The best card of admission at the door of a business office is a

pleasing personal appearance coupled with a calm and assured manner.

This is a universal standard of measuring a man's character and calibre.

Until we have heard him speak we judge him by the way he looks. It is a

dangerous practice, as the proverb warns us, but the percentage of hits

is high enough to make us continue to use it.

A favorite device with a certain cheap type of salesman is to give his

name to the girl at the entrance desk and ask her to tell Mr. Brown that

Mr. Green has sent Mr. Smith to call. The Mr. Green is entirely

fictitious, but since Mr. Brown has several business acquaintances of

that name, he interrupts his work and comes out to see Mr. Smith and

discovers that he is a life insurance agent who thinks that if he can

once get inside he can "put it across." Most business men have no use

for such practices and rarely allow the salesmen who employ them to stay

in their offices any longer than it takes to get them out. Besides, the

salesman places himself under a handicap to begin with. He will find it

pretty hard to convince the man in the office that he is not dishonest

about his goods just as he is about himself. He is the greatest enemy of

his profession. And he makes the work of every one else engaged in it

infinitely harder. It is something every business and profession has to

fight against--the dishonest grafter who is using it as a means of

swindling society.

Most salesmen give their names at the entrance desk instead of

presenting their cards. Psychologists and experience have taught them

that the card is distracting and that even if the interview is granted

it is harder to get the attention of the other man if he has a card to

twiddle between his fingers. It is more conventional to send in a card

(a good card is a letter of introduction in itself) but if the salesman

finds it a handicap, however slight, he should by all means dispense

with it. If the card is cheap or flashy or offensive in any way it

arouses prejudice against the man who bears it before he has had a

chance to present his case in person. The business card may be the same

as the personal card, simply a bit of pasteboard bearing the name and

perhaps the address, or it may be larger than the ordinary personal card

and bear the name of the firm for which the salesman is working, and in

addition, if it is a very simple design, the trademark of the firm.

Whether to rise when a caller enters and shake hands is a question to be

settled by each person according to the way he likes best. It is

certainly more gracious to rise and ask him to be seated before resuming

one's own place. But promiscuous handshaking is an American habit which

Europeans as a rule frown upon and in which a number of Americans do not

indulge, for they like the grasp of their hand to mean something more

than a careless greeting and reserve it for their friends. In any case,

the caller should not be the first to extend his hand.

If a man is accustomed to see a great number of people he will find it

too much of a strain on his vitality to shake hands with them all.

Roosevelt used to surprise strangers with the laxness of his grasp, but

the Colonel had learned to conserve his strength in small things so that

he might give it to great ones. The President of the United States has

more than once in the course of the history of our country come to the

end of the day with his hands bleeding from the number of times people

have pressed it during the day. Now the President ought to be willing to

give his life for his country, but he ought not to be required to give

it in this way. It probably meant a great deal to each one of the people

in the throng to be able to say, "I once shook hands with the

President," but how much more it would have meant if each one of them

could have said, "One day I helped my President," even if the help was

so small an act of thoughtfulness as forbearing to shake his hand.

But to get back to salesmen: Some of them have a way, especially the

over-zealous ones, of getting as close to the prospect as is physically

possible. They place their papers or their brief cases on the desk

before which the prospect is sitting, hitch their chairs up as close as

they can, and talk with their breath in his face. No one likes this and

it is only a rude and thoughtless salesman who is guilty of it. One man

who had been vexed by it over and over again had the visitor's chair

nailed to the floor in his office some little distance from his own. And

he never had a caller who didn't try to move it nearer to him!

For years it has been the habit for business men to receive their

callers at their desks, but lately there has been a turning away from

this. The desk is usually littered with papers and letters which the

caller can hardly help reading, and there are constant interruptions

from the telephone and the other members of the office. For these

reasons a number of business men are going out to see their callers

instead of bringing them in to see them, a practice which is much more

cordial than the other if one can afford the time for it. One big

business house abolished its large reception room and built in a number

of smaller ones instead. In this way each visitor has privacy and there

is a feeling of hospitality and coziness about the little room which the

bigger one failed to give. Each room was fitted up with comfortable

chairs, books, and magazines so that if the caller had to wait he would

have the means of entertaining himself.

Once a man agrees to see a salesman or other visitor he should give, in

so far as it is possible, his full attention to him. It is better to

refuse an audience altogether than to give it grudgingly. A prominent

man cannot possibly see all of the people, salesmen and whatnot, who

want to talk with him or he would have no time left to keep himself

prominent. A busy man has to protect himself against the cranks and

idlers who try to gain access to him, and most men have to have devices

by which they can rid themselves of objectionable or tiresome callers.

One man who has a constant stream of visitors has only one chair in his

office, and he sits in it. Another never allows a visitor to enter his

office, but goes to the outer reception room and stands while he talks.

One man stands up as a signal that the interview is at an end. Another

begins to fumble with the papers on his desk, and the salesman does not

live who is not familiar with the man who must hurry out to lunch or who

has only five minutes to catch a train. One man has his secretary or his

office boy interrupt him after a visitor has been in as much as ten

minutes, to tell him that Mr. So-and-So is waiting outside. Another

rises to his feet and walks slowly toward the door, the salesman

following, until he has maneuvered him out. If the salesman is a man of

sense none of these devices will be necessary. He knows that a courteous

and prompt departure helps his cause much more than an annoying

persistence, and the man who stays after his prospect's mind has lost

every interest except to get him out of the way is lacking in one of the

fundamentals of social good manners as well as business good manners.

Rarely, perhaps never, does he succeed. For the successful salesman is

the one who can put himself into his prospect's place and let him know

that he has made a study of his needs and is there to help him.

Carefully prepared approaches and memorized speeches are worth much to

the beginner, but an agility in adapting himself is much more important.

Ludendorff failed to get to Paris because his original plan was upset

and he could not think quickly enough to rally the German army and

attack from a different angle. Most salesmen have to talk to men who are

continually interrupted to attend to something else. And most business

men know what they want, or think they do, and when they ask a direct

question they want a direct answer. Many a young salesman has ruined

himself so far as his career was concerned because he went out with

instructions to keep the interview in his hands and every time the man

he was "selling" asked a question he passed airily over it and kept

stubbornly on the road he had mapped out for himself. The salesman

cannot think in theoretical terms; he must think concretely and from the

point of view of the man he is trying to convince. As one very excellent

salesman has put it, he must get the prospect's own story and tell it to

him in different words, and if he can actually show him a way to

decrease expenses or to increase output he will win not only his

attention, but his heart as well.

The salesman must be absorbed in his commodity, but not to the exclusion

of the man he is trying to "sell." A beginner of this type went into a

man's office some time ago and rattled off a speech he had memorized

about some charts. The man listened until he came to the end--the boy

was talking so rapidly and excitedly that it would have been hard to

interrupt him except by shouting at him--and then quietly told him that

he had not been able to understand a word of what he had said. "You have

not been talking to me," he explained. "You have been talking at me."

Another salesman of the same general kind went into the office of a busy

lawyer one morning recently in a building which happened to be owned by

the lawyer.

"I am going to give you some books," he announced.

The lawyer asked him what they were, but the salesman refused to be

diverted before he had led up to the dramatic moment in his carefully

planned speech at which he thought it best to mention the name of the

books. He went through the whole of his canvass and then thrust a paper

under the lawyer's face with "Sign here" above the dotted line.

"I thought you were going to give them to me," the lawyer said.

The salesman began to explain that of course he could not give him the

books outright and so on and on and on--everybody has heard this part of

his speech. The lawyer laughed and the salesman lost his temper. Very

angry, he started out of the room. Near the door which opened into the

hall was another door which opened into a closet that contained a shelf

which was a little more than five feet high. The salesman opened this

door by mistake and struck his head smartly against the shelf. This made

him angrier than ever. He jerked the other door open and slammed it

behind him with a crash that nearly broke the glass out. This was more

than the lawyer could stand. He sprang up and started in pursuit of the

salesman, who by this time was on his way into another office in the

same building. The lawyer asked him where he was going. The salesman

told him.

