Attention bosses: Even monkeys seem to know the value of equal pay for equal work.

When rewarded similarly for the same task — in this case, exchanging a small rock with a scientist — capuchin monkeys worked happily for a slice of cucumber. But after they witnessed a partner getting a coveted, succulent grape for the bit of granite, the cucumber-paid monkeys took offense.

Some went on strike. Some kept halfheartedly doing the work, but refused to accept the stinkin' cucumber.

"There were none that didn't care," said Sarah Brosnan, a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta. A description of her experiment, conducted with Emory's Frans de Waal, appears Thursday in the journal Nature.

If primates offer a window to the origin of human behavior, the findings suggest that people may be born with a strong, primal reaction to unfair rewards. The researchers even have a term for it: "inequity aversion."

—Laura Beil, "Monkeys show sense of fairness about work, rewards in experiment," Knight-Ridder, September 18, 2003

Good food for common rocks?  And yet they take offense?  Damn ingrates.

I'd love to get rewarded for monkeying around and getting my rocks off.  But do I?  oh No-o-o-o.  And I have a term for it:  insexity aversion.   Anyone out there willing to trade a juicy cherry or flamboyant strawberry for a little chiseled granite?