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Chapter XLII: The Salary You Do Not Find In Your Pay Envelope · Pushing to the Front

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Chapter forty two of Pushing to the Front by Horizon Sweat Marden. This LibriVox
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recording is in the public domain, Chapter forty two. The salary you do
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not find in your pay envelope. The quality which ye put into your work
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will determine the quality of your life. The habit of insisting upon the best
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of which you are capable of, always demanding of yourself the highest, never
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excepting the lowest or second best, no matter how small your remuneration, will
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make all the difference to you between failure and success. If the laborer gets
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no more than the wages his employer offers him, he is chee. He
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cheats himself. A boy or a man who works simply for his salary and
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is actuated by no higher motive is dishonest, And the one whom he most
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defrauds is himself. He's cheating himself in the quality of his daily work,
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of that which all the after years tries he may can never give him back.
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If I were allowed but one utterance on this subject, so vital to
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every young man starting on the journey of life, I would say, don't
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think too much of the amount of salary your employer gives you at the start,
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think rather of the possible salary you can give yourself, in increasing your
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skill, in expanding your experience, in enlarging and ennobling yourself. A man's
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or a boy's work is material with which to build character and manhood. It
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is life's school for practical training of the faculties, stretching the mind, and
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strengthening and developing the intellect, not a mere meal for grinding out a salary
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of dollars and cents. Bismarck was said to have really founded the German Empire
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when working for a small salary as secretary to the German legation in Russia.
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For in that position he absorbed the secrets of strategy and diplomacy which later we
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used so effectively for his country. He worked so assiduously, so efficiently,
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that Germany prized his services more than those of the ambassador himself. If Bismarck
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had earned only his salary, he might have remained a perpetual clerk, and
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Germany a tangle of petty states. I have never known an employee to rise
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rapidly, or even to get beyond mediocrity, whose pay envelope was his goal,
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who could not see infinitely more in his work than what he found in
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the envelope on Saturday night. That is necessity, But the larger part of
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the real pay of a real man's work is outside of the pay envelope.
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One part of this outside salary is the opportunity of the employee to absorb the
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secrets of his employer's success and to learn from his mistakes while he is being
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paid for learning his trade or profession. The other part, and the best
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of all, is the opportunity for growth, for development, for mental expansion,
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the opportunity to become a larger, broader, more efficient man. The
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opportunity for growth in a disciplinary institution where the practical faculties the executive faculties are
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brought into systematic, vigorous exercise at a definite time and for a definite number
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of hours, is an advantage beyond computation. There is no estimating the value
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of such training. It is the opportunity, my employee friend, that will
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help you to make a large man of yourself, which perhaps you could not
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possibly do without being employed in some kind of an institution which has the motive,
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the machinery, the patronage to give you the disciplining and training you need
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to bring out your strongest qualities, and instead of paying for the opportunity of
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unfolding developing from a green, ignorant boy into a strong, level headed,
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efficient man, you are paid. The youth who is always haggling over the
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question of how many dollars and cents he will sell his services for little realizes
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how he's cheating himself by not looking at the largest salary he can pay himself
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in increasing his skill, in expanding his experience, and in making himself a
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better, stronger, more useful man. The few dollars he finds in his
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pay envelope are to this larger salary, as the chips which fly from the
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sculptor's chisel are to the angel which he is trying to call out of the
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marble. You can draw from the faithfulness of your work, from the grand
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spirit which you bring to it, the high purpose which emanates from you in
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its performance. A recompare so munificent that what your employer pays you will seem
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insignificant. Beside it. He pays you in dollars, you pay yourself in
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valuable experience, in fine training and increased efficiency, in splendid discipline, in
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self expression, in character building. Then too, the ideal employer gives those
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who work for him a great deal that is not found in the pay envelope.