"Not in my building," the lawyer said. "I can't have the men who have

offices here disturbed by people who act like this. Now go on," he added

kindly but firmly, "and let's forget that you ever came here."

And the salesman went.

Salesmanship is service, and the man who persuades another to buy

something he knows he does not want, does not need, and cannot use, is a

scoundrel. "Good salesmanship," and this is the only sort that any

self-respecting man will engage in, "is selling goods that won't come

back to customers that will." It is cumulative in its effect, and the

man who sells another something that really fills a want wins his

eternal gratitude and friendship. He tells his friends about it, they

come to the same salesman and the product begins almost to sell itself.

But it takes patience and courtesy to bring it up to this point.

Some salesmen kill a territory on their first trip. Bad manners can do

it very easily. Sometimes they make themselves so objectionable that the

customer will buy to get rid of them, especially if the purchase does

not involve more than a dollar or two. Sometimes they carry the customer

along so smoothly with plausible arguments that they persuade him to buy

something that he knows he does not want. It is all right so long as the

salesman is present, but discontent follows in his trail.

Sometimes--stocks and bonds salesmen are guilty here--they wheedle the

customer into buying more than he can afford, beginning on the premise

that since their stocks are good (and the men who sell fraudulent ones

use the same methods) a man should if he has a hundred dollars buy a

hundred dollars' worth, if he has a million he should buy a million

dollars' worth, if he has a home he must mortgage it, if he has an

automobile he must sell it. No good salesman works like this. People are

very gullible and it takes little argument to persuade them to invest

nearly all they have in something that will make them rich in a hurry,

but the fact that they are foolish is not quite sufficient justification

for fooling them. Even if the stocks and bonds are all the salesman

believes and represents them to be, no man has a right to risk his home

or his happiness for them. A worth while salesman leaves his customer

satisfied and comes back a year later and finds him still satisfied. And

this sort of customer is the best advertisement and the best friend any

business can have.

Bad salesmen create violent prejudices against the firms they represent.

For the average customer, like the average man, judges the whole of a

thing by the part that he sees. To most of us the word Chinaman calls up

the picture of the laundryman around the corner in spite of the fact

that there are some three hundred million Chinamen in the world engaged

in other occupations. Salesmen who are consumed with their own

importance do their firms more harm than good. They usually are men in

positions too big for them (they may not be very big at that) and are

for the most part of not much more real consequence than the gnat which

sat on the tip of the bull's horn and cried, "See what a dust I raise!"

Glum and sullen salesmen--there are not many of them--are of little

genuine value to their firms. It is not true that when you weep you weep

alone. Gloomy moods are as contagious as pleasant ones, and a happy man

radiates happiness.

It is not easy to look pleasant when one's nerves are bruised from

miscellaneous contacts with all sorts of people, but it is an actual

fact that assuming the gestures of a mood will often induce the mood

itself. The man who forces himself to _look_ cheerful (we are not

talking about the one who takes on an idiotic grin) may find himself

after a while beginning to _feel_ cheerful. After he has greeted the

elevator boy with a smile (it may be a very crooked one) and the hotel

clerk and the waitress and the bootblack and the paper boy he is likely

to find that the smile has straightened out into a genuine one. It does

not always work--it is like counting to a hundred when one is angry--but

it is worth trying.

Salesmen find their greatest difficulties among people of little

education. It is the people with fewest ideas that cling to them most

tenaciously. Scholars and scientists and business men who have learned

to employ scientific methods are constantly watching for something new.

They welcome new discoveries and new ideas, but the man in the backwoods

of ignorance has a fence around the limits of his mind and it is hard

for anything to get inside it. He is open to conviction, but like the

Scotsman, he would like to see the person who could "convict" him. It is

hard work to get a new idea into the mind of a man who is encased in a

shell of ignorance or prejudice, but the salesman is worse than

bad-mannered who lets another man, whoever he is, know that he thinks

his religion is no good, that his political party is rotten, that his

country is not worth a cancelled postage stamp, and that the people of

his race are "frogs," "square-heads," "dagos," "wops," or "kikes."

Salesmen who are themselves courteous usually meet with courtesy. The

people who move graciously through life find comparatively little

rudeness in the world. And a good salesman is courteous to all men

alike. With him overalls command as much respect as broadcloth. It

pays--not only in money, but in other things that are worth more.

A salesman should be especially careful of his attitude toward the

representatives of rival houses and their products. His eagerness to

advance his own cause should never lead him into belittling them. He

need not go out of his way to praise them nor should he speak of them

insincerely in glowing terms; but an honest word of commendation shows

that he is not afraid of his rivals in spite of the fact that they too

have excellent goods, and when it is impossible to speak well of them it

is best to stay silent.

It is not hard to see why business men spend so much time and effort in

selecting their salesmen. They know that one who is ill-mannered or

offensive in any way indicates either a lack of breeding or a lack of

judgment on the part of the parent concern. And one is about as bad as

the other.

VIII

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

Half the business letters which are written should never be written at

all, and of the other half so many are incomplete or incoherent that a

transaction which could be finished and filed away in two letters

frequently requires six or eight.

A good letter is the result of clear thinking and careful planning. In

the case of the sales-letter it sometimes takes several weeks to write

one, but for ordinary correspondence a few minutes is usually all that

is necessary. The length of time does not matter--it is the sort of

letter which is produced at the end of it.

Books of commercial correspondence give a number of rules and standards

by which a letter can be measured. But all rules of thumb are dangerous,

and there are only two items which are essential. The others are

valuable only as they contribute to them. The letter must succeed in

getting its idea across and it must build up good will for its firm. And

the best one is the one which accomplishes this most courteously and

most completely in the briefest space of time (and paper).

There should be a reason back of every letter if it is only to say

"Thank you" to a customer. Too much of our national energy goes up in

waste effort, in aimless advertising, worthless salesmanship,

ineffective letter writing, and in a thousand and one other ways. A lot

of it is hammered out on the typewriters transcribing perfectly useless

letters to paper which might really be worth something if it were given

over to a different purpose.

A good letter never attracts the mind of the reader to itself as a thing

apart from its contents. Last year a publishing house sent out a hundred

test letters advertising one of their books. Three answers came back,

none of them ordering the book, but all three praising the letter. One

was from a teacher of commercial English who declared that he was going

to use it as a model in his classes, and the other two congratulated the

firm on having so excellent a correspondent. The physical make-up of the

letter was attractive, it was written by a college graduate and couched

in clear, correct, and colorful English. And yet it was no good. No

_letter and no advertisement is any good which calls attention to itself

instead of the message it is trying to deliver_.

There is not much room for individuality in the make-up of a letter.

Custom has standardized it, and startling variations from the

conventional format indicates freakishness rather than originality. They

are like that astonishing gentleman who walks up Fifth Avenue on the

coldest mornings in the year, bareheaded, coatless, sockless, clad in

white flannels and tennis slippers. He attracts attention, but he makes

us shiver.

Plain white paper of good quality is always in good taste. Certain

dull-tinted papers are not bad, but gaudy colors, flashy designs, and

ornate letter heads are taboo in all high types of business. Simple

headings giving explicit and useful information are best. The name and

address of the firm (and "New York" or "Chicago" is not sufficient in

spite of the fact that a good many places go into no more detail than

this), the cable address if it has one, the telephone number and the

trademark if it is an inconspicuous one (there is a difference between

_conspicuous_ and _distinctive_) are all that any business house needs.

