The Book of Business Etiquette

have almost come to the conclusion that there is no right and wrong. Man, so they have decided, is a frail and tender being completely at the mercy of the traits he has in

all the miles of space that have been devoted to it in the newspapers and magazines have not served to increase it. Most of us never give any one else credit for our achievements and there is no

mall part of the possibilities of the Golden Rule, but at the same time could not get along together in the world without the meagre part of it that we do make use of. The principle is older than the Christian Era, older than the sequoias of California, older than the Pyramids, older than Chinese civilization. It is the most precious abstract truth that man has yet discovered. It contains the germ of all that has been

t is not always easy to do. Half of the people in the United States have very little id

p which caters to a large high-grade clie

know why. If we don't drop everything to attend to them they want to know why. If anything goes wrong they want to know why, but they won't listen to explanations and won't accept them when they do. They simply can't see our side of it.

underestimates the wear and tear and strain of working in an office and getting a living out of it in competition with hundreds of other men. Marie Antoinette had no conception of what it meant when the French people cried for bread. It seemed impossible to her that

nto practice. We happen to know that our neighbors are, like ourselves, astonishing compounds of vice and virtue in whom any number of improvements might be made. It is not necessary to thin

kindness. No man was ever really a gentleman who was not just and kind, and we think it would be almost impossible for one who is, whatever his minor shortcomings may be, not to be a gentleman. Just to his employees (or to his

has as large a part as the man who hires him. Under present conditions one workman out of every eight is injured during the year and the accident i

h to use them. The employer cannot do his share unless the worker does his, and the worker is too quick to take a chance. The apprentice is usually cautious enough, but the old hand grows unwary. Ni

AM

than the combined a

re men than all the

and I have wrecked more homes t

States, alone, over $

he rich and poor alike, the young and old, th

w over every field of labor, from the turning of t

s upon thousands of

st of my work silently. You are w

relen

he streets, in the factory, at the

dation and death, and y

r maim; I give not

ur wors

CAREL

justify building a theatre which cannot stand a snowstorm, a school which cannot give a maximum of safety to the children who are in it, a factory

rear run is so old and so rotten and so rusty that there is constant danger of its breaking down. Three times already there have been serious accidents. The men who are hired to operate the cars rarely stay more than a week or so. Protests have been sent in but nothing has been done. The management knows what the conditions are but they have never stopped to realize the horror of it. It is not that they value a few dollars more than they do human life, but that they simply do not st

s too dim), fresh air (air that is hot and damp or dry and dusty is not fresh), and cleanliness (clean workrooms-and workers-clean drin

ess than a living wage and expect her to live on it. The pitiless publicity which was given the evil of hiring girls at starvation wages some years ago (in particular through the short stories of O. Henry, "the lit

need is brought before them will hire girls at less than any one could exist on in decency. When they meet these same girls in the hall or when they come directly into contact with them in their work they may be polite enough, but their politeness is not worth a t

nd farm and

tar, out

battalion, c

te, sheepf

cry goes

to chea

he men who

they draw

aily appointment with their business at a specified time. It is wise and honorable to keep it. Tardiness is a habit, and, like most others, considerably harder to break than to form, but punctuality also is a habit, not quite so easy to

ed and ear

be healthy, we

ut before the regular time and soldiering on the job fall into the same classification with tardiness. Such practices the employee too often looks upon as a smart way of getting around authority, blithely ignorin

contented workman, and it is the happy workman (just as it is the happy warrior), in spite of all that is said about divine discontent, who counts for most both to himself and to his co

f) as to the person who commits them. Telephones are the cause of a good deal of disturbance during business hours in places where employees spend an appreciable amount of time on personal calls. In some organizations they are prohibited altogether; but in m

have to do, marking time until they can get something better. It is very commendable for a man to be constantly watching out to improve himself, but it

are trusted with the payroll should not divulge figures and employees who are on the payroll should not discuss and compare salaries. Jones cannot understand why Brown gets more than he does when he knows that Brown's work is not so good, Brown cannot see why Smith gets as much as he does when he is out two or three days in the week, and Smit

hy his salary should be increased unless his work deserves it. Paternalism is more unfair than most systems of reward, and the man who comes whimpering with a tale of hard luck is usually (but not always) not worth coddling. Years of experience, even though they stretch out to thre

work with him there may be dissatisfaction, but the chances of it are lessened. A business well knit together is like any other group, an army or a football team, bound into a unit to

more than the pl

p is more t

h a Kiplingesque turn o

the guns o

oney the

close c

s them wi

t the in

army as

verlastin

y bloom

Responsible men should be placed in the contact positions and their responsibility should be respected. Salesmen are warned not to bother with the little fellow but to go straight to the head of a firm. Like most general advice, it is dangerous to put into universal practice. The heads of most firms have men t

ations, like obstacles, are things to be overcome. The "buck," as has been pointed out, always passes down and not up, a fact which makes a detestable practice all the more odious. One of the first laws of knighthood was to defend the weak and

to. The reproof for a fault is a matter between the offender and the "boss." No one else has any concern with it, and there is no reason why the instinct for gossip or the appetite for malicious reports on the part of the other employee

as to show how much they themselves are trusted. Nearly every one who holds a responsible business position receives items of information which are best not repeated, and if common sense does

aracter references, and so on, credit reports, blacklists, and other information of a similar nature. It is compil

nd most of the men who have had experience in hiring and firing say that he will not, but that is his own responsibility. The employer has no right to let him go without letting him know why. And the employee should listen-it may not be his faul

efficiency" (we quote from one manager who is typical of thousands) "begin at the front door. We try to eliminate the unfit there. We do not employ any one who happens to come along. We try by means of an interview and references an

times it is the only experience that will reduce a man's, especially a young man's, idea of his own importance to something like normal proportions, the only one that will clear his mind of

od. Besides, he does not know. All that he can be sure of is that the man was not qualified for the job he was holding. And he should think twice before giving a man a bad name even if he feels certain that he deserves it. At the same time he must pro

tell all of the people you have grudges against how you feel about them, and it is worse than a mere breach of good manners to abuse the house that has asked you to leave. If it has done some one else an injustice, talk about that all y

peaks of his rivals. This has limits, however, and in some instances a mistaken idea of loyalty to one's calling has led to the glossing over of certain evils which could have been cured much earlier if they

y the swindlers who were exploiting fraudulent schemes by means of advertising in magazines and newspapers, but to-day no reputable periodical will accept an advertisement without investigating its source and most of them will back up the guarantee of the advertiser that his goods are what he represents them to be with a guarantee of their

of personal morality. They have learned that business and life are one, that our lives cannot-and this has a number of disadvantages-be separated into compartments like so many tightly corked bottles on a shelf. We have only one vessel and whatever goes into it colors what is already there. And it i

might otherwise sidetrack the principles of integrity holds by them for this reason. "Honesty," declared one of the most insufferable prigs Americ

but they assume that he is honest and trust him until he has proved himself otherwise. The biggest mail order house in America never questions a check. As soon as an order is received they fill it and attend to the check afterward. Their percentage of loss is extraordinarily small. Distrust begets distrust, and t

RT

o