This reminds me of Dan Pink's talk on the science of motivation [0]. Ask a bunch of people to do something for little to no reward, and they find the task much

This reminds me of Dan Pink's talk on the science of motivation [0]. Ask a bunch of people to do something for little to no reward, and they find the task much more pleasurable than those who are highly rewarded for the same task. Likely there's a good dose of cognitive dissonance thrown in: people who are highly rewarded justify doing the routine task for the money; those without pay have no extrinsic motivation so their brain fools itself and finds intrinsic reasons to enjoy the task. In the case of the Festivus of Athletes™ (not 2011, not 2013, but somewhere in between) the volunteers get to have an insider's experience they otherwise wouldn't have, it's short duration so they don't burn out and get bored, and they experience camaraderie with the other volunteers. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc