Old Gorgon Graham / More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

by George Horace Lorimer

It's right to punish these fellows, but a suit for damages ought to lie against their employers. Criminal carelessness is a bad thing, but the carelessness that makes criminals is worse. The chances are that, to start with, Tom and Dick were honest and good at the office and sincere at the Sunday-school, and that, given the right circumstances, they would have stayed so. It was their employers' business to see that they were surrounded by the right circumstances at the office and to find out whether they surrounded themselves with them at home.

A man who's fundamentally honest is relieved instead of aggrieved by having proper checks on his handling of funds. And the bigger the man's position and the amount that he handles, the more important this is. A minor employee can take only minor sums, and the principal harm done is to himself; but when a big fellow gets into you, it's for something big, and more is hurt than his morals and your feelings.

I dwell a little on these matters, because I want to fix it firmly in your mind that the man who pays the wages must put more in the weekly envelope than money, if he wants to get his full money's worth. I've said a good deal about the importance of little things to a boss; don't forget their importance to your men. A thousand-dollar clerk doesn't think with a ten-thousand-dollar head; a fellow whose view is shut in by a set of ledgers can't see very far, and so stampedes easier than one whose range is the whole shop; a brain that can't originate big things can't forget trifles so quick as one in which the new ideas keep crowding out the old annoyances. Ten thousand a year will sweeten a multitude of things that don't taste pleasant, but there's not so much sugar in a thousand to help them down. The sting of some little word or action that wouldn't get under your skin at all, is apt to swell up one of these fellows' bump of self-esteem as big as an egg-plant, and make it sore all over.

It's always been my policy to give a little extra courtesy and consideration to the men who hold the places that don't draw the extra good salaries. It's just as important to the house that they should feel happy and satisfied as the big fellows. And no man who's doing his work well is too small for a friendly word and a pat on the back, and no fellow who's doing his work poorly is too big for a jolt that will knock the nonsense out of him.

You can't afford to give your men a real grievance, no matter how small it is; for a man who's got nothing to occupy thin but his work can accomplish twice as much as one who's busy with his work and a grievance. The average man will leave terrapin and champagne in a minute to chew over the luxury of feeling abused. Even when a man isn't satisfied with the supply of real grievances which life affords, and goes off hunting up imaginary ones, like a blame old gormandizing French hog that leaves a full trough to root through the woods for truffles, you still want to be polite; for when you fire a man there's no good reason for doing it with a yell.

Noise isn't authority, and there's no sense in ripping and roaring and cussing around the office when things don't please you. For when a fellow's given to that, his men secretly won't care a cuss whether he's pleased or not. They'll jump when he speaks, because they value their heads, not his good opinion. Indiscriminate blame is as bad as undiscriminating praise—it only makes a man tired.

I learned this, like most of the sense I've got—hard; and it was only a few years ago that I took my last lesson in it. I came down one morning with my breakfast digesting pretty easy, and found the orders fairly heavy and the kicks rather light, so I told the young man who was reading the mail to me, and who, of course, hadn't had anything special to do with the run of orders, to buy himself a suit of clothes and send the bill to the old man.

Well, when the afternoon mail came in, I dipped into that, too, but I'd eaten a pretty tony luncheon, and it got to finding fault with its surroundings, and the letters were as full of kicks as a drove of Missouri mules. So I began taking it out on the fellow who happened to be handiest, the same clerk to whom I had given the suit of clothes in the morning. Of course, he hadn't had anything to do with the run of kicks either, but he never put up a hand to defend himself till I was all through, and then he only asked:

"Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes back?"