Hotels are often pictured on their own stationery in a way that is

anything but modest, but there is a very good reason for it. The first

thing most people want to know about a hotel is what sort of looking

place it is. All right, here you are. Some factories, especially those

that are proud of their appearance, carry their own picture on their

stationery. There is nothing to say against it, but one of the most

beautiful factories in America has on its letter head only the name of

the firm, the address, and a small trademark engraved in black.

Sometimes a picture, in a sales letter, for instance, supplements the

written matter in a most effective way. And whenever any kind of device

is really helpful it should by all means be used, subject only to the

limits of good taste.

It is more practical in business to use standard size envelopes. If

window envelopes are used the window should be clear, the paper white or

nearly so, and the typewritten address a good honest black. The

enclosure should fit snugly and should be placed so that the address is

in plain view without having to be jiggled around in the envelope first.

A letter passes through the hands of several postal clerks before it

reaches the person to whom it is addressed, and if each one of them has

to stop to play with it awhile an appreciable amount of time is lost,

not to mention the strain it puts on their respective tempers. The paper

of which an envelope is made should always be opaque enough to conceal

the contents of the letter.

Practically all business letters are typewritten. Occasionally a "Help

Wanted" advertisement requests that the answer be in the applicant's own

handwriting, but even this is rare. In most places the typing is taken

care of by girls who have been trained for the purpose, but most young

girls just entering business are highly irresponsible, and it is

necessary for the men and women who dictate the letters to know what

constitutes a pleasing make-up so that they can point out the flaws and

give suggestions for doing away with them.

The letter should be arranged symmetrically on the page with ample

margins all around. Nothing but experience in copying her own notes will

teach a stenographer to estimate them correctly so that she will not

have to rewrite badly placed letters. It is a little point, but an

important one.

Each subject considered in a letter should be treated in a separate

paragraph, and each paragraph should be set off from the others by a

wider space than that between the lines, double space between the

paragraphs when there is single space between the lines, triple space

between the paragraphs when there is a double space between the lines,

and so on.

A business letter should handle only one subject. Two letters should be

dispatched if two subjects are to be covered. This enables the house

receiving the letter to file it so that it can be found when it is

needed.

When a letter is addressed to an individual it is better to begin "Dear

Mr. Brown" or "My dear Mr. Brown" than "Dear Sir" or "My dear Sir."

"Gentlemen" or "Ladies" is sometime used in salutation when a letter is

addressed to a group. "Dear Friend" is permissible in general letters

sent out to persons of both sexes. Honorary titles should be used in the

address when they take the place of "Mr.," such titles as Reverend,

Doctor, Honorable (abbreviated to Rev., Dr., Hon.,) and the like. Titles

should not be dropped except in the case of personal letters.

Special care should be taken with the outside address. State

abbreviations should be used sparingly when there is a chance of

confusion as in the case of Ga., Va., La., and Pa. "City" is not

sufficient and should never be used. Nor should the name of the state

ever be omitted even when the letter is addressed to some other point in

the same state, as from New York to Brooklyn. And postage should be

complete. A letter on which there is two cents due has placed itself

under a pretty severe handicap before it is opened.

It is astonishing how many letters go out every day unsigned, lacking

enclosures, carrying the wrong addresses, bearing insufficient postage,

and showing other evidences of carelessness and thoughtlessness. In a

town in New England last year one of the specialty shops received at

Christmas time twenty different lots of money--money orders, stamps, and

cash--by mail, not one of which bore the slightest clue to the identity

of the sender. Countless times during the year this happens in every

mail order house.

The initials of the dictator and of the stenographer in the lower

left-hand corner of a letter serve not only to identify the carbon, but

often to place the letter itself if it has gone out without signature.

The signature should be legible, or if the one who writes it enjoys

making flourishes he may do so if he will have the name neatly typed

either just below the name or just above it. It should be written in ink

(black or blue ink), not in pencil or colored crayon, and it should be

blotted before the page is folded. The dictator himself should sign the

letter whenever possible. "Dictated but not read" bears the mark of

discourtesy and sometimes brings back a letter with "Received but not

read" written across it. When it is necessary to leave the office before

signing his letters, a business man should deputize his stenographer to

do it, in which case she writes his name in full with her initials just

below it. A better plan is to have another person take care of the

entire letter, beginning it something like, "Since Mr. Blake is away

from the office to-day he has asked me to let you know----"

The complimentary close to a business letter should be "Yours truly,"

"Yours sincerely" or something of the kind, and not "Yours cordially,"

"Yours faithfully" or "Yours gratefully" unless the circumstances

warrant it.

In writing a letter as a part of a large organization one should use

"We" instead of "I." A firm acts collectively, no one except the

president has a right to the pronoun of the first person, and he (if he

is wise) seldom avails himself of it. If the matter is so near personal

as to make "We" somewhat ridiculous "I" should, of course, be used

instead. But one should be consistent. If "I" is used at the beginning

it should be continued throughout.

Similarly a letter should be addressed to a firm rather than to a

person, for if the person happens to be absent some one else can then

take charge of it. But the address should also include the name of the

addressee (whenever possible) or "Advertising Manager," "Personnel

Manager" or whatever the designation of his position may be. The name

may be placed in the lower left-hand corner of the letter "Attention Mr.

Green" or "Attention Advertising Manager," and it may also be placed

just above the salutation inside the letter. Sometimes the subject of

the letter is indicated in the same way, _Re Montana shipment_, _Re

Smythe manuscript_, etc. These lines may be typed in red or in capital

letters so as to catch the attention of the reader at once. If a letter

is more than two pages long this line is often added to the succeeding

pages, a very convenient device, for letters are sometimes misplaced in

the files and this helps to locate them.

A business letter should never be longer than necessary. If three lines

are enough it is absurd to use more, especially if the letter is going

to a firm which handles a big correspondence. Some one has said with

more truth than exaggeration that no man south of Fourteenth Street in

New York reads a letter more than three lines long. But there is danger

that the too brief letter will sound brusque. Mail order houses which

serve the small towns and the rural districts say that, all other things

being equal, it is the long sales letter which brings in the best

results. Farmers have more leisure and they are quite willing to read

long letters _if_ (and this _if_ is worth taking note of) they are

interesting.

All unnecessary words and all stilted phrases should be stripped from a

letter. "Replying to your esteemed favor," "Yours of the 11th inst. to

hand, contents noted," "Yours of the 24th ult. received. In reply would

say," "Awaiting a favorable reply," "We beg to remain" are dead weights.

"Prox" might be added to the list, and "In reply to same." "Per diem"

and other Latin expressions should likewise be thrown into the discard.

"As per our agreement of the 17th" should give place to "According to

our agreement of the 17th," and, wherever possible, simplified

expression should be employed. Legal phraseology should be restricted to

the profession to which it belongs. Wills, deeds, and other documents

likely to be haled into court need "whereas's" and "wherefores" and

"said's" and "same's" without end, but ordinary business letters do not.

It is perfectly possible to express oneself clearly in the language of

conversation (which is also the language of business) without burying

the meaning in tiresome verbiage. And yet reputable business houses

every day send out letters which are almost ridiculous because of the

stiff and pompous way they are written.

The following letter was sent recently by one of the oldest furniture

houses in America:

DEAR MADAM:

Herewith please find receipt for full payment of your bill.

Please accept our thanks for same.

Relative to the commission due Mrs. Robinson would say that if

she will call at our office at her convenience we shall be glad

to pay same to her.

Thanking you for past favors, we beg to remain,

Yours very truly,

Contrast that with this:

DEAR MRS. BROWN:

We are returning herewith your receipted bill. Thank you very

much.

If you will have Mrs. Robinson call at our office at her

convenience we shall take pleasure in paying her the commission

due her.

Yours very truly,

Here is another letter so typical of the kind that carelessness

produces:

DEAR SIR:

I have your letter of the 27th inst. and I have forwarded it to

Mr. Stubbs and will see him in a few days and talk the matter

over.