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He gives them encouragement, sympathy. He inspires them with the possibility of
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doing something higher, better. How small and narrow and really blind to his
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own interests, must be the youth who can weigh a question of salary against
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all those privileges he receives in exchange for the meager services he's able to render
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his employer. Do not fear that your employer will not recognize your merit and
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advance you as rapidly as you deserve. If he is looking for efficient employees,
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and what employer is not, it will be to his own interest to
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do so, just as soon as it is profitable. W. Burke Cochrane
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himself a remarkable example of success, says, the man who brings to his
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occupation a loyal desire to do his best is certain to succeed. By doing
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the thing at hand surpassingly well, he shows that it would be profitable to
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employ him in some higher form of occupation, And when there is profit in
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his promotion, he is pretty sure to secure it. Do you think that
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kings of business like Andrew Carnegie, John won a Maker, Robert c Ogden,
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and other lesser powers in the commercial world would have attained their present commanding
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success had they hesitated and haggled about a dollar or two of salary when they
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began their life work. If they had, they would now probably be working
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on comparatively small salaries for other people. It was not salary but opportunity that
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each wanted a chance to show what was in him, to absorb the secrets
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of the business. They were satisfied with a dollar or two apiece a week,
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hardly enough to live on while they were learning the lessons that made them
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what they are to day. No, the boys who rise in the world
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are not those who at the start split hairs about salaries. Often we see
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bright boys who have worked, perhaps for years, on small salaries, suddenly
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jumping, as if by magic, into high and responsible positions. Why simply
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because while their employers were paying them but a few dollars a week, they
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were paying themselves vastly more in the fine quality of their work, in the
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enthusiasm, determination, and high purpose they brought to their tasks, and an
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increased insight into business methods. Colonel Robert C. Clowry, president of the
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Western Union Telegraph Company, worked without pay as a messenger boy for months for
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experience, which he regarded as worth infinitely more than salary. And scores of
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our most successful men have cheerfully done the same thing. A millionaire merchant of
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New York told me the story of his rise. I walked from my home
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in New England to New York, he said, where I secured a place
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to sweep out a store for three dollars and a half a week. At
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the end of a year, I accepted an offer from the firm to remain
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for five years at a salary of seven dollars and a half a week.
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Long before this time had expired, however, I had a proposition from another
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large concern in New York to act as its foreign representative at a salary of
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three thousand dollars a year. I told the manager that I was then under
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contract, but that when my time should be completed, I should be glad
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to talk with him in regard to his proposition. When his contract was nearly
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up, he was called into the office of the head of the house and
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a new contract with him for a term of years at three thousand dollars a
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year was proposed. The young man told his employers that the manager of another
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house had offered him that amount a year or more before, but that he
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did not accept it because he wouldn't break his contract. They told him they
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would think the matter over and see what they could do for him. Incredible
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as it may seem, they notified him a little later that they were prepared
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to enter into a ten year contract with him at ten thousand dollars a year,
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and the contract was closed. He told me that he and his wife
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lived on eight dollars a week in New York during a large part of this
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time, and that by saving and investments they laid up one hundred seventeen thousand
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dollars. At the end of his contract, he was taken into the firm
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as a partner and came a millionaire. Suppose that this boy had listened to
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his associates, who probably said to him many times, what a fool you
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are, George, to work here over time, to do the things which
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others neglect. Why should you stay here unites and help pack goods and all
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that sort of thing when it is not expected of you would he then have
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risen above them, leaving them in the ranks of perpetual employees. No,
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but the boy who walked one hundred miles to New York to get a job,
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saw in every opportunity a great occasion, for he could not tell when
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fate might be taking his measure for a larger place. The very first time
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he swept out the store, he felt within himself the ability to become a
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great merchant, and he determined that he would be. He felt that the
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opportunity was the salary, the chance actually to do with his own hands,
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the thing which he wanted to learn, to see the way in which princely
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merchants do business, to watch their methods, to absorb their processes, to
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make their secrets his own. This was his salary, compared with which the
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three dollars and fifty cents looked contemptible. He put himself into training, always
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looking out for the main chance. He never allowed anything of importance to escape
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his attention. When he was not working, he was watching others, studying
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methods, and asking questions of everybody he came in contact with in the store.
