Personal Reputation

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well. - Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com)

Personal reputation is one of the most important assets a person has, and while intangible, can play a major role in influencing the happenings in one's life. Reputations are formed over a period of time based on past performances or actions. It is important to also note how fragile they are. One egregious mistake can possibly ruin a person's reputation for a long while, sometimes forever. One example of this that comes to mind is Tom Cruise, a star of many blockbuster films. He lost all credibility when he began publicly campaigning for the Church of Scientology. His embarrassing behavior on an episode of Oprah has solidified his reputation as, some would say, crazy and idiotic. In other instances, a private track record of poor decisions can become uncovered. Just recently, Stephen Collins, who played a preacher and upright father on the former hit show "7th Heaven," was accused of child molestation after a leaked taped confession. I believe it's safe to say that the general rule is that bad reputations form very quickly and are harder to change, whereas a respectable reputation takes longer to establish and is easier to lose.
And now in regards to my own life, here is yet another story concerning my hotel job...but I would like to think that I developed a distinct reputation with my supervisors and the manager. Ever since the first day of work, I made sure to put my best effort with anything I did. Some duties of desk clerks include interacting with customers but there are also some behind-the-scenes logistical works such as writing out parking permit numbers on the clipboard, writing guest names/room numbers/departure dates on a revolving tree to visibly see who is in the hotel, and checking to see if there are two keys available for each room, and then rekeying the rooms that don't have enough keys. Most student workers tend to overlook these tasks because supervisors really don't stress the completion of them. However, being the overachiever I am, as soon as my shift started, I got them done right away. Another role a student worker has is setting up breakfast at 6am, and then cleaning it up at 9am. My manager has told me multiple times how I am the best at the job. This is because I always restocked items, cleaned the refrigerator, and wiped down the microwave, which are otherwise usually forgotten tasks. My manager also said how some students arrive about 5 to 10 minutes late or sometimes not at all, so he commended me for never being late in addition to my, some would way, overachieving attitude (assuming a positive connotation). With that said, another way I built up my reputation is through my punctuality. Within the first year of working, I was never once late. Some days I showed up an hour earlier at my supervisor's request because the hotel was extremely busy. Other days, I came in on days I was not even scheduled to work, because my supervisor ended up having to go home sick. My manager always called me first in these types of situations. Punctuality is actually a personal reputation I have amongst my friends and teachers also. Whether it be getting a ride, picking someone up, or walking into class, tardiness is never an issue. Furthermore, after my biannual work evaluations, my manager told me how I have a "contagious" or "infectious" smile. Supervisors have also told me that they have never seen me not smiling and that I bring a "cheery atmosphere." In terms of enhancing my reputation, I am not sure what more I could have done, because I felt that I gave my maximal effort, but of course there were times when it was hard to keep this up on days when I was not feeling well physically or even emotionally. To reflect on occasions where I wanted to stray from my usual behavior, I can recall a few times--especially one time when I felt very nauseous just an hour into my shift with four hours left to go. I was put in a dilemma because it was a busy night with a lot of check-ins, but also I was not sure if I would function to my best ability. Nonetheless, my supervisor saw that my face was turning very pale and sent me home right away. I felt horrible for doing so but it was obviously necessary. The supervisor definitely did not want me to vomit in front of a guest...then who knows...the reputation for the hotel may have been ruined right then and there. Another time when I was tempted to stray from my usual behavior was whenever I worked under the supervisor who did not know what he was doing I am not sure if you recall me talking about him in previous blog posts, but this supervisor was notorious for not doing what he was told. In addition to that, I forgot to mention how whenever there were multiple check-ins at once, he would just sit at his desk and I would have to ask him to help even though the fact of busy-ness was so blatant. Also, he would tell me to do ridiculous things like go out to the parking lot and check if any of the meters were bagged for the hotel. But with my reputation, I just did what I was told, but maybe with a less cheery attitude. Yet, I am not sure if he orders me to do these things because I indeed have a reputation for assisting the supervisors in any way I can. Lastly, I can remember one time when I abandoned my reputation for personal gain. I have been working here for over a year and half now, and a few months ago, my friends spontaneously wanted to go on a road trip to Chicago over the weekend (okay, maybe it's not much a road trip). However, I had a six hour day shift during that time. My friends kept pressuring me to talk to my manager and take it off and saying how he "owes" me since I came in on days when I was not scheduled. I was very reluctant at first but I ended up shooting him an email with the unreasonable request. And literally within the hour, he approved the request and told me to have a great time! Regardless of how they form, reputations are strong in persuading or having an impact on an individual's behavior.