I remain

Yours sincerely,

Would it not have been just as easy to write:

DEAR MR. THOMPSON:

Thank you for your letter of the 27th. I have forwarded it to Mr.

Stubbs and will see him in a few days to talk the matter over.

Your sincerely,

In the preparation of this volume a letter of inquiry was sent out to a

number of representative business houses all over the country. It was a

pleasure to read the excellent replies that came in response to it. One

letter reached its destination in the midst of a strike, but the

publicity manager of the firm sent a cordial answer, which began:

Your very courteous letter to Mr. Jennings came at a time when

his mind is pretty well occupied with thoughts concerning the

employment situation in our various plants.

We shall endeavor, therefore, to give you such information as

comes to mind with regard to matters undertaken by the company

which have contributed to the standard of courtesy which exists

in the departments here.

We select another at random:

It pleases us very much to know that our company has been

described to you as one which practises courtesy in business. We

should like nothing better than to have all our employees live up

to the reputation credited to them by Mr. Haight.

As for our methods of obtaining it----

Contrast these two excellent beginnings with (and this one is authentic,

too):

In reply to yours of the 6th inst. relative to what part courtesy

plays in business and office management would say that it is very

important.

Routine letters must be standardized--a house must conserve its own time

as well as that of its customers--but a routine letter must never be

used unless it adequately covers the situation. There is no excuse for a

poor routine letter, for there is plenty of time to think it out, and

there is no excuse for sending a routine letter when it does not

thoroughly answer the correspondent's question. The man who is answering

a letter must put himself in the place of the one who wrote it.

This is a fair sample of what happens when a letter is written by a

person who either has no imagination at all, or does not use what he

has.

A woman who had just moved to New York lost the key to her apartment and

wrote to her landlord for another. This answer came:

Replying to your letter, will say am sorry but it is not the

custom of the landlord to furnish more than one key for an

apartment. Should the tenant lose or misplace the key it is up to

them to replace same.

The woman felt a justifiable sense of irritation. She was new to the

city and thought she was taking the most direct method of replacing

"same." Perhaps she should have known better, but she did not. Buying a

key is not so simple as buying a box of matches and to a newcomer it is

a matter of some little difficulty. She was at least entitled to a bit

more information and to more courteous treatment than is shown in the

letter signed by his landlordly hand. She went to see him and found him

most suave and polite (which was his habit face to face with a woman).

He explained the heavy expense of furnishing careless tenants with new

keys (which she understood perfectly to begin with) and was most

apologetic when he discovered that she had intended all the time to pay

for it. It would have been just as easy for him in the beginning to

write:

I am sorry that I cannot send you a key, but we have had so many

similar requests that we have had to discontinue complying with

them.

You will find an excellent locksmith at 45 West 119 St. His

telephone number is Main 3480.

Or:

I am sending you the key herewith. There is a nominal charge for

it which will be added to your bill at the end of the month. I

hope it will reach you safely. It is a nuisance to be without

one.

Imagination is indispensable to good letter writing, but it is going

rather far when one sends thanks in advance for a favor which he expects

to be conferred. Even those who take pleasure in granting favors like to

feel that they do so of their own free will. It takes away the pleasure

of doing it when some one asks a favor and then assumes the thing done.

Royalty alone are so highly privileged as to have simply to voice their

wishes to have them complied with, and royalty has gone out of fashion.

At one point in their journey all the travellers in "Pilgrim's Progress"

exchanged burdens, but they did not go far before each one begged to

have back his original load. That is what would happen if the man who

dictates a letter were to exchange places with his stenographer. Each

would then appreciate the position of the other, and if they were once

in a while to make the transfer in their minds (imagination in business

again) they would come nearer the sympathetic understanding that is the

basis of good teamwork.

The responsibility for a letter is divided between them, and it is

important that the circumstances under which it is written should be

favorable. The girl should be placed in a comfortable position so that

she can hear without difficulty. The dictator should not smoke whether

she objects to it or not. He should have in mind what he wants to say

before he begins speaking, and then he should pronounce his words evenly

and distinctly. He should not bang on the desk with his fist, flourish

his arms in the air, talk in rhetorical rushes with long pauses between

the phrases, or raise his voice to a thunderous pitch and then let it

sink to a cooing murmur. These things have not the slightest effect on

the typewritten page, and they make it very hard for the girl to take

correct notes. No one should write a letter while he is angry, or if he

writes it (and it is sometimes a relief to write a scorching letter) he

should not mail it.

It is said that Roosevelt used to write very angry letters to people who

deserved them, drawing liberally upon his very expressive supply of

abusive words for the occasion. Each time his secretary quietly stopped

the letter. Each time the Colonel came in the day after and asked if the

letter had been sent. Each time the secretary said, "No, that one did

not get off." And each time the Colonel exclaimed, "Good! We won't send

it!" It came to be a regular part of the day's routine.

Inexperienced dictators will find it good practice to have their

stenographers read back their letters so they can recast awkward

sentences and make other improvements. It can usually be discontinued

after a while, for dictating, like nearly everything else, becomes

easier with habit.

A considerate man will show special forbearance in breaking in a new

girl. Different voices are hard to grow accustomed to, and a girl who is

perfectly capable of taking dictation from one man will find it very

difficult to follow another until she has grown used to the sound of his

voice. It is like learning a foreign language. The pupil understands his

teacher, but he does not understand any one else until he has got "the

hang of it."

The training of a good stenographer does not end when she leaves school.

She should be able not only to take down and transcribe notes neatly and

correctly. She should be able to spell and punctuate correctly and to

make the minor changes in phrasing and diction that so often can make a

good letter of a poor one. The most fatal disease that can overtake a

stenographer (or any one else) is the habit of slavishly following a

routine.

"Many young fellows," this is from Henry Ford, "especially those

employed in offices, fall into a routine way of doing their work that

eventually makes it become like a treadmill. They do not get a broad

view of the entire business. Sometimes that is the fault of the

employer, but that does not excuse the young man. Those who command

attention are the ones who are actually pushing the boss.... It pays to

be ahead of your immediate job, and to do more than that for which you

are paid. A mere clock watcher never gets anywhere. Forget the clock and

become absorbed in your job. Learn to love it."

The position of secretary is a responsible one. Frequently she knows

almost as much about his business as her employer himself (and sometimes

even more). He depends upon her quite as much as she depends upon him,

though in a somewhat different way. It takes personal effort together

with native ability to raise any one to a position of importance, but

personal effort often needs supplementing, and many business houses have

taken special measures to help their employees to become good

correspondents.

In some places there are supervisors who give talks and discuss the

actual letters, good ones and bad, which have been written. They go over

the carbons and hold conferences with the correspondents who need help.

In other places courtesy campaigns for a higher standard of

correspondence are held, while in others the matter is placed in the

hands of the heads of the various departments, acting on the assumption

that these heads are men of experience and ability or they would never

have attained the position they hold.

The president of a bank which has branches in London and Paris and other

big foreign cities used every now and then to stop the boy who was

carrying a basket of carbons to the file clerk and look them over. If he

found a letter he did not like, or one that he did like a great deal, he

sent for the person who wrote it and talked with him. It was not

necessary for him to go over the letters often. The fact that the people

in the office knew that it was likely to happen kept them on the alert

and nearly every letter that left the organization was better because

the person who wrote it knew that the man at the head was interested in

it and that there was a strong chance that he might see it.

What is effective in one place may not be so in another. Each house must

work out its own system. But one thing must be understood in the

beginning, and that is that the spirit of courtesy must first abide in

the home office before the people who work there can hope to send it

out through the mail.

Roughly speaking there are eight types of business letters which nearly

every business man at one time or another has to write or to consider.

The first is the letter of _application_. The applicant should state

simply his qualifications for the place he wants. He should not make an

appeal to sympathy (sob stuff) nor should he beg or cringe. He should

not demand a certain salary, though he may state what salary he would

like, and he should not say "Salary no object." It would probably not be

true. There are comparatively few people with whom money is no object.

