The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-07
EVENING CHAT
BIZ RUTH CAMERON.

Did it ever occur to you that fault
finding is sometimes a very good
thing?
And the failure to find fault some
times cruel?
A young girl whom I know was dis
charged recently from her position as
stenographer.
He said he only did it because he
was going to cut down the Office force,
she explained, land L guess that's real
ly the truth, for all the time I was
there he almost never found any fault
with me-
Later 1 happened to meet the young
woman's ex-employer, with whom l
am also acquainted.
The talk drifted around to the girl
he had just discharged.
"You liked her work?" 1 asked.
"Why. no. If I did, why should I
have let her go?"
"She said that was because you had
to cut down the Office force"
He grinned rather sheepishly. "Oh.
that was what 1 told her to make it
easier for her"
CWhat a queer conception of "mak-
ing things easy" some people have.)
st let her go because she was an in
accurate stenographer. Two or three
times she made mistakes in addressing
envelopes, and things of that sort, that
might have made bad trouble for me.
Didn't happen to, but it. might have.
1
what did she say when you called
her down for things?"
well 1 don't know as I ever did
much. if any. I don't like to do that
sort of thing, you know. 1t makes me
feel uncomfortable
That's the failure to find fault that's
cruel.
If your maid makes mistakes or is
careless in any way. do you pleasantly
call her attention to her faults and
: 6ar 70 n do hotter
just stand them as long as you can,
and then rise in your wrath and dis
charge her?
If you were a maid or stenographer
or an employee of any sort, in which
of these ways would you like to be
treated?
know a teacher who was told by
the superintendent just after she was
asked to hand in her resignation ex-
actly why she had been unsatisfac-
tory.
1t was the first time she had re-
ceived any criticism to speak of.
1t took her some time to get an
other school. You know it isn't very
easy, when you have been asked to
hand in your resignation, to find an
other position right away.
During this time she passed through
a period of encouragement and de-
preston in which. as she told me af-
forwards, she almost made up her mind
twice that there wasn't any place for
her anywhere in the world.
When she finally did get a chance
to try again she builded on the criti-
cism she had received and today she
is one of the most successful teachers
in the state.
And all the suffering she went
through might have been avoided if
that superintendent and school COM
mittee had been kind enough to find
fault with her in the beginning, in
stead of tolerating her as long as they
could and then getting rid of her.
Not everyone, of course, has the
brains and character and grit to over
come his faults, even when they are
pointed out.
But some reople have, and if there
are any to whom you stand in the re-
lation of employer, why not give them
the benefit of the possibility that they
are of that class, and be kind enough
to find fault with them occasionally.
This is my work-my blessing, not my
doom.
OF all who live am the one by whom
This work can Test be done in my own
wa-."
Van Dyke
I went to church last Sunday and
We sang an old hymn which had a
Line in it that ran:
AMI toll and grief and pain shall
| ceaso''
! With all my heart I am thankful
hat the time has passed when people