BLIND ALLEY JOBS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 15

BLIND ALLEY JOBS

GOOD THOUGHT SUGGESTED

'|Is your job a blind alley? Perhaps you have never thought seriously about it. Perhaps it is just ono of those sort of jobs which one takes for granted, drifting on from week to week without a definite goal—one of those jobs in which one's market value grows less and less with the passing of years', instead of greater and greater," says a writer in an exchange.

"One of the most tragic, women I ever mot was a shorthand-typiste of 43. She had been a shorthand-typisto since slid was 18. She had grown too old for her job, and now she was drab, shy, awkward, and desperately unhappy.' , "She had started her 'career' in a stockbroker's office, when she left school. There she xomained -for 15 years, from'there she went into a produce merchant's office, and then into a shipping business.

"She told me, one day, with tears in her eyes, that she had only just scraped into her last job by lying'about her agCj and .she feared that the might get the sack at any minute'as'the other typistes were all young girls, earning very little less than ahe. earned herself.

"The trouble with her was that she had never made an effort to get into a business which she could have learned with the object of, some day, being her own boss or studying the workings of a firm with the idea-of occupying a really important position with that firm. "No, she was-just one. of many "thousands of girls who 'go to business' in a vague sort of way. In the'"very vast ntajority of cases' a shorthand-typiste does not take an intelligent interest in the business of the firm with which she is employed. She does not try to learn how the business is run, nor anything about it beyond her' own mechanical job. , * "You see, at the back of the 'average 'business' girl's mind there is tho belief that, one day, she will marry. "It is time sho realised that marriage today is more a matter of chance than of choice, and, besides, Fortune has a way of smiling on> people who have made a brave fight to stand on their own feet.

"Before I go any further I would like to' impress, upon you that shorthand and typing, shop assisting, and work of this kind, need by no means lead a girl into a blind alley—not if she is prepared to use her brain. If shS takes a really intelligent interest in the welfare of the firm' for which she works, if sho is not afraid to do things on her own initiative—if she can sometimes come forward with an 'idea' (oh, if only you knew how employers new ideas!), there may be unlimited scope for her in that business. "I know that jubs arei not plentiful these days, and one cannot,1 therefore, pick and choose to any groat extent; but if you work'towards a diflnite goal you will arrivo there sooner or later, i

"Whatever your job may be, try to approach it with enthusiasm. There is endless^ romance in business., The great thing is to have courage. "There is, of course, the possibility that your job may fee very necessary in assisting others as well as yourself. In this case you cannot, of * course, tako the risks you would take if there were only yourself to consider—but you can keep an eye open all the time for a better opening while still hanging on to the blind-alley job."