If it is the first time the applicant has ever tried for a position he

should say so; if not, he should give his reason for leaving his last

place. It should not be a long letter. A direct statement of the

essential facts (age, education, experiences, etc.) is all that is

necessary.

Many times the letter of application is accompanied by, or calls for, a

letter of _recommendation_.

No man should allow himself to recommend another for qualities which he

knows he does not possess. If he is asked for a recommendation he should

speak as favorably of the person under consideration as he honestly

can, and if his opinion of him is disapproving he should give it with

reservations.

At one time during the cleaning up of Panama there was considerable talk

about displacing General Gorgas and a committee waited on Roosevelt to

suggest another man for the job. He listened and then asked them to get

a letter about him from Dr. William H. Welsh of Johns Hopkins. Dr. Welsh

wrote a letter praising the man very highly, but ended by saying that

while it was true that he would be a good man for the place, he did not

think he would be as good as the one they already had--General Gorgas.

The Colonel acted upon the letter confident (because he had great faith

in Dr. Welsh) that he was taking the wise course, which subsequent

events proved it to be. "Would to heaven," he said, "that every one

would write such honest letters of recommendation!"

The general letter of recommendation beginning "To whom it may concern"

is rarely given now. It has little weight. Usually a man waits until he

has applied for a position and then gives the name of his reference, the

person to whom he is applying writes to the one to whom he has been

referred, and the entire correspondence is carried on between these two.

In this way the letter of recommendation can be sincere, something

almost impossible in the open letter. It is needless to add that all

such correspondence should be confidential.

The letter of _introduction_ is, in a measure, a letter of

recommendation. The one who writes it stands sponsor for the one who

bears it. It should make no extravagant claims for the one who is

introduced. He should simply be given a chance to make good on his own

responsibility. But it should give the reason for the presentation and

suggest a way of following it up that will result in mutual pleasure or

benefit. It should be in an unsealed envelope and the envelope should

bear, in addition to the address, the words, "Introducing Mr. Blank" on

the lower left-hand corner. This does away with an embarrassing moment

when the letter is presented in person and enables the host to greet his

guest by name and ask him to be seated while he reads it.

Letters of introduction should not be given promiscuously. Some men

permit themselves to be persuaded into giving letters of introduction to

people who are absolute nuisances (it is hard to refuse any one who asks

for this sort of letter, but often kindest for all concerned) and then

they send in secret another letter explaining how the first one came

about. This really throws the burden on the person who least of all

ought to bear it, the innocent man whom the first one wanted to meet. No

letter of presentation is justified unless there is good reason behind

it, such, as for instance, in the following:

This is Mr. Franklin B. Nesbitt. He has been in Texas for several

months studying economic conditions, and I believe can give you

some valuable information which has resulted from his research

there. He is a man upon whom you can rely. I have known him for

years, and I am sure that whatever he tells you will be

trustworthy.

It is a common practice for a business man to give his personal card

with "Introducing Mr. Mills" or "Introducing Mr. Mills of Howard and

Powell Motor Co." written across it to a man whom he wishes to introduce

to another. This enables him to get an interview. What he does with it

rests entirely with him.

_Sales letters_ are a highly specialized group given over, for the most

part, to experts. Their most common fault is overstatement or

patronizing. The advertisements inserted in trade papers and the letters

sent out to the "trade" are often so condescendingly written that they

infuriate the men to whom they are addressed. It is safer to assume that

the man you are writing to is an intelligent human being. It is better

to overestimate his mentality than to underestimate it, and it is better

to "talk" to him in the letter than to "write" to him.

Sales letters are, as a rule, general, not personal, and yet the best

ones have the personal touch. The letter is a silent salesman whose

function is to anticipate the needs of its customers and offer to supply

them. In this as in any other kind of salesmanship it is the spirit

which counts for most, and the spirit of genuine helpfulness (mutual

helpfulness) gives pulling power to almost any letter. The one which

presents a special offer on special terms specially arranged for the

benefit of the customer wins out almost every time, provided, of course,

that the offer is worth presenting. There is no use in declaring that

all of the benefit is to the subscriber. It would be very foolish if it

were actually true. Once a man went into a haberdashery to buy a coat.

The shop owner unctuously declared that he was not making a cent of

profit, was selling it for less than it cost him, and so on and on. The

man walked out. "I'll go somewhere where they have sense enough to make

a profit," he said.

A sales letter should never be sent out to a large group of people

without first having been tried out on a smaller one. In this way the

letter can be tested and improvements made before the whole campaign is

launched. The results in the small group are a pretty fair indication of

what they will be in the large one, and a tremendous amount of time and

money can be saved by studying the letter carefully to see where it has

failed before sending it out to make an even bigger failure.

On the face of things it seems that an _order letter_ would be an easy

one to write, but the mail order houses have another story to tell.

Order blanks should be used wherever possible. They have been carefully

made and have blank spaces for the filling in of answers to the

questions that are asked. In an order letter one should state exactly

what he wants, how he wants it sent, and how he intends to pay for it.

If the order consists of several items, each one should be listed

separately. If they are ordered from a catalogue they should be

identified with the catalogue description by mention of their names,

their numbers and prices. One should state whether he is sending check,

money, stamps, or money order, but he should not say "Enclosed please

find."

The commonest form of _letter of acknowledgment_ is sent in answer to an

order letter. If there is to be the least delay in filling the order

the letter acknowledging it should say so and should give the reason for

it, but even when the order is filled promptly (if it is a large or a

comparatively large one) the letter of acknowledgment should be sent.

Then if anything goes wrong it is easier to trace than when the customer

has no record except the copy of his order letter. The letter of

acknowledgment should simply thank the customer and assure him of prompt

and efficient service.

Complaints should be acknowledged immediately. If there is to be a delay

while an investigation is made, the letter of acknowledgment should

simply state the fact and beg indulgence until it is finished.

Complaints should _always_ receive careful and courteous attention. Most

of them are justified, and even those that are not had something to

begin on.

The _letter of complaint_ should never be written hastily or angrily. It

should go directly to the root of the trouble and should state as nearly

as possible when and where and how it came about. One should be

especially careful about placing the blame or charging to an individual

what was really the fault of an unfortunate train of circumstances. The

tone should never be sharp, no matter how just the complaint. "Please"

goes further than "Now, see here."

_Collection letters_ are hardest to write. They should appeal to a man's

sense of honor first of all. It is a cheap (and ineffective) method to

beg him to pay because you need the money, and rarely brings any

reaction except rousing in his mind a contempt for you. The first letter

in a series (and the series often includes as many as six or eight)

should be simply a reminder. Drastic measures should not be taken until

they are necessary, and at no time should the letters become abrupt or

insulting. In the first place, it is ungentlemanly to write such

letters, in the second it antagonizes the debtor, and if he gets angry

enough he feels that it is hardly an obligation to pay the money; that

it will "serve 'em right" if he does not do it.

Advertising is a sort of letter writing. Each advertisement is a letter

set before the public or some part of the public in the hope that it

will be answered by the right person. It enters into an over-crowded

field and if it is to attract attention it must be vivid, unusual, and

convincing. Increasingly--and there is cause to be thankful for

this--exaggerated statements are being forced to disappear. In the first

place the ballyhoo advertisers have shouted the public deaf. They no

longer believe. In the second place advertisers themselves have waked to

the menace of the irresponsible and dishonest people who are

advertising and are taking legal measures to safeguard the honor of the

profession.