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So eager was he to learn how everything was done. He told me
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that he did not go out of New York City for twelve years, that
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he preferred to study the store and to absorb every bit of knowledge that he
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could, for he was bound some day to be a partner or to have
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a store of his own. It is not difficult to see a proprietor in
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the boy who sweeps the store or waits on customers. If the qualities that
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make a proprietor are in him, by watching him work for a single day,
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you can tell by the spirit which he brings to his task whether there
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is in him the capacity for growth, expansion, enlargement, an ambition to
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rise to be somebody, or an inclination to shirk to do as little as
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possible for the largest amount of salary. When you get a job, just
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think of yourself as actually starting out in business for yourself, as really working
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for yourself. Get as much salary as you can, but remember that that
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is a very small part of the consideration. You have actually gotten an opportunity
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to get right into the very heart of the great activities of a large concern,
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to get close to men who do things, an opportunity to absorb knowledge
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and valuable secrets. On every hand an opportunity to drink in through your eyes
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and your ears knowledge wherever you go in the establishment, knowledge that will be
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invaluable to you in the future. Every hint and every suggestion which you can
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pick up, every bit of knowledge you can absorb, you should regard as
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a part of your future capital, which will be worth more than money capital.
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When you start out for yourself. Just make up your mind that you
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are going to be a sponge in that institution and absorb every particle of information
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and knowledge possible. Resolve that you will call upon all of your resourcefulness,
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your inventiveness, your ingenuity to devise new and better ways of doing things that
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you will be progressive up to date. Then you will enter into your work
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with a spirit of enthusiasm and a zest which knows no bounds, and you
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will be surprised to see how quickly you will attract the attention of those above
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you. This striving for excellence will make you grow, It will call out
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your resources, call out the best thing in you. A constant stretching of
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the mind over problems which interest you, which are to mean everything to you
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in the future, will help you expand to a broader larger, more effective
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man. If you work with this spirit, you will form a like habit
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of accuracy, of close observation, a habit of reading human nature, habit
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of adjusting means to ends, a habit of thoroughness of system, a habit
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of putting your best into everything you do, which means the ultimate attainment of
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your maximum efficiency. In other words, if you give your best to your
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employer, the best possible comes back to you in skill training, shrewdness,
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acumen, and power. Your employer may pinch you on salary, but he
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cannot close your eyes and ears. He cannot shut off your perceptive faculties,
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cannot keep you from absorbing the secrets of his business, which may have been
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purchased by him at an enormous cost of toil and sacrifice, and even of
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several failures. On the other hand, it is impossible for you to rob
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your employer by clipping your hours, shirking your work by carelessness or indifference,
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without robbing yourself of infinitely more of capital, which is worth vastly more than
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money. Capital the chance to make a man of yourself, the chance to
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have a clean record behind you instead of a smirched one. If you think
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you are being kept back if you are working for too small a salary,
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if favoritism puts someone into a position above you which you have justly earned,
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never mind. No one can rob you of your greatest rule bard the skill,
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the efficiency, the power you have gained the consciousness of doing your level
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best, of giving the best thing in you to your employer, all of
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which advantages you will carry with you to your next position, whatever it may
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be. Don't say to yourself, I am not paid for doing this extra
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work. I do not get enough salary anyway, and it is perfectly right
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for me to shirk when my employer is not in sight, or to clip
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my hours when I can. For this means a loss of self respect.
