Category: Labor

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Health Labor Principles

Looking for a Doctor

It’s time for Cheyenne to deliver her baby, but there are no doctor in the store. Even though Sandra is a trained midwife, the other employees ignore her in exchange for a pharmacist, an employee who has delivered a calf, and another employee who has played a doctor in a theatre show. Each of the substitutes don’t have the actual training to deliver a baby, and the skills they possess likely don’t transfer to skill needed to deliver a baby. Only Sandra is actually qualified, but she doesn’t speak up.

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Labor Principles

Glenn Works Two Jobs

Glenn hasn’t been able to find a replacement for his assistant manager, so he takes on the both roles for the day. Glenn struggles to get everything done in one day and suggests that he may have to stop sleeping. Even though he’s doubled his effort, his output hasn’t doubled; it has diminished. At a certain point in the production function, additional workers are not as productive as the ones before them. For Glenn, this would be represented by the additional hours that he’s worked in the day. Specialization allows workers to focus their time on tasks that they are good at, like setting schedules or ordering products. Just because a worker can do all of the functions, doesn’t mean they should do them all.

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Labor

Amy Weighs a Promotion

After Dina stepped down as assistant manager, the store manager needs to find her replacement. Amy knows she is the likely candidate but declines the offer before Glenn can offer her the position. Her rationale conforms to the income-leisure tradeoff model. Since there is no increase in earnings from the assistant manager position, Amy doesn’t want to spend more of her time away from leisure. The scarcity of time available in her day means she must make tradeoffs on how to spend her time and she would rather spend it on her college classes.

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Labor

College as an Adult

The employees are locked in the store after hours while hanging up signs, but Amy laments that she has more important things to do: she has a midterm to study for. Trying to be relatable, Jonah reminisces about his time in college: getting drunk and having philosophical debates. It begs the question of how much human capital accumulation actually occurs and provides some support for the signaling model. Amy is treating college like an investment, so she resents Jonah’s downplaying of its importance.

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Labor Principles

Shirking at a Gun Range

On the hunt for a runaway friend, Amy and Dina take some time to hang out and get to know each other better. Right as they’re deciding to head back to work, Amy suggests they treat themselves a bit. Even though the store manager believes they’re away from the store searching for a friend, Dina and Amy are actually shirking

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Labor Principles

Pizza Party as an Incentive

Each year the store participates in a competition that divides the employees between two teams to see which team can sell the most during the day. Glenn announces that the winning team will receive a pizza party. While the employees aren’t overly happy about either the competition or the pizza party, incentives can usually be a way to induce higher levels of productivity. It turns out that each team member on the winning team also receives $100, but Glenn was saving it as a surprise incentive. Amy has to explain to Glenn that incentives need to be announced at the beginning in order for them to actually work.

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Growth Labor

Investing in College Classes

Jonah has convinced Adam to buy a new grill and a new TV, but he didn’t know that Adam was married to Amy. Part of the reason he convinced Adam to purchase these items was so that his team could win the Color Wars and Amy could get a $100 bonus. While Amy and Adam are fighting, we learn that Adam is a serial entrepreneur and Amy invests in her human capital.

This scene is a good example of the tradeoffs associated with investing in human capital and physical capital. Adam wants to invest the money to support his business ideas, but Amy believes that investing in her college classes is better because it can lead to more money later.

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Labor

Buying a New TV

Adam and Jonah are watching Adam’s YouTube channel on one of the TVs in the store, but Jonah will use this as an opportunity to try and sell Adam a new TV. In order to win the Color Wars, employees are trying to sell expensive items to increase their team’s total. Jonah doesn’t know that Adam is married to Amy and begins to insult her in an attempt to get Adam to purchase the TV. Adam makes some key comments that connect with the economics of the household, namely that his and Amy’s happiness is linked. He’s careful to consider Amy’s happiness before making purchases, because their utility functions are interdependent.

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Labor Principles

Determining Shift Assignments

Amy asks Garett to finish the shift assignments, but he’d rather finish eating his lunch. Mateo jumps at the opportunity to make shift assignments and provide retribution for wrongs that have been done.

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Labor

Transferring Burrito Capital

Glenn isn’t convinced that Dina can raise a newborn child, noting that she probably doesn’t even know how to swaddle a child. Dina thinks it’s similar to her experience at Chipotle. Her argument is that the human capital she accumulated rolling burritos would be general and transferable to taking care of a child.