One of the most successful advertisers of modern times was a man who

carried the idea of service into everything he did. For a while he had

charge of soliciting advertising for automobile trucks for a certain

magazine. Instead of going at it blindly he made a careful study of the

map of the United States and marked off the areas where automobile

trucks were used, where they could be used, and where they should be

used, and sent it to the manufacturers along with a statement of the

circulation of the magazine and the advantages of reaching the public

through it. The result was that the magazine got more advertising from

the manufacturers than it could possibly handle. It is very gratifying

to know that this man succeeded extraordinarily as an advertiser, for

not once during his long career did he ever try to "put one over" on the

public or on anybody else.

No advertisement should be impertinent or importunate. During the war

there was a splendid poster bearing a picture of Uncle Sam looking

straight into your eyes and pointing his finger straight into your face

as he said, "Young man, your country needs you!" The poster was

excellent from every point of view, but since the war, real estate

companies, barber shops, restaurants and whatnot have used posters

bearing the pictures of men pointing their fingers straight at you

saying, "There is a home at Blankville for you," "Watch out to use

Baker's Best," and "You're next!" After all, Uncle Sam is the only

person who has a right to point his finger at you in any such manner and

say, "I need you." And besides, there is the moral side of it. Imitation

is the sincerest flattery, but the dividing line between it and

dishonesty is not always clear. And the law cannot every time prosecute

the offender, for there is a kind of cleverness that enables a man to

pilfer the ideas of another and recast them just sufficiently to "get

by." It would be very stupid for a man not to profit by the experience

of other men, but there is a vast difference between intelligent

adaptation of ideas and stealing them. This is more a question of morals

than of manners, for the crime--and it is a crime--is usually

deliberate, while most breaches of manners are unintentional and due to

either carelessness or ignorance.

House memoranda are letters among the various people who are working

there. They should be brief, above all things, and clear, but never at

the sacrifice of courtesy. Titles should not be dropped and nicknames

should not be used although initials may be. Memoranda should never be

personal unless they are sent confidentially. An open memorandum should

never contain anything that cannot be read by every one without

reflecting unfavorably upon any one. And it is wise to keep in mind--no

matter what you are writing--that the written record is permanent.

IX

MORALS AND MANNERS

It has become a habit of late years for people to argue at great length

about right and wrong, and what with complexes and psycho-analysis and

what with this and that, they have almost come to the conclusion that

there is no right and wrong. Man, so they have decided, is a frail and

tender being completely at the mercy of the traits he has inherited from

his ancestors and those he has acquired from his neighbors. What he does

is simply the result of the combination of circumstances that have made

him what he is. There is some truth in it, of course, but what there is

is no bigger than a mustard seed, and all the volumes that have been

written about it, all the sermons that have been preached upon it, and

all the miles of space that have been devoted to it in the newspapers

and magazines have not served to increase it. Most of us never give any

one else credit for our achievements and there is no more reason for

giving them blame for our failures. A gentleman is "lord of his own

actions." He balances his own account, and whether there is a debit or a

credit is a matter squarely up to him.

The pivot upon which all right-thinking conduct involving relations with

other people turns is the Golden Rule, "Whatsoever ye would that men

should do to you, do ye even so to them." It is to the moral what the

sun is to the physical world, and just as we have never made full use of

the heat and light which we derive from the sun but could not live

without that which we do use, so we have never realized more than a

small part of the possibilities of the Golden Rule, but at the same time

could not get along together in the world without the meagre part of it

that we do make use of. The principle is older than the Christian Era,

older than the sequoias of California, older than the Pyramids, older

than Chinese civilization. It is the most precious abstract truth that

man has yet discovered. It contains the germ of all that has been said

and written about human brotherhood and all that has been done toward

making it an accomplished fact. And if to-morrow it were to vanish from

the earth we should miss it almost, if not quite, as much as we should

the sun if it were to go hurtling off into space so far away that we

could neither see nor feel it. In the one case there would be no life

at all on earth, in the other there would be none worth living.

The Golden Rule amounts to no more than putting yourself into another

person's place. It is not always easy to do. Half of the people in the

United States have very little idea of what the lives of the other half

are like and have no special interest in knowing.

"What," we asked the manager of a bookshop which caters to a large

high-grade clientele, "do you find your greatest trouble?"

"Lack of imagination on the part of our customers," he answered

promptly, "a total inability to put themselves into our place, to

realize that we have our lives to live just as they have theirs. If we

haven't a book in stock they want to know why. If we don't drop

everything to attend to them they want to know why. If anything goes

wrong they want to know why, but they won't listen to explanations and

won't accept them when they do. They simply can't see our side of it.

And they make such unreasonable demands. Why, last year during the

Christmas rush when the shop was fairly jammed to the door and we were

all in a perfect frenzy trying to wait on them all, a man called up to

know if his wife was here!"

It is not always easy to see life, or even a small section of life,

from another person's point of view. A man very often thinks housework

practically no work at all (the drudgery of it he has never realized

because he has never had to do it) and a woman very often underestimates

the wear and tear and strain of working in an office and getting a

living out of it in competition with hundreds of other men. Marie

Antoinette had no conception of what it meant when the French people

cried for bread. It seemed impossible to her that a person could

actually be hungry. "Why, give them cake!" she exclaimed. It may be

pretty hard for a man who is making $10,000 a year to sympathize with

the stenographer he hires for $600 or $700 a year, or for her to see his

side of things. But it is not impossible.

Very few of us could honestly go as far as the novelist who recently

advocated the motto: "My neighbor is perfect" or the governor who set

aside a day for the people in his state to put it into practice. We

happen to know that our neighbors are, like ourselves, astonishing

compounds of vice and virtue in whom any number of improvements might be

made. It is not necessary to think them perfect, only to remember that

each one of us, each one of them, is entitled to life, liberty, and the

pursuit of happiness. In other words, that every man has a right to a

square deal.

In the ancient world there were four cardinal virtues: justice,

prudence, temperance, and discretion. In the modern world of business

there are only two. Others may follow, but these two must come first.

Justice, we mean, and kindness. No man was ever really a gentleman who

was not just and kind, and we think it would be almost impossible for

one who is, whatever his minor shortcomings may be, not to be a

gentleman. Just to his employees (or to his employer), to his customers,

to his friends, to himself, and this justice always tempered with

kindness, the one quality giving the firmness necessary in dealing with

people, the other the gentleness which is no less necessary.

In the first place, and this is one of the corner stones of justice,

industrial life must be made safe for the worker. And it is a job in

which he has as large a part as the man who hires him. Under present

conditions one workman out of every eight is injured during the year and

the accident is as often his fault as it is that of his employer. In

some instances efficient safety devices are not provided, in others they

are not made use of.

Special kinds of work, such as that in which the laborer is exposed to

poisonous fumes, to sand blasts, dangerous chemicals or mineral dusts,

need special protective devices and men with sense enough to use them.

The employer cannot do his share unless the worker does his, and the

worker is too quick to take a chance. The apprentice is usually cautious

enough, but the old hand grows unwary. Ninety-nine times he thrusts his

arm in among belts whirling at lightning speed and escapes, but the

hundredth time the arm is caught and mangled. And there is nothing to

blame but his own carelessness.

WHO AM I?

I am more powerful than the combined armies of the world.

I have destroyed more men than all the wars of the nations.

I am more deadly than bullets, and I have wrecked more homes than the

mightiest of siege guns.

I steal, in the United States, alone, over $300,000,000 each year.

I spare no one, and I find my victims among the rich and poor alike, the

young and old, the strong and weak. Widows and orphans know me.

I loom up to such proportions that I cast my shadow over every field of

labor, from the turning of the grindstone to the moving of every

railroad train.

I massacre thousands upon thousands of wage earners a year.

I lurk in unseen places and do most of my work silently. You are warned

against me but you heed not.

I am relentless.

I am everywhere--in the house, on the streets, in the factory, at the

railroad crossings, and on the sea.

I bring sickness, degradation and death, and yet few seek to avoid me.

I destroy, crush or maim; I give nothing but take all.

I am your worst enemy.

