“Accepted by the fiction editors. You'd be set down in one corner of one room, and learn six motions of your hands, and do them say eight hundred times a day for three months. You would learn that it is very fatiguing.”
“I thought I might learn something about the people I was working with.”
“You'd learn that nine out of ten of them don't know anything but their six motions, and don't care about those. You'd learn that they are making a lot of money, and don't know what to do with it except to buy fancy shirts and socks and a second-hand car. You can learn all that by going down on Center Street any evening.”
This was discouraging. “I didn't like to suggest going into the office, Robbie, because I don't know anything, and I saw that everybody was so busy.”
“Both those things are true. But, first, tell me what's in your mind. Do you want to become a Budd executive, and live out by the country club? Or would you rather learn my business in Europe? In other words, do you want to make munitions or sell them?”
“I thought I ought to know both jobs, Robbie.”
“You have to know something about both if you're going to know either; but they are highly specialized, and you have to concentrate. It's like choosing your major and minor subjects when you go to college.”
“Well, you're asking if I want to be with you, or with Uncle Lawford. You know what I'll say to that.”
“Then why not start in my office, and see everything in the plant from there, as I do?”
“Can you make sure I won't get in the way?”