For a class, I am doing a study on motivation. I would like to ask people what motivates them at work. Please take a moment to let me know what your opinions are on the subject.
Thank you.
My Motivations for coming to work are:
Not ending up homeless.
Having enough to eat.
Having clothes that are clean and nice.
Having enough to engage in entertainment and recreation activities.
But mostly, my motivation for going to work is so that I can provide the above things for my wife, so that she need not work so much to do it all for herself. Her needs and wants are my motivation.
The two things that motivate me are:
- Internal desire to do a good job
- When I expect to be listened to (not agreed with, just that my opinion will have a certain weight in the discussion.
If I think either 1. or 2. is unattainable, then I try to duck the job.
My motivation for going to work is pretty much what Stupendous Man said, plus the added expense of the car and insurance payment.
What motivates me to do a good job at work is to keep the job, gain respect from my superiors, get a promotion, earn more money so I can more quickly pay my bills and pad my accounts so I can retire as early as possible so I can sit around the house and be lazy.
So I guess you can say what motivates me is the desire to sit around the house and play video games in my underwear all day.
Feeling productive motivates me. (I almost typed “movitates” – could that be a word? I like it.)
Nothing I do around the house, except quilting and gardening, gives much satisfaction.
I need to see some lasting results, even if it’s only on paper.
I was unemployed for a couple of months, many years ago, and I didn’t like writing “unemployed” on forms that asked for occupation. I felt like a vagrant.
Not a hell of a lot motivates me. I think that’s my problem 
Fear, baby, fear…
when I am at my computer tech job – the man pays me, I do what the man says to the best of my ability
When I am at the fire department – I fuck up, someone may die. People trust me with their lives, I need to do the best job I possibly can.
These are all great replies. Please keep sending them.
I was also wondering, do any of you think that money really motivates? Granted it is nice to get extra, but do you really think that it motivates for the long term?
I cannot think of a job that I have been at that there was not some type of monetary incentive at some point, but after about two weeks or even two months the money just does not mean as much. For example: I worked at a bank were the tellers received a dollar for certain refferals. For the first month everyone was “gung ho”. Then , a month later, most of them did not care whether they got it or not. I realize a dollar does not appear to be much, but given the amount of customers that could walk in on any given day one could get a substantial amount.
What do you think?
For me, money is the primary motivation to get up and go to work. I’m strange, though, because I like to eat every day. I guess if I had a job I enjoyed, more would motivate me than that, but, I hate it, so…
I guess I also like to keep busy.
Every morning, I get out of bed and wake up my beautiful daughter, and she wakes up and smiles, and says “Good morning, daddy…” and then wanders downstairs to eat hyber-sugared cereals.
My son usually wakes up mean and whiney, and has been known to cry, and throw fits trying to stay asleep.
Both of them are the reasons that I come here, to my job. If not for them, I would be delivering pizza or something that would allow me the time to do the things I want.
Oh, the T1 line doesn’t hurt… I hate surfing at home now… hehehhe
Of course I’m motivated by money. No one’s going to work for someone else for nothing.
The question might be how much money (or other type of reward) would it take to motivate me to do more.
I’m exempt from overtime, and I “give” the company at least an hour and a half every day, often more. This is just about my limit. If the job were to change so that I would have to give more time than that, I’d be talking to my manager about reassignment.
On the other hand, when I was promoted two years ago, I got a substantial raise (my last, as it turns out) and a private office. At that point, I probably would have accepted the promotion just for the office, but no one asked. (It was really, really noisy where I’d been before that.)
I enjoy many of the things I do at work, and get a great deal of satisfaction for a job well done, but the bottom line is that I work for the money that enables me to live the kind of life I want. My company offers combinations of vacation time and salary increases as a raise, and in the past I have opted for more vacation time. If I had kids, I would probably make different decisions if I needed more money for things like their education.
I would accept a job for less money if it somehow compensated in some other way, again enabling me to live the way I like. I would take a 4 day a week job for less money, if it had full benefits, because that extra time would have a value for me. I would not take a job where I travel more, even if it was for more money, because I don’t enjoy business travel and it would cut into my quality of life.
Elle, in the example you gave, I think it’s about deciding if the task is worth the benefit. If the bank had given you $100 dollars per referral, would it have kept your interest longer?
Dephica,
First let me explain that I did not receive the benifit of refferals, being a manager I just got to watch everyone else earn the money. I think that is what frustrated me the most. Why would people pass up the opportunity to earn extra money? Second, even if the amount was $100 I think that people would loose interest. It may take a little longer, but it appears to be inevitable the people loose interest. It seems as though the money is nice for a little while, but people need more. They need recogniztion, not just in monetary terms.
I realize that most people go to work for the money, but what makes people want to do a good job (or a great job) while they are at work?
My aplogies delphica, I missed the ‘l’ in my reply. I did not realize it until I had already pressed submit reply.
- sorry
I’m motivated to go to work by fear of losing my job, leading to poverty, etc. as others have already said. At work, I’m motivated in my daily tasks by a desire to excel and the need to take pride in a job well done.
My first motivation is being able to make the rent payments.
My second is to get enough in my savings account to survive short-term unemployment (I was out of work for about 6 months last year and I’m still kind of traumatized by the experience).
My third is to have something to invest every month so I can retire at 45.
As you may have noticed, none of these are directly related to actually doing a good job at work. I do try to do my work well, but my boss and co-workers aren’t very motivated either. As a result, even when I do feel motivated, I don’t know what goal I’m supposed to be motivated toward.
At my part-time job (I perform wedding ceremonies on the weekends), OTOH, I’m performing in front of people on (hopefully) one of the happiest days of their lives, so I’m motivated to put on a good show for them. In addition, the boss at this job actually takes an interest in how I’m doing, so I know that if I start slacking off, I won’t be asked to come back.
–sublight.
As others have said, I go to work to keep us out of the poorhouse. I try to do a good job because it pleases me to complete a task, and do it well. Some days I am not as motivated. These are the days I get on the SDMB for hours. I think what motivates me the most at work is (are?) deadlines. Working under a deadline keeps me focused on the work, even though it stresses me out to no end. Everybody gets bored, and money just isn’t an “in-your-face” incentive. People expecting you to do a good and timely job help keep you motivated to do a good and timely job, if you are a people pleaser like me.
I’m the same as most - the need to pay for my lifestyle.
I know I’m capable of more but the rewards for taking on a role at a higher level are not great enough for the extra effort involved.
I’ve got pretty much what I need and tailor my life around that.
Being satisfied with your station in lfe and knowing that you are good at what you do is much less stressful, why bother working your way to an early heart attack ?
I work to make enough money that I can spend the time I’m not working doing things that make me happy.
I also do it because it gives me a feeling of being helpful to the world, of giving back something to society as a whole, and not just passively taking.
When I am at work I do the very best that I can because I want the people I work with to think that I am a quick and reliable hard worker who is an asset to their team.
I have to deal with the public a lot in my job, and though I am not a ‘people person’ by any strech of the imagination, I love being able to help people. So even though in my personal life I would just as soon put a pitchfork in you as look at you, if I’m at work I would love to have you call me with a question just so that I can help you. (Ok, so I’m not as mean as I made out, but I am very shy when I am off work. Much more so than when I am on the clock.)
K.