THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 35, 6 March 1909, Page 4

THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS

■HINTS FBOM AN OLD STAGER. "A anan who doesn't oarn more than 1 he gets will never get more than he'g getting." ! This is a< leading maxim of a man in |a, large way of business, who knows, or ought to know, what lie is talking about.

'i can't understand what a young ■ man is thinking of," he savs, "to enter the Civil Service. There is no future in ' it. lie may work as hard as he pleases a,nd show all sorts of intelligence, but he cannot get advancement on that score. He has got to wait until the stupid ol'd clock-watcher ahead of him U moved up a peg; and that may take years. The whole system is a. narcotic that drugs tho ambition of everybody who becomes a part of it. They all become clock-watchers, with every incentive to be as hwy as possible. "Now, in my. private business," he continues, "I won't have a time-clock in /ny office, and I don't care anything about office hours. I don't care what time a man is at his de.sk. or what time he quits. All I want is results. It one of my men came to me and asked for a day oJf, I'd- dismiss him! lie should' know himself whether lie. can take time, oil or not- without asking me. He ought' | to know more ab'out his particular job i tha,n I do; that's what. 1 pay him for.! and 1 don't care, if hit goes fishing m> long as he gets through with his work. But if a, man will insist on putting himself in tha class of day labor:-;* and' to take him at his own estimate. ' "1 have no use for this kind of fellow —particularly it' he's young—and Intake it as hard as I can for him. The trouble with salaried men is that they are cow-

ards; they're afraid to take responsibilities, and are always trying to put it up to somebody else. I Avon't have that kind or thing in my business. "As soo.il as 1 linda» man is running to me for advice or bothering m-p or the man just over him with details. 1 clisi miss him. And the result is that every fellow i,n ?ny ollice. feels lii-s responsibility and has the nerve t'o carry it on his own shoulders. And if he divides his time wrong or wastes it. that is his own look-out. He can be as punctual or a,s easy-going as he ploasos, so long, as he can show me results at the end of I the year.

•'Now, you can't get this kind of a spirit into a municipal department run on Civil Service rules, and that is why I advise every young man to keep out of the public service if he ever expects to be anybody. And I advise him 1o keep out of the big linns for pretty much thft same reasons. 1 don't know why .it is, but -every young fellow wants to work for a hig concern. It sounds fine to tell about, but there is nothing in it. Let him start with a small concern and grow up with i:t. Let him begin as an and pull off his coat and got his hand's dirty if he has jto; but let him learn the business from the ground up.

"You know," he once declared with some disgust, "there are no good olliceboys nowadays, I wan nervy little chaps who will come for a few shillings a week and make themselves pari «»!' the business. Von might almost say there aren't any office-boys at nil nowadays. If you advertise for one you ge;t a. whole tlock of bulking eighteen-year-olds with high collars, who think they are. worth a man's salary, when they aren't, worth their salt. They're too'old to be ofllee-boys, and too young and call.ow to be anything else. "The school system is to blame for this. There are too many secondary schools, and they are turning out regiments of incompetents. A common school education without frills is all that a boy needs to succeed in conimor-

eial life, lie ought to go into business at fourteen to lit hinisdf for even a clerkship at eighteen, and yet lie is encouraged. no matter how po.or he is—to spend those four years at school, acquiring a taste for neckties and fancy shirts. What good is he \vln-n he goes into a bu»iness house? And yet he 'thinks lie can walk right into a clerkship, if, indeed, he is as modest as that, i and doesn't want to be. a- manager! ■ "There- are too many secondary schools, aud not enough technical schools. The country is filled with .smallsalaried. discouraged men afraid of their jobs. who. instead oi being mediocre clerk*. ought to be. good. .self-respecting carpenters and plumbers and electricians. "Of course," lie admits, ''every business has to have people to do the routine work, and these people must lmvo routine hours. But it s a shame (o waste good brains on that sort of work, and no: encouragement should be given to anv svstem which puts a premium on laziness and attaches a penalty to ambition or stifles it altogether.'