After office hours, the number of drinks a fellow takes may make a difference in the result to his employer, but during business hours the effect of one is usually as bad as half a dozen.  A buyer who drinks hates a whisky breath when he hasn’t got one himself, and a fellow who doesn’t drink never bothers to discover whether he’s being talked to by a simple or a compound breath.  He knows that some men who drink are unreliable, and that unreliable men are apt to represent unreliable houses and to sell unreliable goods, and he hasn’t the time or the inclination to stop and find out that this particular salesman has simply had a mild snort as an appetizer and a gentle soother as a digester.  So he doesn’t get an order, and the house gets a black eye.  This is a very, very busy world, and about the only person who is really interested in knowing just how many a fellow has had is his wife, and she won’t always believe him.

Naturally, when you expect so much from your men, they have a right to expect a good deal from you.  If you want them to feel that your interests are theirs, you must let them see that their interests are yours.  There are a lot of fellows in the world who are working just for glory, but they are mostly poets, and you needn’t figure on finding many of them out at the Stock Yards.  Praise goes a long way with a good man, and some employers stop there; but cash goes the whole distance, and if you want to keep your growing men with you, you mustn’t expect them to do all the growing.  Small salaries make slow workers and careless clerks; because it isn’t hard to get an underpaid job.  But a well-paid man sticketh closer than a little brother-in-law-to-be to the fellow who brings the candy.  For this reason, when I close the books at the end of the year, I always give every one, from the errand boys up, a bonus based on the size of his salary and my profits.  There’s no way I’ve ever tried that makes my men take an interest in the size of my profits like giving them a share.  And there’s no advertisement for a house like having its men going around blowing and bragging because they’re working for it.

Again, if you insist that your men shan’t violate the early-closing ordinance, you must observe one yourself.  A man who works only half a day Saturday can usually do a day and half’s work Monday.  I’d rather have my men hump themselves for nine hours than dawdle for ten.

Of course, the world is full of horses who won’t work except with the whip, but that’s no reason for using it on those who will.  When I get a critter that hogs my good oats and then won’t show them in his gait, I get rid of him.  He may be all right for a fellow who’s doing a peddling business, but I need a little more speed and spirit in mine.

A lot of people think that adversity and bad treatment is the test of a man, and it is—­when you want to develop his strength; but prosperity and good treatment is a better one when you want to develop his weakness.  By keeping those who show their appreciation of it and firing those who don’t, you get an office full of crackerjacks.