An introduction to Efficiency

Imagine a man who has just been hired to work at an office. The first day of work he comes in motivated, ready to put in effort. However, once he gets there, he finds his co-workers are lazy, and they just do the minimum work possible; they even make fun of him for making an effort. He decides to ignore him and continue with his believes (I won't stop just because they want to, right?)

At the end of the month, the checks come in. This guy was payed the same amount as his lazy co-workers. As the months go by he just gives up and stops caring. Despite the fact that if all workers made an effort, the company would sell more, have higher incomes, and everyone's salary would increase. In theory we should all be as efficient as possible.

This whole "efficiency" thing is a sort of theory I've been developing. It's nothing new or revolutionary; in fact, it is based on and influenced by many different points of view. I just like to express it in my own words.

Why aren't humans efficient all the time and what can we do about it? Well, this will we discussed in my following posts.

EDIT: Bear in mind the work environment is just a metaphor (though it can indeed be applied for work too). After receiving some comments I guess I didn't make it clear. The office is a metaphor for life.