Business: Service: Personal: Theatre
Phoney Kidnapping Motivation Service   (+5)  [vote for, against]
An alternative to the traditional carrot and stick approaches to motivation.

I tend to suffer from lapses of concentration at work (no small thanks to the HB). I am now over 3 months into a PhD and I have *nothing* worthy to show for it. My dilly-dallying is going to cost me dearly one day soon unless I can 'pull my finger out'.

There must be other daydreamers and lay-abouts that also require motivation.

To help them (and me) I propose an incredibly convincing crank-call system:
A nasty man, speaking with a kazoo in his mouth, threatens to hurt your friends and loved ones unless you meet with demands. Just as you are about to laugh it all off you hear the muffled voice of your mum (mom), or your wife, husband, etc... This grabs your attention. You listen to the demands, before you can quibble with them *crackle*
"Don't you love you son?"
"That report will be finished TODAY or bad things start to happen!"
<phone goes dead...>
-- Jinbish, Oct 10 2002

another motivator http://www.halfbake...otivational_20Media
shameless link by shameful person [FarmerJohn, Oct 10 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Odd. My phone rang just as I was reading this, and no one was there. Hmmmm.
-- blissmiss, Oct 10 2002


You ever see Cat's Eye? You must have...
-- Mr Burns, Oct 10 2002


Erm? No... I was thinking of the Mel Gibson film 'Ransom'

"Give me back my son!"
-- Jinbish, Oct 10 2002


A variation on the motivational theme that I would find helpful - every month a randomly selected half-baker has an e-mail sent to their company's CEO (/PhD supervisor) detailing the number of hours per week spent on the site. The resulting frisson of fear might curb some of my more idle excesses.
-- whimsickle, Oct 10 2002


Eek! (logs off)
-- egbert, Oct 10 2002


"PKMS: Doing Good Through Bad."
-- calum, Oct 10 2002


I could do with this the other way around.Finish the report or we will bring your family back
-- sufc, Jan 10 2003



random, halfbakery