Bonus

The boy who was whining suddenly fell silent after his grandmother's seemingly professional coaxing words: "Be good, be good, stop crying, I'll reward you with 10 candies later." The boy immediately changed his state from crying and suffering to being happy and excited. The old man's voice echoed from inside the house: "Stop crying, stop crying, there's no candy, don't use trivial material things to bribe your noble silence. I've been silent for a whole month, why don't you give me any candy?"

The ordinary conversation that echoed from the neighbors this afternoon suddenly reminded me of an activity that usually takes place bustlingly at the end of the year - rewards! The "candy" began to be solemnly announced in the evaluations. There was a lot of glory but also a lot of sadness. Every year is the same, some laugh, some cry. Employees of successful units happily hold hundreds of millions to buy gifts for the New Year, cadres of weak places sadly receive a few dozen pairs of shorts as gifts. As for civil servants, their common rewards at the summary ceremony are not enough to overcome the... thunderous applause! Civil servants smack their lips to comfort each other, giving rewards by clapping is both fun and cheap. Material rewards seem not to be in the income dictionary of those who earn salaries by "semicolon". After the endless applause, all eyes are focused on the union, hope closing until each outstanding union member receives a can of peanut oil. It’s still peanut oil like it was decades ago. My family’s New Year’s menu has never included peanut oil because we know for sure that this item will be provided by the union. My family jokingly calls it union oil, a smooth reward both literally and figuratively. Every time we receive a union gift, we reward the organization that is called “mother and father” with a round of applause in response. “Hoes and shovels go up from below, sugar and milk go up from above and down”. Just peanut oil, we’re used to it!

When did the reward work begin? According to an unpublished study, “rewards” were formed in… primitive times. Don’t be surprised, it’s so ancient, but there are rewards from that primitive time that are extremely modern. Not only grilled meat or cassava, people have created rewards that perhaps even in the 5.0 era, many people are still fascinated by. Yes, that is power and women. When a brave and courageous man has many achievements in repelling enemies to protect his fellow human beings, he is honored as the leader of the tribe, and of course, when he becomes an “official” of the tribe, the accompanying benefits of the yin and yang nature are the default. A deadly attractive reward! Very public and transparent, very primitive, no need to be secretive, just like any girl, choose her without fear of being criticized for “unclear support”!

Returning to the story of the boy and his grandmother in the example just mentioned at the beginning of the article, rewards are sometimes used as a bargaining chip. The boy's outstanding "achievement" was to stay silent, and the noble reward for that action was 10 candies. Why did it have to be 10 candies? Sir, as a curious neighbor, I know that the old lady had previously offered 8 candies, but the mischievous boy still refused to keep quiet! He demanded 10 candies. So you see, in life, sometimes the word reward is used, but it is not a reward but an exchange.

In the past few days, the newspaper has been full of stories about a commune party secretary who was dismissed from his position because he repeatedly received “intangible rewards” from a female office worker in a hotel. The thing is, this person had made outstanding achievements in “training” that beautiful employee throughout his work, so he was “rewarded” by her! Yes, there are “rewards” that have been preserved intact since the primitive times. Sarcastic and distorted, filthy and disgraceful, not unlike the case of a provincial official last year whose title of hero was stripped by the president. Not only that, in the past few days, there was even a defendant who went to court still carrying the title of hero. Spicy as chili powder!

What is praise and how should rewards be given are questions that are not difficult to answer but not easy to implement. Former General Secretary Truong Chinh once wrote: "Rewarding is a matter of social science. The work of rewarding as well as punishing is a problem that arises and exists in the process of human development." The purpose of rewards is to encourage and properly arouse people's motivation to work. More than 600 years ago, Nguyen Trai wrote: "A state that rewards more than punishes is a prosperous state; a state that rewards and punishes strictly is a strong state; a state that punishes more than rewards is a declining state." President Ho Chi Minh also affirmed, "In a country where rewards and punishments must be strict, the people will be at peace, the resistance will be victorious, and the nation will be successful." "Rewards must be given, and rewards must be given, and rewards must have the effect of educating, motivating, and setting an example..."

The principle of rewards is “Accurate, public, fair, timely”. Rewarding the wrong subjects is not only ineffective but also extremely harmful. Knowing is knowing, the theory is so excellent, but unfortunately, in many places, for many years, praise must be “divided” from top to bottom. The lower the position, the more remote the opportunity to be rewarded. Let me take an example in a locality known as a “livable city” to demonstrate: In one year, the title of emulation fighter of the city “awarded” to subjects doing management work (heads, deputy heads of departments, divisions, units under departments, branches, associations, unions, People’s Committees of districts and above) is 83 people, reaching a rate of 87.4% compared to 12 people directly working in the field, accounting for a rate of 12.6%. The City People's Committee Chairman "gave" the certificates of merit to 849 managers, accounting for 62.0% of the direct workers, accounting for 520 people, accounting for 38.0%. That alone is enough to confirm the gap between the "hoe and shovel" class and the "milk and sugar" class. And that is in a "livable city", in other localities it would be "difficult to live"! For direct workers, rewards are still a game of hide-and-seek in which they are blindfolded. If they just click their tongues "Times - times - times must be like that", then "Losing" is obvious!

Rewards are closely linked to competition. Karl Marx said: "Competition arises in the process of labor cooperation, in common activities and plans of people with social contact creating competition and special elevation, lively willpower increases the individual willpower of each person." If rewards are not given to the right target, competition will be eliminated. All movements launched are just a formality. There is only "development" but no "movement", only "elevation" but no "elevation", just "determined" then "paralyzed"!