The On-Demand Economy Ventures to Westeros, The Finale

The On-Demand Economy: Resolving Jon Snow’s Recruitment Woes

At this point, we’ve talked about weddings plenty. Wedding chaos aside, of course, there’s also the impact the on-demand economy would have on the Kingsroad, the main thoroughfare connecting the Five Kingdoms. Hobb, Castle Black’s cook, dies in a Wildling attack? Send a job request and get a W2 culinary staffer. A key benefit of W2 is that it allows for training temp staffers, and they will need to learn the Oath. The Faith of the Seven is trying to build a chapel in the middle of the Riverlands? Try creating a multi-day job request for a general laborer. Who knows? Your part-time job offer might be perfect timing for a person needing a second chance.

The old adage of “good help is hard to come by” is just as true in Westeros. Just ask Jon Snow who spent a deathly amount of energy resurrecting the Stark name in the North. To do so, Jon needed soldiers supporting his family’s name. Historically, entire departments of Westeros Houses were dedicated to sourcing, recruiting, and training personnel for large-scale enterprise deployments.

Jon Snow’s efforts to launch the campaign were costly. The planning and organization of this campaign, with Winter right around the corner, nearly halted Jon’s ability to expand the family business before the job itself even started.

Jon’s efforts and time were spent identifying candidates to recruit, reaching out to these candidates via handwritten notes, and then without any assurance of these candidates accepting the job, Jon conducted in-person interviews on each of these candidate’s terms. 

Recruiting for contingent roles is difficult, and can be frustrating for even the most experienced managers of Westeros. Take Jon’s visit to the Glovers, in which Jon and Sansa make their pitch to Lord Glover. Despite literally hundreds of years of commitment to the Stark family, the Glovers choose, for their own very understandable reasons, not to join Jon and Sansa.   

Luckily for the Starks, the youth of the North were able to come through for Jon with a dedicated cohort of 62 good part-time supplemental personnel. How was Lady Mormont so confident of the quality of her personnel that she could offer Jon?

She may have managed the entire staffing and dispatching process with the click of a button. Had Jon only leveraged the on-demand economy sooner….

What are some other ways the on-demand economy would impact Game of Thrones?

Tweet your idea with the hashtag #WesterosApp for a chance to be featured in our Sunday mailbag building up to the season finale.