Evening star., 1939-02-26

thousands of employees start getting
their alibis in shape
They usually blame the boss some sshenn-
ing co-worker or bad times. Rarely do they
blame themselves. For the truth is that if
they had sense enough to consider that angle
in the first place, most of them wouldn't have
been fired.
This fact was driven home to me by half
dozen big business employment managers
who fill - and refill - thousands of jobs
every year. A few months ago, in this mag
azine, told you why they hire one applicant
in preference to another. Now let them tell
you why they fire the ones they do.
Like most people, always had hunch
that employees usually lose jobs because they
can't do the work. Well, employment experts
fatty disagree.
w. J. Harper, Personnel Officer of the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, says:
with our present methods of testing ability
for job, coupled with our educational pro-
gram, discharges for inability to do the work
are almost ni''
Lee Kolb former Employment Manager
and now Management Executive of R. H.
N1dNy " NOAPoAy, ooyo' "OAAN 9Ny sA"'
of all the employees discharged for various
reasons, few of them lose their jobs for lack of
ability to do the work. To a large degree loss
of jobs is confined to personality faults
Howard Lee Davis, for thirteen years
Director of Technical Employment, New
York Telephone Company, and author of
The Young Man in business" says: THE
great majority who lose jobs lose them
through personal inadabtability."
P. w. Boynton, Personnel Manager of the
Socony-V Vacuum Oil Company, says: "Of
those who fail to keep a job or get ahead,
seventy five per cent get themselves in blind
aley through personal traits which they ought
to be able to control
Here are four concerns, in widely divergent
fields, that employ enough people to populate
city, 50 you can't laugh off their experience
A better hunch is to take stock of those who
get canned - and of yourself.
What kind of personality faults" are they
talking about? Well, the employment agencies
are haunted by two great groups of Person.
alities: the hotheads and the bellyachers.
The best automobile mechanic l ever knew
rarely holds job for three months. No, he
never gets fired - he's too good workman
to fire. But some day the foreman says, Jack,
don't you think it would be better if you did
that this way -" Jacks temper flares and
the upshot is that he throws down his tools
and stamps out of the place.
"One requisite for keeping job observes
Mr.. Kolb, rs the ability and willingness to
accept fair criticism. Indeed, one should well
come it. Too many people resent criticism as
an insult When your superiors note that
attitude they stop criticism - but don't let
that fool you 1t isn't because they think
you're perfect: it S because they see it is USE
less. And that's the beginning of the end for
you"
Shoulder to shoulder with those who can't
take criticism are those who can't stop dishing
it out They are the bellyachers; the chronic
grouches who see the faults of everybody else
from the switchboard operator to the Chair
man of the Board.
Avoid being crouch or suspicious COM
palmer" advises Mr.. Davis. stop comparing
your own troubles with the other fellows
blessings. And stop listening to the grouches
among your associates or you'll get like
them!"
Of course, these two irritating faults OF
personality stem from the same main root
that causes so much dissatisfaction: inability