For "buyers" in big stores,
For clerks in little stores,
For office boys,
For typewriters, reporters, car conductors, household domestics,
for all who are hired to work for others, this article is
intended.
There is no greater mistake than skimping your work--BECAUSE YOU
ARE WORKING FOR ANOTHER, AND FEAR YOU MAY DO TOO MUCH.
For your own sake remember that whatever you do in the way of
honest concentrated work you do FIRST OF ALL FOR YOURSELF.
Only one thing in the world can improve you and better your
condition, and that thing is your own effort.
You begin life with certain mental faculties, and with certain
muscular faculties. Their development or decay depends entirely
on yourself.
No work that you do is worthless. It will NEVER pay you to
neglect or slur the task that you have undertaken.
You may be idle, in the thought that you are indulging yourself
at the expense of your employer. It is a dishonest thought, and
it is a stupid thought at the same time.
You may rob your employer of the time that he pays for, but when
you shirk your work you rob yourself first of all. ----
You may say that your employer pays you too little. Perhaps he
does. But that is no reason for hurting your moral character
through dishonesty. It is no excuse for failing to develop
yourself.
The store, or factory, or office in which you work is to your
mind what a gymnasium is to your muscles.
You enter a gymnasium AND PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING
THERE.
You do not say to yourself: "This gymnasium belongs to another
man. The profits go to him, and so I'll not work hard."
On the contrary, you realize that the owner of the gymnasium
gives you the chance to develop your muscles, and you thank him,
although he makes you pay for the privilege. And you do your
very best, on the trapeze, rings, parallel bars, or in any other
direction.
Act in your work as you do in your gymnasium hours.
There is no kind of work that can fail to make you a better and
more successful man if you work at it honestly and loyally.
If you sweep an office, sweep it well. And begin punctually each
day, remembering that punctuality acquired in sweeping an
office may be used later in governing a city.
Train your mind through your work, whatever it is.
Study the lives of those who have succeeded. You will see that
they did whatever they did as well as they could.
Edison was an ordinary telegraph operator. But he was not
content with merely working as others worked. He worked very
hard, devised means to make more valuable the instruments of his
employers. Soon he was an employer himself, and what is far
better than being an employer, he was a creator of new ideas and
a benefactor of the world. ----
Intelligent readers will not misinterpret this advice to mean
that they should OVERWORK themselves, or work regardless of
their own physical welfare.
The right course is this:
Do as much as you can in the present, without drawing on your
future reserves.
Don't work all night and then go on the next day. Such effort
impairs permanently your store of vitality, and that vitality is
your capital.
But never form the habit of neglecting work, of shamming and
lying instead of achieving honestly.
You may deceive one employer, or ten. But 36> you can't deceive
nature, and you can't deceive yourself.
You can form good habits only through regular work. You can
develop your faculties only through exercising them honestly and
systematically. ----