I AM CARELESSNESS

Any kind of carelessness which results in injury (or is likely to result

in it), whether the injury is mental or physical, is criminal. No plea

can justify building a theatre which cannot stand a snowstorm, a school

which cannot give a maximum of safety to the children who are in it, a

factory which does not provide comfortable working conditions for the

people employed there, or allowing any unsafe building or part of a

building to stand.

There is a factory (this story is true) which places the lives of the

majority of its employees in jeopardy twice a day. There are two sets of

elevators, one at the front of the building for the executives and their

secretaries and visitors, one at the rear for the rank and file of the

employees. Since there are several hundred of the latter the advantages

of the division are too obvious to need discussion. We have no quarrel

with it. But the apparatus upon which the elevators in the rear run is

so old and so rotten and so rusty that there is constant danger of its

breaking down. Three times already there have been serious accidents.

The men who are hired to operate the cars rarely stay more than a week

or so. Protests have been sent in but nothing has been done. The

management knows what the conditions are but they have never stopped to

realize the horror of it. It is not that they value a few dollars more

than they do human life, but that they simply do not stop to think or to

imagine what it would be like to have to ride in the ramshackle elevator

themselves. In the offices of this factory there is an atmosphere of

courtesy and good breeding far beyond the ordinary--in justice to the

people there it must be said that they do not know the conditions in the

rear, but the management does. And the management is polite in most of

its dealings, both with its employees and outside, but polish laid over

a cancerous growth like this is not courtesy.

There are three essentials for good work: _good lighting_ (it must be

remembered that a light that is too glaring is as bad as one that is too

dim), _fresh air_ (air that is hot and damp or dry and dusty is not

fresh), and _cleanliness_ (clean workrooms--and workers--clean drinking

water with individual drinking cups, and in places where the work is

unusually dirty, plenty of clean water for bathing purposes.)

In the matter of salaries--economically one of the most important

questions in the world--the employer should pay, not as little, but as

much as he can afford. No man has a right to hire a girl (or a boy

either) at less than a living wage and expect her to live on it. The

pitiless publicity which was given the evil of hiring girls at

starvation wages some years ago (in particular through the short stories

of O. Henry, "the little shop-girl's knight" which, according to Colonel

Roosevelt, suggested all the reforms which he undertook in behalf of the

working girls of New York) did much in the way of reform, but there is

much yet to be done.

Money has been called the root of all evil. It is not money, but greed.

Greed and thoughtlessness. Sir James Barrie says stupidity and

jealousy, but both these might be included under thoughtlessness. Men

who are generous almost to a fault when a case of individual need is

brought before them will hire girls at less than any one could exist on

in decency. When they meet these same girls in the hall or when they

come directly into contact with them in their work they may be polite

enough, but their politeness is not worth a tinker's curse. Justice must

come first. Only if the employer pays a fair day's wage can he expect a

fair day's work. "Even then," he protests, "I can't get it." And this

is, unfortunately, in large measure true. As Kipling said some few years

ago, and it still holds,

From forge and farm and mine and bench

Deck, altar, outpost lone--

Mill, school, battalion, counter, trench,

Rail, senate, sheepfold, throne--

Creation's cry goes up on high

From age to cheated age:

"Send us the men who do the work

For which they draw the wage."

"I can't even get them here on time," the employer's wail continues. The

employee may respond that the employer is not there, but this has

nothing to do with it. Most people are paid to get to their work at a

certain hour. They have a daily appointment with their business at a

specified time. It is wise and honorable to keep it. Tardiness is a

habit, and, like most others, considerably harder to break than to form,

but punctuality also is a habit, not quite so easy to establish as

tardiness because it is based on strength while the other is based on

weakness. Most of us hate to get up in the morning, but it is good

discipline for the soul, and we have the words of poets as well as of

business men that

Early to bed and early to rise

Is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Time is one of the most valuable of commodities. More people are

discharged for coming in late than for any other reason, not excepting

(we believe this no exaggeration) "lay-offs" during dull seasons.

Slipping out before the regular time and soldiering on the job fall into

the same classification with tardiness. Such practices the employee too

often looks upon as a smart way of getting around authority, blithely

ignoring the fact which has so many times been called to our attention:

that what a man does to a job is not half so important as what the job

does to him. The material loss which comes from it is the least of its

harms.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but he is duller yet if he

tries to mix them. Intense concentration during working hours followed

by complete rest is the only way to make a contented workman, and it is

the happy workman (just as it is the happy warrior), in spite of all

that is said about divine discontent, who counts for most both to

himself and to his community. There is a gladness about earnest eager

work which is hard to find in anything else. "I know what pleasure is,"

declared Robert Louis Stevenson, "because I have done good work."

Gossiping, idling, smoking, writing personal letters during working

hours (these usually on the firm's stationery), and a thousand and one

other petty acts of dishonesty are ruinous, not so much to the house

which tolerates them (because it cannot help itself) as to the person

who commits them. Telephones are the cause of a good deal of disturbance

during business hours in places where employees spend an appreciable

amount of time on personal calls. In some organizations they are

prohibited altogether; but in most they are allowed if not carried to

excess. It is not business people who need education in this so much as

their friends who have never been in business and seem unable to realize

that personal calls are not only annoying, but time-killing and

distracting.

Part of the unrest and unhappiness among employees is due to the fact

that vast numbers of them are working not at what they want to do but at

what they have to do, marking time until they can get something better.

It is very commendable for a man to be constantly watching out to

improve himself, but it does not in the meanwhile excuse him from doing

his best at the job for which he is drawing pay. It is dishonest. It is

unsportsmanlike. It is unmanly.

The question of salary is, from whatever angle it is approached, a

delicate one. "My experience is," observed David Harum, "that most men's

hearts is located ruther closter to their britchis pockets than they are

to their vest pockets." It is a tender subject, and one that causes more

trouble than almost any other in the world. Employees who are trusted

with the payroll should not divulge figures and employees who are on the

payroll should not discuss and compare salaries. Jones cannot understand

why Brown gets more than he does when he knows that Brown's work is not

so good, Brown cannot see why Smith gets as much as he does when he is

out two or three days in the week, and Smith cannot see why he has not

been made an executive after all the years he has worked in the place.

There are many sides to the matter of salary adjustment and they all

have to be taken into consideration. And the petty jealousies that

employees arouse by matching salaries against one another only serve to

make a complex problem more difficult.

There is only one base upon which a man should rest his plea for an

increase in salary, and that is good work. The fact that he has a family

dependent upon him, that he is ill or hard up may be ample reason for

giving him financial help or offering him a loan, but it is no reason

why his salary should be increased unless his work deserves it.

Paternalism is more unfair than most systems of reward, and the man who

comes whimpering with a tale of hard luck is usually (but not always)

not worth coddling. Years of experience, even though they stretch out to

three score and ten, are not in themselves sufficient argument for

promotion. Sometimes the mere fact that a man has been content to stay

in one place year after year shows that he has too little initiative to

rise in that particular kind of work and is too timid to try something

else.

Another big cause of trouble among men working in the same organization

is rigid class distinction. When a man hires others to work _for_ him he

invites discontent; when he hires them to work _with_ him there may be

dissatisfaction, but the chances of it are lessened. A business well

knit together is like any other group, an army or a football team, bound

into a unit to achieve a result. At its best each person in it feels a

responsibility toward each one of the others; each realizes that who a

man is is not half so important as what he does, and that

... the game is more than the player of the game

And the ship is more than the crew,

or, as another poet with a Kiplingesque turn of mind and phrase has it,

It is not the guns or armament

Or the money they can pay.

It's the close cooeperation

That makes them win the day.

It is not the individual

Or the army as a whole,

But the everlastin' team work

Of every blooming soul.

