Scott Adams writes over on The Dilbert Blog about Happiness Smoothing, the part of our DNA that makes us want to help people who are down on their luck (bringing them up to average happiness) and knock down those with too much happiness (bringing them down to average happiness). It’s much like Seinfeld’s Everything Balances Out episode. Adams gives examples of workers who see overburdened colleagues and feel the need to help them. But:
If you have a coworker who breezes through his own workload and uses the spare time to enjoy himself, your natural impulse is to ruin his day by dumping some of your work on him. You call it “teamwork,” and there’s no denying it boosts productivity, but that’s not your motivation.
What’s this have to do with Google?
Right now, everyone is still in that “happy for them” phase as the company is still cast in the role of underdog to “evil” Microsoft. But eventually, Google will be big enough (say when its stock price hits $1000 per share) that people will think, “They’re a little too happy,” and start to take shots at them. They’ll want to bring Google back to average happiness. Hogwash? Look what happens in sports. We always root for the underdog (bring them up to average happiness) and start to root against teams that continually win (bring them down to average happiness). The New England Patriots were the toast of the nation when they started winning Super Bowls. Now, people are tired of them – though not us here in New England. New York Yankees’ fans can probably sympathize. So watch out Google, Happiness Smoothing is out to get you.
