A PROPER USE FOR EYES
I met Barlow one morning taking his "constitutional." While I was
working for him we fellows always used to laugh at his plan of going for
a walk every day for fifteen or twenty minutes. We used to think it was
a freak notion of his for keeping in health.
Barlow shook hands with me and asked me how business was going. I told
him that sales were picking up very slowly. Then he asked me:
"And how is friend Stigler affecting you now?"
I told him about the scheme I had been working on Stigler.
"But," I concluded, "I don't bother much with thinking about him now."
"That's excellent!" he exclaimed. "He isn't doing any too well, I know,
and he has some time on his hands to talk. You forget him as much as
possible and just go ahead and 'saw wood.'"
"That's what I'm trying to do. But I'm still keeping up that plan of
marking down the goods in the window for an hour in the morning until he
cuts his goods."
Barlow chuckled at that: "It is amusing," he said, "that Stigler hasn't
yet realized that you are not cutting your own prices but merely making
him cut his!"
"But, really," I said, "so much is always happening that I've forgotten
almost everything but business."
"I'm very glad to hear it, Dawson," he replied, "and you'll find that,
as long as you are going on the right track, that same spirit will
continue. I find business so crowded with interesting things that I can
hardly tear myself away from it at night."
"I notice, though," I said, with a sly smile, "that you still take your
half hour's constitutional every morning."
"Surely you know what I do that for?"
"What is it, if it isn't to keep yourself in trim or something of that
kind?"
"I'll tell you, Dawson: A man can't be in the same surroundings long
without becoming blind to their physical aspects. If I were to stay in
the store all the time, I would soon become blind to poor window
displays, to disorderliness and neglect about the store--to those
hundred and one defects which creep up in a store and which react
unfavorably on customers. So I make a point every day of putting on my
hat and walking around a few blocks, looking at the other stores,
familiarizing myself with the window trims, keeping a line on new ideas,
and the like. And by the way, Dawson, I have obtained some of my best
ideas of window trimming from displays in other stores--not hardware
stores, I mean. I had a splendid idea for a trim one time from a display
at Middal's." Middal ran a stationery store. "Tony once had an
arrangement of fruit in his window that gave me a good idea for a tool
display.
"I tell you, Dawson, there are good ideas lying around everywhere, and
it only requires a little imagination to adapt them to your own uses.
It's a poor sort of merchant who cannot use the good ideas from other
lines of business and adapt them to his own requirements."
"So that's why you take your morning constitutional?" I asked. "To see
what good ideas you can pick up!"
"Yes, I see what good ideas I can pick up, but that's only one part of
it. My main idea is to let my eyes see something other than what they
are in the habit of seeing. I want them to get away from looking at the
environment of the store, so that when I return from my
'constitutional,' as you call it, I can look at my store as if I were a
casual visitor. Every time I approach it I say to myself, 'What would I,
as a stranger, think of that store?' And I find that, by looking at it
in this way, I keep my viewpoint fresh. I quickly notice any flaws in
the store management."
"Then all that time I was working with you and thought, with all the
other fellows, that it was a crank idea of yours, you were really
following out a definite store policy, as it were?"
"Exactly."
"Then," I blurted out, "why didn't you ever tell us what it was for? We
could perhaps have done the same thing!"
"I never told you," he answered, "because I felt it wouldn't help you
fellows, and I didn't think it wise to tell my help what I was doing.
You see my point?" he said, with a smile.
"I feel foolish to think of disagreeing with you, Mr. Barlow," I said,
"but candidly, I think it would have paid to have told us. I believe a
boss gets more out of his men when he tells them what he is working
for. I think, too, that many bosses are afraid to let the men see the
wheels go round. I may be wrong, but I am going on the plan of telling
the fellows as much as possible about the business. I believe that the
more they know about the business, the more interest they will take in
it, and the better they will be able to work in its interests."
We were strolling toward my store and were just passing Stigler's at
that minute. Stigler was standing at the door, and, as we passed, he
said with a grin:
"Good morning, gentlemen. Hatching up a new conspiracy to corner the
hardware trade in the town? If so, don't fail to let me in. I'm always
looking for an easy thing, you know. K-ha!"
Barlow turned around with a laugh, and said:
"You always will have your bit of fun, won't you, Stigler?"
I was too mad to say anything.
"I'm surprised you can joke with him like that!" I said to Barlow. But
then he turned around, and I saw a snap in his eye, which told me that
he was really angry, just as much as I was, but had learned to control
his feelings better.
Well, we shook hands, and I left him to go into the store. His closing
remark was:
"Stick to it, Dawson! Call on me if I can help you at any time, and,
while you don't want to be spying on Stigler, of course, keep your eye
open."
But when we parted I suddenly decided, instead of going into the store,
to try Barlow's plan and take a stroll around the block and then try to
view the store as if I were a customer. I felt a little disappointed,
then, at the general appearance of the outside of the store. More paint
would certainly improve it. In fact, it was a kind of joke to find on
the big side door an old sign, the letters half worn off and the rest
dirty and dusty, reading:
"Fresh paint improves your property. Use Star Brand."
I was still handling the Star Brand, but had never bothered about the
sign! I had the sign taken down right away, and determined there and
then to see the landlord, and get him to paint the outside of the store.
Barlow was certainly no fool!