It ought not to be difficult for any man or woman to know whether or not he or she is qualified for detail work. The man who enjoys detail and takes pleasure in order, system, accuracy, and exactitude, down to the last dot and hairline, ought to know that he is qualified for detail work and has no business trying to carry on or manage affairs in which there is a considerable element of risk as well as many variables. Strangely enough, however, many of them do not know this, and over and over again we find the detail man wearing himself into nervous prostration in the wrong vocation.
On the other hand, the man who hates routine, grows restive under monotony, is impatient with painstaking accuracy and minute details, ought to know better than to make himself—or to allow himself to be made—responsible for them. And yet, nearly every day someone is coming to us with a complaint about the monotony of his job—how he hates its routine and how often he gets himself into trouble because he neglects or overlooks some little thing.
It ought to be easy enough to tell the difference between these two classes of workers. If you are a brunette, with fairly prominent brows and somewhat sloping forehead, a chin prominent at the lower point and receding upward toward the mouth; if your head is high and square behind; if your fingers are long and square-tipped; if your flesh is elastic or hard in consistency, then you can trust yourself to take responsibility for things in which seeming trifles may be of the highest importance. If, on the other hand, you are blonde or red-haired; if your head is round and dome-shaped just above the temples and round behind; if your nose is prominent and your chin narrow and receding at the lower point; if your flesh is elastic, with a tendency toward softness; if your fingers are short and either square or tapering, then you had better prepare yourself for some vocation where you can deal with large affairs, where you can plan and organize and direct, and let other people work out the details.
COURAGE AND RECKLESSNESS
The story is told of two soldiers going into battle. Both pushed forward swiftly and eagerly. They were rapidly nearing the danger zone. Already men were falling around them. As they went on, one suddenly looked at the other. "Why," he cried, "your face is white, your eyes are glazed, your limbs are trembling. I believe you are afraid!"
"Great God, man! of course I am afraid," replied the other. "And if you were one-half as afraid as I am, you would turn and run."
Here we have the discrimination between real courage and mere foolhardiness or recklessness. There are some vocations which require courage. There are others which require an element of recklessness. It requires courage to drive the locomotive of a railroad train at a speed of eighty miles an hour, but it also requires caution, prudence, watchfulness, and even apprehension.
In a western factory men were wanted for an important job, one in which a moment's carelessness in the handling of levers might cost a dozen fellow workmen their lives. "Find me," said the superintendent, "the most careful men you can get. I do not want anyone dumping damage suits on the company." The employment department found the very careful men, but none of them were satisfactory; they were all so careful that they made no speed, and soon had to be relieved for this reason, and because the constant nervous strain was too much for them. Here was a kind of work requiring a certain cool, calm, deliberate recklessness. Men were found with steady nerves, keen eyesight, quick reaction time, and smooth co-ordination of muscular action, together with a moderate degree of cautiousness. These men liked the work for the very tingle of the danger in it. They swung their ponderous machines to their tasks with a sureness of touch and a swiftness of operation which not only delighted the superintendent, but inspired confidence in their fellow workers.
INDICATIONS OF COURAGE AND CAUTION
If you are brunette, with small, sway-back or snub nose, narrow, rounded chin, and a tendency to disturbances of the circulation; if your head is narrow at the sides and high and square behind, look for a vocation where caution is a prime requisite, but do not get yourself into situations where you will have to fight or where there is so much risk that your natural apprehensiveness will cause you to worry and lie awake nights.