On Generosity

This is not generosity

I did something today that has been described by a number of people including co-workers as generous that was not in fact generous at all. We have an education budget which we basically break into equal parts and share amongst the the team. I gave my portion to the most junior member of my team.

What do people mean by generous

Well according to the googles:

(of a person) showing a readiness to give more of something, as money or time, than is strictly necessary or expected.

maybe

showing kindness toward others.

Not to say that I’m not being kind rather that I’m being tactical and I hope you will too.

Diminishing Marginal Utility

The law of diminishing marginal utility is a law of economics stating that as a person increases consumption of a product, while keeping consumption of other products constant, there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product.

–Investopedia

Short version : I make more money in general than the person I “gifted” my share to meaning they receive relatively more utility from it than I lose from “gifting” it. Additionally, I’ve consumed more programming “education” over the course of my career so they are likely to get more out of the same book or conference as I would.

Yeah, it’s my job

This is my theory: That doubling down on my junior member’s education will improve the effectiveness of the team faster than splitting the education budget between the two of us. And improving the effectiveness of the team is my job.

But, what about me?

I admit there are some gymnastics in this mental accounting. Wouldn’t I be just as well served by spending that money on management books or process seminars? Maybe.

That is the best answer I have to that.

My impression is that I mostly pay for my educational expenses out of pocket or go super cheapskate looking for free resources. The extra n represented by my portion of the education budget is unlikely to radically increase my education spending if only because I dislike the idea of justifying why an expense is “educational” to my employer and peers. Not that I expect they would give me any flak, still…

I do on the other-hand think that making sure that my junior engineer has (* n 2) the budget for educational expenses will dramatically increase their educational spending