And the office Manager’s a crab; and the credit man hard-boiled;—well now, what do you think of that! Of course, the Office Manager should be a mind-reader and overlook it when you send in claims without the proper information, or reports only half-filled out, but somehow or other he isn’t—no, he’s just human like all the rest of us—has a lot to do and the company don’t pay him for “guessing” at things you do.
The credit man is another good friend and a salesman’s safety valve. Both of ’em are the easiest men in the world to get popular with, but you have to do your share and come clean. Sloppy reports and incorrect information may be the easiest way out for the moment, but they never fool these “watch dogs of the exchequer,” and after all, if it were not for them, your pay check wouldn’t come out so regularly.
Now you’re wrong again, when you think the plant superintendent doesn’t appreciate your problems. He gives them really more thought than you do, for you have only one house to work with, while he has to try to answer the demands of six hundred salesmen.
Now, Old Top, I expect you think I have stepped on you pretty hard in this letter, but I haven’t intended to. If you weren’t my own boy, I imagine I’d expect less of you, but it’s pretty hard for the old man, knowing that a great big red-headed human dynamo, with hair on his upper lip, would bear even the earmarks of a whiner, not to appeal to your better judgment by making fun of the petty trials that every red-blooded salesman has gone through and graduated from, just like you got over the nursing bottle, measles and mumps.
But, anyway—read this letter twice, then remember, I’m laying a little bet on you and am anxious to get your next letter.
Your loving,
“DAD.”
The Boy Thinks the House Should Accept Cancellations
Dear Hal: