GENERAL ITEMS

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 June 1920, Page 4

GENERAL ITEMS

"AND HE GOETH"

The following cou.mon-sense and very true remarks are taken from an American magazine :—Several 'years ago when I had just been promoted to my first real job, I called ova business friend oi: mine. Re la a wise and experienc-d handler of men ; I asked lrin what suggestions he could make about executive responsibility. "You are about to make the great discover}'," he said. "Within a week or two you will know why it is that executives grow gray and die before their time. You will have learned the bitter truth that there are no efficient people in the world." lam still very far from admitting that he was right, but I Know \ well enough what he meant. Every man knows who has ever been responsible for a piece of work, or had to meet a pay-roll. Eecently another friend of mine built a house. The money to build it represented a difficult period of saving on the part of himself and his wife; it meant overtime work and self-denial, and extra effort in behalf of a long-chprished dream. One day when the work was well j a'-orrz, U^ r^.if.<?'l it iv/i .M'r -h wor'v • • j y ;;h :.. s^dc b\invi: -.>■ .uujgb- In iiis hands. "Look here," the foreman cried, "can't you carry a whole bundle of shingles?" The workman regarded him bullenly. "I suppose 1 could," he answered, "if I wanted to bull the job." By "bull the job" lie meant "do ai: honest day's work. At ten o'clock one morning I met still another man in Ins office in New Yoik. Me was miiiiching a sandwich and gulping a cup of coffee which his secretary hud brought in to him. "I had to work late last night," he said, "and meet a very eariy appointment this morning. My wife asked our maid to have breakfast a halfhour early so that 1 might have a bite and still be here in time." "When I came down, to breakfast, the maid was still in bed." She lives in his home, and eats, aud is clothed bj means of money which his brain provides; but she has no interest .in liis success, n=> cave whatever cxc >pt to do tho minimum of work. "The real tioubio with the world to-day is a moral trouble," said a thoughtful man recently. "A large proportion of its people have lost all ; conceptiou of what it menus to render an adequate service in return for tho | wages they are paid." He is a generous m;iu. On almost any sort of question his sympathies are likely to bo with labor, and so are mine. lam glad that men woik shorter hours than they used to, aud in ce.t.iin instances I think the hours should bo even shorter. I am glad they are paid highor wages, and ! hope they may oaru still more. ! But there are timen when my syin~ path;? goes out to those ou whose boliall' no voico ia ever raised—to the executives of tho world, whose hours are limited only by the limit of tlu-ir physical and mental ondurame, | who cany not ineroly the load of their own work, but the heartbreaking load of carelessness aud stoltd indifference iv so many of the folta whom they employ. Perhaps tho most successful executive iv history was that centurion of the Bible. "For 1 am a man under authority, • having soldiers under mo," he s aid. "And I say to one man ero, and he goeth ; aud to another, come, and ho cometh ; and to my servant, do this, and ho doeth it." Marvelous mun ! The modern executive also say? "Go," aud too often the man who should have gone will appear a day or two later and explain, "I didu't understand what you meant." He sfiys "Come," and at the appointed time his telephone rings and a voice speaks saying : "I ovei slept and will be there in about three quarters of an hour."