Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social LifeBlackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Science
Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social Life
Blackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Characters and characteristics; Success
But there were other losses. Robinson's absence disorganized the shop
routine. There were delays, conflicts, piano parts piled up in one end of
the room while other departments clamored for finished frames at the other
end of the room. Then, at least one-half a day of Joe Lathrop's valuable
time went to waste while he was out trying to find some one to fill
Robinson's place. His first attempt was made at the gate of the factory,
where the sea of the unemployed threw up its flotsam and jetsam. But
finishing piano frames is rather a fine job and none of the willing and
eager applicants there could fill the bill. Joe then made the round of two
or three employment agencies who had helped him out in previous similar
emergencies. This time, however, they seemed to be without resource, so
far as he was concerned. Being in considerable perspiration and
desperation by this time, he was probably gladder than he ought to have
been to receive a summons to appear at the court of Terrence Mulvaney.
Terrence, who sat in judgment in the back room of his own beverage
emporium, the place where Lathrop secured his "li'l' drinks," had heard,
in the usual wireless way, that there was a finisher needed at the big
factory Lathrop still owed Terrence for a good many of his "li'l' drinks."
Furthermore, Terrence, by virtue of some mysterious underground
connection, pulled mysterious wires, so that an invitation from him was a
command. For these reasons, also, Joe Lathrop found it discreet in his own
eyes to engage on the spot Tim Murphy, a very dear friend of Mulvaney
and, according to Mulvaney's own impartial testimony, a very worthy and
deserving man.
BREAKING IN AN INCOMPETENT
Valuable hours and moments of the company's time were consumed in
initiating Tim Murphy into the employ of the company. There were certain
necessary processes in the paymaster's department, the accounting
department, the liability department, the tool room, and the medical
department.
Now, while Murphy had had some experience in finishing piano frames, he
was utterly unfamiliar with the make of piano produced in this factory.
Likewise, he was ignorant of the customs, rules, and individual methods
which obtained in the factory. This meant that his employers paid him good
wages for five or six weeks while he was finding his way around. It was
good money spent without adequate return in the way of service. In fact,
during these weeks, the company would probably have been better off
without Tim Murphy than with him, for he spoiled a good deal of his work,
took up a great deal of his foreman's time which ought to have been
applied in other directions, broke and ruined a number of valuable tools
and otherwise manifested those symptoms which so often mark the entrance
into an organization of a man propelled by pull rather than push.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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