Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done

Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by 1123581321 on Thursday November 22, 2018 @11:05PM (#18514281)

Beeminder has written a lot about this. The daycare fine needed to be higher. Beeminder starts at a $5 fine and roughly triples with each consequent failure. Everyone is willing to fail until the consequence hits their limit, and then the behavior changes. I don’t know about Stikk, but Beeminder has a premium feature that lets you skip the cheaper fines and go straight to the big ones so you can start changing your behavior sooner. I’m guessing the daycare’s fine was timid and had no mechanism to ratchet up to each parent’s pain point.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by Haydos585x2 on Thursday November 22, 2018 @11:29PM (#18514361)

The problem with the daycare was that parents began seeing it as "I can leave my child later, it just costs more" and they were just paying an additional fee to keep their child longer at a service they were already paying for. The daycare ended up removing the fee and the late pick ups stayed.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by 1123581321 on Thursday November 22, 2018 @11:40PM (#18514406)

Yes, that makes sense. The fine changes the consequence to something that can be rationally weighed. Too low and people willingly pay it, so it needs to be higher. Automatic fine increases allow the fine to be customized to each parent so all of them eventually stop being late.

It doesn’t really matter if the parents see the fine as “a fine” or an unaffordable, automatically billed service if it’s priced right.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by skrebbel on Friday November 23, 2018 @01:06AM (#18514675)

I think this is a horribly bad idea. Daycare caretakers are the most loving and caring people I know. Putting them in a position where they have to argue with 3x richer people about hundreds of dollars is going to stress them out and needlessly strain the parent-caretaker relationship. I also can't imagine that's good for the child.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by 1123581321 on Friday November 23, 2018 @01:24AM (#18514738)

That may be. In this case, the daycare is just an example of how inflexible financial consequences could work better or worse depending on the implementation.

That said, if lateness is a problem, it’s impeding on the workers’ personal lives, which can’t be good for anybody, so I don’t mind exploring how those workers could be helped. I assume more upfrontness from the business office, and parent education, would go a long way, similar to other institutions.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by lsc on Friday November 23, 2018 @04:18AM (#18515329)

This problem can be solved by hiring a professional who doesn't interact with the children to do the arguing, assuming there is enough money on the table to make that worthwhile.

(I mean, I agree it's a big problem. I also dislike haggling, and I think I would have done much better had i outsourced that function when I ran a business, even if I paid a lot to that person)

All that said, a sufficient guilt trip might be more effective than a fine in any case, and is something that a caretaker could probably provide.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by eeZah7Ux on Friday November 23, 2018 @08:38AM (#18516306)

Instead of thinking in a punitive manner (fines, shaming, etc) they could, for example, hire babysitters, charge the parents a good bunch and even thank them.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by malikolivier on Friday November 23, 2018 @12:47AM (#18514616)

This reminds me of my local library. For every book one day late, you pay the equivalent of $0.05.

If I am late to give back a book that I am still reading, I do not mind giving it back one or two weeks late after I am done with it.

The fine is actually considerably cheaper if you compare with the upfront cost to be able to use the library.

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Re:Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done by 1123581321 on Friday November 23, 2018 @01:18AM (#18514713)

Worse, some libraries cap the fine. So the fine per day decreases the longer you keep the book. This is mitigated by collections reporting to credit, but the threat of collections is the kind of vague consequence that people disregard or misvalue.

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