Who's the Monkey?

“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”, goes the old adage. The common understanding here is that peanuts refer to a low salary and monkey to an inefficient employee. I prefer to view the same in slightly different light.



Born as equals, all of us have capabilities, have potential; however do have a monkey within. Everybody has one, which is by default in the ‘sleep mode’. Now, the moment you give peanuts to a guy, the monkey in him wakes up; gets into the ‘play mode’. Here again, the peanuts in my opinion would not be just low salary. It could be any benefit lesser than what he deserves; salary, recognition, treatment, support, encouragement, blame, faith, environment etcetera. Adjectives can go on.



At this juncture, another maxim tempts me for elucidation; ‘There is no free lunch’. So, if you are expecting 100kgs of performance from a payment of 80kgs of benefits, you are actually expecting a 20kg of free lunch! To make matters worse, if the manager who does this 20kg ‘hera pheri’ is plagued with the incurable illness of ‘I and only I’, then this 20kg turns out to be a great managerial feat! So, who do you think is the monkey?