Money isn't a Motivator

What do you do in a culture where money isn't a motivator? We know that we should do all things to serve the Lord, but face it, in our culture, money is a huge motivator which can be good and bad. We are motivated to go to work each day, knowing that we will be paid for our labor. Sometimes we work overtime because we are motivated by the overtime pay, and other times we work hard in hopes receiving a promotion.

But what do you do in a culture where money is not a key motivator? We have a man that comes once a week for four hours to help maintain our yard. We wouldn't even consider having someone come to maintain our yard in the US, but here lawn mowers are few and far between. The lawn is literally cut with shears. And for a total of $5, we can have our yard cared for each week. For the last three weeks, our gardener has not shown up for work. We don't know if that means he has been busy, didn't feel like coming, doesn't like working for us, or was sick. All of these are possibly scenarios.

On Monday he finally showed up to work, an hour later than he is supposed to come. I told him he could work, but he would have to work an hour later. From somewhere...I have no idea where...he had gotten an lawn mower. He mowed the lawn and raked it for about two hours and then disappeared. He has not come back to be paid for his time, and we do not know where he lives. You may be thinking, "Who cares about $2.50?" But here that is the going rate. What would you do?

This mentality seems to be cultural. On the one hand, money is important, but not so important that they are motivated to provide real customer service. At times Kris has had several thousand dollars worth of computer parts to order, and he can't seem to find anyone who wants to provide the parts. If they don't know if there are any more supplies or don't want to deal with you, they will just say, "Sorry, sir, out of stock." In our culture, we are used to people looking up the item number and being willing to try to order the part/supplies to make the business deal. That is just not the case here. If I am at the grocery store and I don't see a product I usually buy, I have learned there is no use in asking if there is more of that item in the back of the store. They will just look at the shelf and say, "Sorry, ma'am, out of stock." So what do you do in a culture that is not highly motivated by money?