"You know, Jackdaw," said Roger (when I was at school the boys all called me Jackdaw; one reason I suppose was that I was so dark and my first name was Dawson), "it is some months since the New England Hardware people hired me and sent me to Hartford as assistant in their store there. After I had been with them for a month, they shifted me to their Providence store for a month as assistant manager. From there I was sent out as traveling inspector, and spent two months in visiting each of the stores and spending a day or two at each one. Then I was called to New York—as you know, they have their head office there—and was coached in methods of handling the records which they required store managers to send in to the office.
"Not only did they tell me what records had to be made out, and how they had to be made out, but they showed me what happened to them when they reached the New York office, and also explained very clearly the need for all those records.
"I learned more about business, Jackdaw, in those six months than I ever knew before. They didn't just tell me what to do, but they told me why it had to be done. Every question that I asked them about running a store they answered for me. No trouble seemed too great for them to take, if it was going to help me to understand how they did business. I thought they were telling me altogether too much; they were telling the secrets of the conduct of the business; but Mr. Marcosson (he's a weird combination—a Scotchman with a sense of humor)—Mr. Marcosson is the general sales manager—he said that I couldn't be any use to them, unless I knew all about the business; what the goods would cost me in the store, how much profit I ought to make, how much turn-over I ought to get, and Oh! it would take me a month to tell you all the facts they gave me.
"One thing has stuck out clearly in my mind from this training, and that is, that I can do my work for them much better than would have been possible if I had been working under an ordinary store proprietor. I know why things should be done. There's real horse sense at the back of every move they take. They don't guess at things. They find out. If you were to ask me what accounts for the big success of chain-store organizations I should say that it is that the chain-store organization knows what it is doing, while the ordinary retailer guesses at what he is doing. For instance, they are looking for towns for two men who are going through the same training that I went through—"
"Do you mean to tell me, Roger," I broke in, "that they spent six months' time in training you, when you might leave them at any minute?"
"H'm, h'm," said Roger, "that's a fact. Marcosson said that, as soon as any one could do better for me than they could, they expected me to leave. And it is a fact that, out of all the managers they have had, only three of them have left. Of course, it's a fairly young organization—been in existence only about five or six years; but the employees are treated so well that they rarely want to leave.
"You know I get an interest in the profits the store makes—"
And that reminded me, I hadn't yet worked out that profit-sharing plan for my people! It had been no easy job.
"Another thing," continued Roger, "Marcosson said that impressed me very much. 'We are going to give you a share in the profits, Mr. Burns,' he said, 'because we believe it is due you.' You know, Jackdaw, Marcosson is the kind of man you can speak right out to—not the kind of man you get scared of at all; so I said to him: 'I've heard many people say that profit-sharing isn't a success.' 'So far as we are concerned, it is,' he said. 'Most retailers who go into profit-sharing plans go into them with but a very slight study of the problem. They don't think the thing through to a logical conclusion, and they put into operation some half-baked plan which, of course, does not work out right, and then, instead of blaming the plan they damn the policy as a whole! Profit-sharing is necessary in modern retail business; but its operation must be planned in a common-sense way to be successful. One might just as well complain of the principles of arithmetic because one cannot do a sum correctly!'
"But let me get back to my story of how we came here," said Roger, lighting a fresh cigar. . . .