Are Santa's Elves the Masters of Controlling Shirking?

In class on 03 Nov. as we were discussing the Kalt and Zupan paper “Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics”. Our discussion shifted to what ideologies are and how they can lead to principle agent problems. The principle agent problem is when there is a misalignment of incentives between the principle and agent, specifically in our conversation we discussed how it arises when an elected representative (the agent) begins shirking what the underlying electorate (the principal) voted him/her in for and instead votes based on his/her own ideology. After this we learned that there are four ways to control Shirking. The first, is having a well define output in place, something that is measurable, like a quota. The second is for the principal to constantly monitor the agent in order to have complete knowledge of what they are doing. The third is to have frequent performance reviews and the fourth is to have many alternatives that are available to hire, in order to replace the shirking agent. 

Now, I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but after Halloween ended the holidays have been on my mind. Specifically Christmas, so naturally my mind immediately jumped to one of the best Christmas movies ever made, Elf! If you don't already know what scene I'm going to then you need to rewatch the movie immediately. In case you don't, a link to the scene can be found here. We see Buddy (the agent) hard at work as Ming-Ming approaches. They immediately start discussing quotas for Etch-a-Sketches and that unfortunately Buddy will fall short of that quota, approximately 915 Etch-a-Sketches off pace. The elves clearly have a well defined and measurable output. Then Ming-Ming acts as a monitor in this scene as well. You can see him intently looking down the production line gaining accurate knowledge on how well prepared the elves are for Christmas. Buddy then starts to get down on himself and even ventures to call himself a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins. Here Ming-Ming initiates a performance review. He acknowledges that Buddy may not be great at toy making, but rather he has other "special talents" as other elves soon point out all the unique things Buddy can do. Now for the fourth and final shirk control. Buddy is sent to the Toy Testing department, meant for "special elves". The efficient operation in the North Pole even has secure alternatives for Buddy. Ming-Ming also asks Foom Foom to pick up  the slack on the Etch-a-Sketches another alternative for the workshop to meet the desired toy output. In this short two minute clip there is irrefutable evidence that Santa's Elves have shirking under control.