Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-04-29
THE "cHEsTY" EMPLoYE.

BY Ebert Hubbard in the Chicago
Examiner.
Little hotels often feature their
clerks
Small tailors proudly put forth their
cutters. But big business is built
by many earnest men working to,
gether for common end and aim.
! 1t Is planned by one man, but Is
carried forward by many.
A steamship is manned by crew,
and no one particular sailor Is neces-
sary. You can replace any man in the
engine room of the Mauretania and
she will cross the ocean in less than
six days.
In an enterprise that amounts to
anything. all transactions should be In
the name of the firm, because the firm
is more than any person connected
with it.
Clerks or statesmen who have pri-
vate letter heads and ask customers
to send letters to them personally, are
on the wrong track.
To lose your identity in the business
is one of the penalties of working for
a great institution. Don't protest-it
is no new thing-all big concerns are
confronted by the same situation-get
in line! 1t is necessity.
I II you VS. to do business individ-
ually and in your own name, stay In
the country or do business for your
self. Peanut stands are Individuals
tic; when the peanut man goes, the
stand also croaks. Successful corpo
rations are something else.
OF course, the excuse Is that you
send me the order direct l. knowing
you and your needs, can take much
better care of your wants than that
despised and intangible thing, "the
house" Besides, sending 1t through
the circumlocution Office takes time
There is something more to say:
First Long experience has shown
that "the saving of time" Is exceed.
ingly problematic. For, while, in
some instances, rush order can be
gotten off the same night by sending
it to an individual, yet when your in.
divfdual has gone fishing, Is at the
ball game, or is sick, or has given up
his job and gone with the opposition
house, there are great and vexatious
delays, dire COMMISSIONS and great
strain on vocabularies.
This thing of a salesman carrying
his trade with him.. and considering
the Gust Tners Of the house his per-
sonal property, is the thought of only
two-by-four men.
A house must have certain fixed
policy-a reputation for square deal
ing-otherwise it could not exist a:
all 1t could not even give steady
work and good pay to the man who
thinks 1t would be only hole in the
ground without him.
In the main the policy of the house
is right.
Don't acquire the habit Of buttins
in with your stub-end of a will in op
position to the general policy of the
house
The man who thinks he owns "his
trade" and threatens to walk out and
| take other employees and customers
with him, is slated to have his dream
| come true. The manager gives in
the individualist then is sure he is
right-the enlarged ego grows, and
some day the house simply takes his
word for 1t and out he goes. The
down and-outer heads off his mail a,
the postoffice and for some weeks EN-
harnesses customers, delays trade and
more or less confuses system, but g
month or two smooths things out, and
he is forgotten absolutely. The steam
ship ploughs right along.
L The firms interests are yours; II
you thing otherwise you are already
on the slide.
4 The weak point In MARKHAM social