The University of Hard Knocks [11]
ones shook up. The bump that was bad luck to the little ones was good luck to the big ones. The same bump was both good luck and bad luck.
Luck does not depend upon the direction of the bump, but upon the size of the bump-ee!
The "Lucky" One
So everywhere you look you see the barrel sorting people according to size. Every business concern can tell you stories like that of the Chicago house where a number of young ladies worked. Some of them had been there for a long time. There came a raw, green Dutch girl from the country. It was her first office experience, and she got the bottom job.
The other girls poked fun at her and played jokes upon her because she was so green.
Do you remember that green things grow?
"Is not she the limit?" they oft spake one to another. She was. She made many blunders. But it is now recalled that she never made the same blunder twice. She learned the lesson with one helping to the bumps.
And she never "got done." When she had finished her work, the work she had been put at, she would discover something else that ought to be done, and she would go right on working, contrary to the rules of the union! Without being told, mind you. She had that rare faculty the world is bidding for--initiative.
The other girls "got done." When they had finished the work they had been put at, they would wait--O, so patiently they would wait--to be told what to do next.
Within three months every other girl in that office was asking questions of the little Dutch girl. She had learned more about business in three months than the others had learned in all the time they had been there. Nothing ever escaped her. She had become the most capable girl in the office.
The barrel did the rest. Today she is giving orders to all of them, for she is the office superintendent.
The other girls feel hurt about it. They will tell you in confidence that it was the rankest favoritism ever known. "There was nothing fair about it. Jennie ought to have been made superintendent. Jennie had been here four years."
The "Unlucky" One
The other day in a paper-mill I was standing beside a long machine making shiny super-calendered paper. I asked the man working there some questions about the machine, which he answered fairly well. Then I asked him about a machine in the next room. He said, "I don't know nothing about it, boss, I don't work in there."
I asked him about another process, and he replied, "I don't know nothing about it, I never worked in there." I asked him about the pulpmill. He replied, "No, I don't know nothing about that, neither. I don't work in there." And he did not betray the least desire to know anything about anything.
"How long have you worked here?"
"About twelve years."
Going out of the building, I asked the foreman, "Do you see that man over there at the supercalendered machine?" pointing to the man who didn't know. "Is he a human being?"
The foreman's face clouded. "I hate to talk to you about that man. He is one of the kindest-hearted men we ever had in the works, but we've got to let him go. We're afraid he'll break the machine. He isn't interested, does not learn, doesn't try to learn."
So he had begun to rattle. Nobody can stay where he rattles. It is grow or go.
Life's Barrel the Leveler
So books could be filled with just such stories of how people have gone up and down. You may have noticed two brothers start with the same chance, and presently notice that one is going up and the other is going down.
Some of us begin life on the top branches, right in the sunshine of popular favor, and get our names in the blue-book at the start. Some of us begin down in the shade on the bottom branches, and we do not even get invited. We often become discouraged as we look at the top-branchers, and we say, "O, if I only had his chance! If I were only up there I might amount to something. But I am too low down."
We can grow. Everybody can grow.
And afterwhile we are all in the barrel of life, shaken and bumped about. There the real people
Luck does not depend upon the direction of the bump, but upon the size of the bump-ee!
The "Lucky" One
So everywhere you look you see the barrel sorting people according to size. Every business concern can tell you stories like that of the Chicago house where a number of young ladies worked. Some of them had been there for a long time. There came a raw, green Dutch girl from the country. It was her first office experience, and she got the bottom job.
The other girls poked fun at her and played jokes upon her because she was so green.
Do you remember that green things grow?
"Is not she the limit?" they oft spake one to another. She was. She made many blunders. But it is now recalled that she never made the same blunder twice. She learned the lesson with one helping to the bumps.
And she never "got done." When she had finished her work, the work she had been put at, she would discover something else that ought to be done, and she would go right on working, contrary to the rules of the union! Without being told, mind you. She had that rare faculty the world is bidding for--initiative.
The other girls "got done." When they had finished the work they had been put at, they would wait--O, so patiently they would wait--to be told what to do next.
Within three months every other girl in that office was asking questions of the little Dutch girl. She had learned more about business in three months than the others had learned in all the time they had been there. Nothing ever escaped her. She had become the most capable girl in the office.
The barrel did the rest. Today she is giving orders to all of them, for she is the office superintendent.
The other girls feel hurt about it. They will tell you in confidence that it was the rankest favoritism ever known. "There was nothing fair about it. Jennie ought to have been made superintendent. Jennie had been here four years."
The "Unlucky" One
The other day in a paper-mill I was standing beside a long machine making shiny super-calendered paper. I asked the man working there some questions about the machine, which he answered fairly well. Then I asked him about a machine in the next room. He said, "I don't know nothing about it, boss, I don't work in there."
I asked him about another process, and he replied, "I don't know nothing about it, I never worked in there." I asked him about the pulpmill. He replied, "No, I don't know nothing about that, neither. I don't work in there." And he did not betray the least desire to know anything about anything.
"How long have you worked here?"
"About twelve years."
Going out of the building, I asked the foreman, "Do you see that man over there at the supercalendered machine?" pointing to the man who didn't know. "Is he a human being?"
The foreman's face clouded. "I hate to talk to you about that man. He is one of the kindest-hearted men we ever had in the works, but we've got to let him go. We're afraid he'll break the machine. He isn't interested, does not learn, doesn't try to learn."
So he had begun to rattle. Nobody can stay where he rattles. It is grow or go.
Life's Barrel the Leveler
So books could be filled with just such stories of how people have gone up and down. You may have noticed two brothers start with the same chance, and presently notice that one is going up and the other is going down.
Some of us begin life on the top branches, right in the sunshine of popular favor, and get our names in the blue-book at the start. Some of us begin down in the shade on the bottom branches, and we do not even get invited. We often become discouraged as we look at the top-branchers, and we say, "O, if I only had his chance! If I were only up there I might amount to something. But I am too low down."
We can grow. Everybody can grow.
And afterwhile we are all in the barrel of life, shaken and bumped about. There the real people