AMSG has a lot of excellent employee benefits that aren’t found everywhere you might find yourself working. One of them is the Hobby Program, where AMSG will reimburse you for some of the expenses you incur to explore your personal passions.
If you are an employee of AMSG you can apply to participate in the Hobby Program. If your application is accepted, and most of them are, AMSG will provide money for you to spend on your hobby—and not a $50 gift certificate, either: normally it’s $1,000 but this year for administrative reasons it’s been prorated to $917. That’s still just one big grocery bill away from a cool grand.
Why, you ask? Simply put, because AMSG wants you to be happy, to have a life that is fulfilling outside of work. Because, unlike many organizations, AMSG sees you as a person who has an actual existence outside of work. It’s not completely altruistic: leadership thinks it will make you a better worker and make them look good—but here’s the dirty little secret: it does.
So, what constitutes a hobby? And what’s the catch?
The catch is, pretty much anything constitutes a hobby, with a few obvious exceptions. It must be something legal and not alcohol, tobacco, and/or firearms (including ammunition and supplies). And no, you can’t spend it on your home office, because your work can’t be your hobby. They admire your team spirit, but paint or garden or something, okay?
So, what kind of madness has all of this largesse spawned?
Riley Nguyen uses the Hobby Program to pay for climbing equipment, and to maintain a membership at SportRock—just to be better at rock climbing! Many would climb rocks to escape peril, but for Riley, it’s a hobby.
Chrissie Constable uses the Hobby Program to pursue the hobby of, well, running very long distances. The very first Marathon was allegedly to tell the Athenians that the Persians had been defeated, but Chrissie would have done it just for fun. The program covered her Boston marathon race entry, Berlin marathon entry, and Nike Alphaflys and Nike Vomero Plus shoes. Last year it paid for Tokyo and London race entries and more Nike shoes. Race entries for world majors vary from about $200-$350. She doesn’t have to use it for those aluminum foil blankets you get at the end of the race because those are included.
For Patsy Hockaday, her hobby started in 2020 when COVID hit. During that time, her band, Patsy and the Country Classics completely STOPPED. Patsy and her husband decided to “decorate” their garage with a musical theme. The first puzzle she completed was of a record store and she just didn’t have the heart to tear the puzzle apart, as a lot of time is invested in putting together 1000 pieces, so she glued and framed it, and surrounded it with album covers. That was beginning.
What she didn’t realize about putting such large puzzles together was how satisfying it is, and how grounded it would make her feel. She read that puzzles “serve as a form of meditation, reducing stress and anxiety by encouraging focused, calm engagement”, and when the pieces fit together it “stimulates the production of dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter related to happiness, motivation, and satisfaction.” And that is so true!
The hobby program allowed her to purchase an actual puzzle table that is free-standing, which she never would have done. It allows her to keep her dining room table free, which she has been known to eat at periodically.
Jeffrey Dewhurst (full disclosure: we are related) uses the Hobby Program to buy the weird and specific tools he needs to make mosaics, like glass cutters and these plier things called nippers that snap little pieces of glass at just the right angle, sometimes. He also uses it to fill his craft areas with every possible color of glass and ceramic tile, so that he can get frustrated that he still doesn’t have the right shade.
Hey, it’s my hobby, it doesn’t have to make sense.
Do you have a hobby? Great, get some money for it.
Don’t have a hobby? Get one! You can even choose one someone else is doing, and you don’t have to do it better. You can be truly terrible at your hobby and AMSG will still fund it and love you anyway. And you’ll reap the benefits of a mental well-being boost, cognitive function improvement, and chronic disease risk reduction. (https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/3-proven-health-benefits-having-hobby). Or so they say, that could just be the Big Hobby cartel talking.
The only downside of the AMSG Hobby program is that you have to fill out the shortest and easiest form in the world and wait like a day and a half to be approved.
I know, brutal. And you may never have the right shade of blue. AMSG will not help you with that.
Have fun outside of work, and that’s an order.
Written by: Jeffrey Dewhurst