Member-only story
Have You Met Free Riders?
Did you impose a cost on the free riders around you?
A Free-Rider at School
“Hi, Shirley. What can I do for you today?”
“Ms. Fang, you know we have weekly group assignments? I have a situation in my group” A student of mine came to me during my office hours many years ago.
Long story short. It turned out that one fellow student in Shirley’s group was a free rider. He did absolutely nothing. He waits for people to do the homework for him. The group of them were fed up with him and decided to tell on him.
Listening to Shirley brought me down memory lane. I remember having a classmate like that, too — a tall girl in the class who never chipped in for anything and always took a free ride on everyone around her.
Thinking back to it, although it is ironic, but I found these free riders are good at what they do. Most of the time, they get their way.
I encountered colleagues like that after I moved back to Taipei. The free riders share similar personalities — pretentious, low-moral, and deceitful. Their behaviour is easy to spot.
A Free-Rider at Work
A team of us went on a business trip to an international forum. Before the trip, a few…
