me, I’ll stop doing them favors. And I try to be available to reciprocate when I owe someone else.
There are some people that have done me favours that I can’t really pay back, but equally there are other people that I help without any expectation of getting anything back. Just because someone isn’t directly doing you a favour back doesn’t mean they’re a user or that you should stop helping them out for that reason alone.
Maybe I’m just naive and uninformed, but when people ask me for help, I tend to help them and when I need help, I ask for it. I don’t keep a running balance of who owes me how much or how much I owe to whom.
(FWIW sometimes I’m asking for small favors or doing big favors in return)
Honestly I never keep track that much. I guess I gradually build a mutual relationship with certain colleagues where we constantly do small favors for each other, and occasionally ask for the big favors. It quickly becomes obvious if someone asks for lots of favors (even little ones) but somehow manages to avoid doing anything in return. Then, the mutual-favor relationship dies pretty quickly, without someone accruing much of a “favor debt”.
So in my last lab, I had a good mutual relationship with two or three labmates out of maybe a dozen total. The rest often lacked the expertise or availability to help me out. In a few cases someone would rather blatantly try to exploit my early arrival, just so they could arrive late and leave early.
How do you (the person reading this) feel about powerful people, not the president, but city councilmen, aldermen in Chicago, things like that and their favor banks.
You go to an Alderman and say that you are having an issue getting paid on a job, you’re being stonewalled and ask them for a favor. When you leave, they call up one person and get the invoice paid and you now owe that person pretty big.
Would lobbyists be part of the favor bank seeing as how they command very high salaries I’d think not.
Why, pray tell? I’ve no problem with helping people when I don’t “owe” them favors and have no intention of using “but I helped you last week/month/year” arguments to guilt people into helping me who wouldn’t otherwise. If you can’t be bothered to be helpful to those around you unless you’re planning exactly what or how much you can get out of it, it seems a really self-centered.
I don’t bother keeping track of what I think the most I could get out of people. In my experience, being (or at least trying to be) a good person and knowing and being friends with a fair number of other good people has meant that I could almost always track down as much help of whatever sort I need, and I’ve never had to guilt anyone into helping me, either. I’d much prefer to continue testing my friendships as friendships rather than some sort of checking account for favors.
As I said above, helping the people in your life just because you think you can get something out of out later seems incredibly self-centered.