Free Money

Giving Away Free Money

·        Where will you go?  I spend a majority of my time at the VA hospital in Gainesville, so I will be conducting this exercise there.  There are people constantly in the VA every day for different reasons coming and going.  I will approach people outside, and near the smoking areas.

·        What kind of people will you approach?  Most of the people going to the VA are veterans.  This will be easy for me to talk to them because I am a veteran as well.  I will not target veterans specifically, but anyone I encounter.

·        What will you say to get the conversation started? I served three years in the Marine Corps as a recruiter, so I will use a technique that is solid.  I will walk up to people and ask “Hi, what is your name?”   This is the easiest way to start a conversation with someone you do not know.

·        What is your plan for the conversation? My plan for the conversations will be to tell them I just want to give them a dollar and see if the person will be willing to accept it or not.  If not, I will employ some tactics I learned as a recruiter to find out why.

·        Out of five attempts, how many dollar bills do you think you will be able to give away.   I think I will be able to give away all five.  This is because  I know veterans, and I also know people like money, even if it is only a dollar. 

·        Second, be sure you record these encounters. It might help to bring along a friend, but your blog post needs to feature at least 2 recordings of your interactions with people. In the blog post, provide the video recordings and describe your results overall. What are your reflections on this exercise? Was giving away a dollar easier or harder than you imagined? Were your predictions correct or incorrect? If they were incorrect, why? What assumptions did you make about the people you planned to talk to, which were wrong?

Because I was on VA property, I was not allowed to record the encounters.  I did meet five people in the areas I described above.  Here is a list, and the outcome:

1.     John:  John is a veteran I caught going to smoke.  I walked up to him and asked his name, which he said was John.  I asked him if he wanted a dollar, and he said what for?  I said for whatever you want, I am conducting a survey on money because of an argument and wanted to know if people would accept a dollar.  He looked at me puzzled, but said “sure.” I gave him a dollar. 

2.     Pam:  Pam was walking behind the VA when I stopped her.  I told her the same exact thing as John, and she too accepted a dollar.

3.     George:  When talking to George, he was waiting on a shuttle to go to his vehicle.  He also had no problem taking the dollar.

4.     Donnie:  Donnie was an older gentleman, and was a little more apprehensive.  He was very skeptical of why I wanted to give him a dollar, even after telling him this was to win an argument, he still wasn’t sold.  So I told him I had already talked to three other people who all graciously accepted, and then he too accepted the dollar.

5.     Louie.  Louie was a younger person working there on a construction project.  After giving him my sales pitch of taking a dollar, he did. 

·        The results were just as I thought, it is very easy to get someone to accept a dollar.  I think this would have been harder if the dollar amount would have been more.