Trilateral Principal-Agent Model

The central idea behind the principal-agent model is that the principal is too busy to do a given job and thus hires an agent. However, being too busy also means that the principal cannot monitor the agent perfectly (otherwise their would be some transaction costs involved). In this relationship, we face the problem of the existence of asymmetric information, which comes as adverse selection and moral hazard. In class we learned that adverse selection is hidden knowledge and moral hazard is hidden action. If the principal and agent had the same objective function, these two problems would of course not exist. The bilateral principal-agent model may seem too abstract to be useful, and so realistically, it's more like a trilateral model. The agent has to content with the best interest of their client as well as the best interest of their employer.

A time I recall where I had to "serve both masters" such as a client and an employer would be at my hotel job. I answer to two principals: the guests and my manager.   It would not just be me in these types of situations but other student workers as well--even supervisors, so I will refer to us generally as the employees.  

Many disagreements arise because of our rates. Our rack rates start at $122. However there are discounts for those who have students that attend the university, are students themselves, are part of the Alumni Association, or are faculty/staff. Whenever we, as the employees, had to quote this rack rate, the common response comes with a tone of surprise and usually unhappiness. When the guests make their reservations via phone or in person, right off the bat, we would usually ask them whether they have a student who goes here or whether they are an alumni. If they say yes, we bring the rates down no problem. We do this because there were so many instances when people would complain and ask for a lower rate, so we wanted to save ourselves from that verbal hassle. So then we would quote people at $112 (rate for students and family of students) at initial inquiry and thus we rarely use the rack rate. We tend to sympathize with the guests and realize that we are indeed overpriced. However, my manager recently sent an email to all supervisors/students that sales have decreased since last year. He also stressed how if guests receive these certain discounts, they must prove it in some way. For example, if the guest is a student/family of a student, there needs to be an iCard or UIN involved or if they are an alumni, they need an official Alumni Association card.
Obviously customers have the objective of wanting to get the most quality room with the cheapest rate. My manager, after being aware of the decrease in sales, has been concentrating more on increasing the sales. We can infer that the two principals would not see eye to eye on what counts for good performance on the agent. Thus, the employees often struggle with whether to keep the customers happy or our manager happy.  

After that email, I stopped quoting the discounted rate. However, I have noticed that supervisors were often times still doing it when my boss is not around, which are times after check-in every weekday and all day of the weekends. Since our manager is rarely around during the check-in process, we still never check for iCards or Alumni Association cards even after the enforcement in the email.   So I guess we can see some moral hazard in that due to the agent's hidden action. But honestly, it usually depends on the guest. When they are rude or inpatient, we tend to be more strict and follow the manager's rules. And then the rare times my boss is here, we have to satisfy his interests so we do what we are told which then becomes less beneficial for the customers because they could have saved ten bucks.

I'm not sure if these issues could ever get resolved due to some people's nature of stinginess or frugality. There is also that lack of interaction between the two principals. So I believe there is no one way to settle it. The goal for us employees is to try and satisfy the customers' needs when the manager is gone and then satisfy the manager's needs when he is here. Obviously, since we are instinctively paying more attention to the customer, this will probably not help the manager with his objective to increase sales.

It's also interesting that the supervisors are supposed to monitor the students as one of their roles but we end up being on the same team nonetheless, and the manager is just totally unaware. We don't have any incentives correlating with how much effort we would put in to help him achieve his goal anyways, so as long as we follow his rules in his sight, we will still get paid our hourly wage.