Workers often repeat tasks within a workday, and this paper examines how meaningful or mundane experiences completing an intrinsically motivated task affects subsequent performance when those tasks are next repeated. We study Emergency Medical Service (EMS) crews responding to 9-1-1 calls and investigate whether attending to a meaningful high-stakes call enhances performance on subsequent 9-1-1 calls. Leveraging data from over 57 million 9-1-1 calls in the United States and exploiting quasi-random assignment of call types to EMS crews, we find that EMS response times improve by 2.4 - 2.8% after attending to acute life-threatening situations compared to mundane calls. This motivational spillover effect dissipates after four hours, appears strongest when acute calls have been rare in the past (effect sizes of 6.8 - 12.6%), and diminishes with crew fatigue. Our findings contribute to the literature on intrinsic motivation and job design by demonstrating the importance of job expectation-reality gaps in sustaining motivation and performance. These insights underscore the need for managers to strategically allocate meaningful tasks throughout the workday to optimize employee motivation and efficiency.
