The receptionist position at the MRI Center is one that has produced
             a long string of bored individuals who were capable of presenting a caring,
             professional face to clients and a pleasant voice on the phone just until
             the novelty of a new job wore off. After realizing that the best employees
             in that position had been temps when the regular' employee was sick or on
             vacation caused a re-examination of the requirements of the position. It
             was determined that there were two possibilities for motivating the holder
             of that position to excel. The way that was rejected was the way
             motivational researcher Frederick Herzberg describe as making people
             work,' as opposed to making them want to work (Porter 1996), or at least,
             encouraging them to want to work since no one can make a free human being
             do anything. Herzberg was convinced that motivating employees by threats
             or promises of rewards does little to get so much as a good day's work out
             of the unmotivated, never mind excellence. (Porter 1996)
             So the make them work' idea was scrapped before it was even
             discussed. But another approach was to split the position, making two
             people into a combination medical transcriptionist and receptionist. It,
             too, was scrapped because it would have upset the current medical
             transcriptionist, who is intrinsically motivated, enjoys the work, and has
             more education than one is likely to require for a receptionist. It would
             have meant underutilization for the current transcriptionist during half
             her day, and convincing another qualified transcriptionist that she would
             In the end, the job redesign was taken down another path entirely,
             one that was felt would result in hiring a person with the intrinsic
             motivation to help people, and help himself or herself as well.
             The job redesign borrowed from an idea presented in Nursing Diagnosis
             magazine. The author noted that spirituality ...