Each man is directly responsible to his immediate superior. He should

never, unless the circumstances are unusual, go over his head and he

should never do so without letting him know. It should be impossible,

and is, in a well-organized house, for men coming from the outside to

appeal over a member of a firm. Responsible men should be placed in the

contact positions and their responsibility should be respected. Salesmen

are warned not to bother with the little fellow but to go straight to

the head of a firm. Like most general advice, it is dangerous to put

into universal practice. The heads of most firms have men to take care

of visitors, and in a good many instances, the salesman helps his cause

by going to the proper subordinate in the first place. It is all very

well to go to the head of a firm but to do it at the expense of the

dignity of one of the smaller executives is doubtful business policy and

doubtful ethics.

"Passing the buck" is a gentle vice practised in certain loosely hung

together concerns. It is a strong temptation to shift the accountability

for a mistake to the shoulders of the person on the step below, but it

is to be remembered that temptations, like obstacles, are things to be

overcome. The "buck," as has been pointed out, always passes down and

not up, a fact which makes a detestable practice all the more odious.

One of the first laws of knighthood was to defend the weak and to

protect the poor and helpless; it still holds, though knighthood has

passed out of existence; and the creature (he is not even good red

herring) who blames some one else for a fault of his, or allows him to

take the blame, is beneath contempt.

When a mistake has been made and the responsibility fixed on the right

person the penalty may be inflicted. If it is a scolding or a "bawling

out" it should be done quietly. Good managers do not shout their

reprimands. They do not need to. The reproof for a fault is a matter

between the offender and the "boss." No one else has any concern with

it, and there is no reason why the instinct for gossip or the appetite

for malicious reports on the part of the other employees should be

satisfied. The world would be happier and business would be infinitely

more harmonious if each person in it could realize that his chief aim in

life should be to mind his own business or, at least, to let other

people's alone.

Private secretaries and other people in more or less confidential

positions are many times tempted to give away secret information, not so

much for the benefit of the person to whom it is given as to show how

much they themselves are trusted. Nearly every one who holds a

responsible business position receives items of information which are

best not repeated, and if common sense does not teach him what should be

kept private and what should be told, nothing will. It should not be

necessary for the superior to preface each of his remarks with, "Now,

this must go no further."

Matters concerning salaries should always be confidential, and so should

personal items such as health reports, character references, and so on,

credit reports, blacklists, and other information of a similar nature.

It is compiled for a definite purpose and for the use of a limited group

of people. It is unethical to use it in any other way.

The reason for dismissing a person from a business organization should

be kept private, especially if it is something that reflects unfavorably

on his character. But the reason should _always_ be given to the

employee himself. He may not listen, and most of the men who have had

experience in hiring and firing say that he will not, but that is his

own responsibility. The employer has no right to let him go without

letting him know why. And the employee should listen--it may not be his

fault but he should check up honestly with himself and find out. The

same thing that lost him this place may lose him another, and a good

many times all that he can get out of being discharged is a purification

of soul. It is a pity if he misses that.

Discharging a person is a serious matter, serious from both sides, and

it is not a thing to be done lightly. Most houses try to obviate it in

so far as possible by hiring only the kind of people they want to keep.

"Our efforts toward efficiency" (we quote from one manager who is

typical of thousands) "begin at the front door. We try to eliminate the

unfit there. We do not employ any one who happens to come along. We try

by means of an interview and references and psychological tests to get

the very highest type of employee." No human test is perfect, however,

and there are times, even in the best regulated houses, when it becomes

necessary to dismiss persons who have shown themselves unfit.

It is not always a disgrace to be discharged and it is not always a step

downward. It may be because of business depression or it may be because

the man is a square peg in a round hole. Sometimes it is the only

experience that will reduce a man's, especially a young man's, idea of

his own importance to something like normal proportions, the only one

that will clear his mind of the delusion that he is himself the only

person who is keeping off the rocks the business for which he is

working, in which case it is one of the best things that could have

happened to him.

A roll call of famous or successful men who were fired would take up

several reams of paper, and it is a pretty rash personnel manager (not

to say brutal and unfair) who will throw a man out like a rotten potato

and declare that he is absolutely no good. Besides, he does not know.

All that he can be sure of is that the man was not qualified for the job

he was holding. And he should think twice before giving a man a bad name

even if he feels certain that he deserves it. At the same time he must

protect himself and other business men from incompetent, weak, or

vicious employees. If after his dismissal a man sends back to his former

employer for a recommendation, the recommendation should be as favorable

as possible without sacrificing the truth.

When a man breaks his connection with a business house, whether he does

so voluntarily or involuntarily, his departure should be pleasant, or at

the least dignified. It is childish to take advantage of the fact that

you are going away to tell all of the people you have grudges against

how you feel about them, and it is worse than a mere breach of good

manners to abuse the house that has asked you to leave. If it has done

some one else an injustice, talk about that all you please, but on your

own account be silent. Even if the fault has been altogether with the

house it does not help to call it names. Self-respect should come to the

rescue here. This is the time when it is right to be too proud to fight.

For a long time it has been held bad ethics for the members of one trade

or profession to speak disparagingly of their competitors, and we have

grown accustomed to say that you can judge a man by the way he speaks of

his rivals. This has limits, however, and in some instances a mistaken

idea of loyalty to one's calling has led to the glossing over of certain

evils which could have been cured much earlier if they had been made

public. It is all very well to be generous and courteous toward one's

competitors but the finest courtesy in any business consists of doing

whatever tends to elevate the standard of that business.

Every man likes his business to be well thought of, and most businesses

have organized for the promotion of a high standard of ethics as well as

for the development of more efficient methods. Notable among these, to

mention one of the most recent ones, is the Advertisers' Association.

There was a time when the whole profession was menaced by the swindlers

who were exploiting fraudulent schemes by means of advertising in

magazines and newspapers, but to-day no reputable periodical will

accept an advertisement without investigating its source and most of

them will back up the guarantee of the advertiser that his goods are

what he represents them to be with a guarantee of their own. No

publication which intends to keep alive can afford a reputation of

dishonesty, and the efforts of the publishers toward cleaning up have

been seconded by the association to such an extent that any person or

corporation that issues a deceptive advertisement, whether or not there

was intent to deceive, will be prosecuted and punished.

There was a time when a man could do almost anything within the law in a

commercial transaction and excuse himself by saying "business is

business." Happily this is no longer true. Business men have not grown

perfect but they have raised their standards of business morality as

high as their standards of personal morality. They have learned that

business and life are one, that our lives cannot--and this has a number

of disadvantages--be separated into compartments like so many tightly

corked bottles on a shelf. We have only one vessel and whatever goes

into it colors what is already there. And it is significant to remember

that muddy water poured into clean water will make it muddy, but that

clean water poured into muddy water will not make it clean. It takes

very little ink in a pail of milk to color the whole of it, but it takes

an enormous amount of milk to have any effect on a bottle of ink.

Business men have also learned that the only way to build a business

that will last is to lay its foundation on the Golden Rule, and many a

man who might otherwise sidetrack the principles of integrity holds by

them for this reason. "Honesty," declared one of the most insufferable

prigs America ever produced, "is the best policy." He was right. Prigs

usually are. It is only because they are so sure of it themselves that

they irritate us.

It is a fact, in spite of the difficulty Diogenes had when he took up

his lantern and set out to find an honest man, that most people like to

pay their way as they go, and the business men who recognize this are

the ones who come out on top. They do not say that the customer is

always right nor that he is perfect, but they assume that he is honest

and trust him until he has proved himself otherwise. The biggest mail

order house in America never questions a check. As soon as an order is

received they fill it and attend to the check afterward. Their

percentage of loss is extraordinarily small. Distrust begets distrust,

and the perversity of human nature is such that even an honest man will

be tempted to cheat if he knows another suspects him of it. The converse

is equally true. There are, of course, exceptions. But the only rule in

the world to which there are no exceptions is that there is no rule that

holds good under all conditions.