The perils of paying for piecework

When I teach Sales Management, I tell my students that salespeople are rational beings, and they will engage in the course of action that yields them the greatest benefit.

If you pay a bonus to land new customers, the reps may be tempted to ignore the old customers. If you give a bonus based on the number of orders, the reps will split up the big order to make a bunch of little orders etc.

A few nights ago I saw a guy delivering copies of the new Yellow Pages book. I saw him put the book in front of this door. Nothing odd about that. Except, as you can see, the door he put the book in front of is actually a display window for the local drug store.

But the door does have a number above it, so it does have an address, and I'm sure the guy delivering the Yellow Pages books is getting paid per book, and is under strict instructions to deliver a book to every address. If I was a Yellow Pages advertiser I might wonder what benefit I get from delivering a book to a display window. (Especially since I am paying for every book delivered.)