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You will never again have the same confidence in your ability to succeed. You
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will always be conscious that you have done a little mean thing, and no
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amount of juggling with yourself can induce that inward monitor, which says right to
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the well done thing and wrong to the botched work, to alter its a
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verdict in your favor. There is something within you that you cannot bribe,
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a divine sense of justice and right that cannot be blindfolded. Nothing will ever
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compensate you for the loss of faith in yourself. You may still succeed when
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others have lost confidence in you, but never when you have lost confidence in
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yourself. If you do not respect yourself, if you do not believe in
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yourself, your career is ut an end so far as its upward tendency is
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concerned. Then again, an employer's reputation is his capital. In the absence
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of money capital, his reputation means everything. It not only follows him around
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from one employer to another, but it also follows him when he goes into
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business for himself in his old ways, either helping or hindering him according to
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its nature. Contrast the condition of a young man starting out for himself who
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has called upon his position as a sacred trust, a great opportunity, backed
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buttressed and supported by a splendid past, an untarnished reputation, a reputation for
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being a dead in earnest, hard worker, square, loyal and true to
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his employer's interests, with that of another young man of equal ability starting out
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for himself, who has done just as little work for his salary as possible,
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and who has gone on the principle that the more he could get out
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of an employer, the more salary he could get with less effort. The
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shrewder, smarter man he was. The very reputation of the first young man
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is splendid. Credit. He is backed up by the good opinion of everybody
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that knows him. People are afraid of the other. They cannot trust him.
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He beats his employer, why should not he beat others? Everybody knows
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that he has not been honest at heart with his employer, not loyal or
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true. He must work all the harder to overcome the handicap of a bad
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reputation, a smirched record. In other words, he is starting out in
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life with a heavy handicap, which, if it does not drag him down
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to failure, will make his burden infinitely greater, and success, even a
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purely commercial success, so much the harder to attain. There is nothing like
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a good, solid, substantial reputation, a clean record, an untarnished past.
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It sticks to us through life and is always helping us. We find
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it waiting at the bank when we try to borrow money, or at the
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jobbers when we ask for credit. It is always backing us up and helping
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us in all sorts of ways. Young men are sometimes surprised at their rapid
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advancement. They cannot understand it because they do not realize the tremendous power of
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a clean name, of a good reputation which is backing them. I know
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a young man who came to New York, got a position in a publishing
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house at fifteen dollars a week, and worked five years before he received thirty
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five dollars a week. The other employees and his friends called him a fool
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for staying at the office after hours and taking work home nights and holidays for
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such a small salary, but he told them that the opportunity was what he
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was after, not the salary. His work attracted the attention of a publisher
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who offered him sixty dollars a week and very soon advanced him to seventy five.
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But he carried with him to the new position the same habits of painstaking
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hard work, never thinking of the salary, but regarding the opportunity as everything.
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Employers sometimes think that they get no credit for trying to do more than
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they are paid for. But here is an instance of young men who attracted
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the attention of others even outside out of the firm he worked for, just
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because he was trying to earn a great deal more than he was paid for
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doing. The result was that in less than two years from the time he
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was receiving sixty dollars a week, he went to a third large publishing house
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at ten thousand dollars a year, and also with an interest in the business.
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The salary is of very little importance to you in comparison with the reputation
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for integrity and efficiency you have left behind you, and the experience you have
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gained while earning the salary. These are the great things. In olden times,
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boys had to give years of their time in order to learn a trade,
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and often would pay their employer for the opportunity. English boys used to
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think it was a great opportunity to be able to get into a good concern
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with a chance to work without salary for years in order to learn their business
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or trade. Now the boy is paid for learning his trade. Many employees
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may not think it is so very bad to clip their hours, to jerk
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at every opportunity, to sneak away and hide during business hours, to loiter
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when out on business for their employer to go to their work in the morning,
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all used up from dissipation. But often when they try to get another
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place, their reputation has gone before them and they are not wanted. Others
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excuse themselves with poor work on the ground that their employer does not appreciate their
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services and is mean to them. A youth might just as well excuse himself
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for his boorish manners and ungentlemanly conduct on the ground that other people who are
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mean and ungentlemanly to him. My young friends, you have nothing to do
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with your employer's character or his method of doing things. You may not be
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able to make him do what is right, but you can do right yourself.
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You may not be able to make him a gentleman, but you can
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be one yourself. And you cannot afford to ruin yourself in your whole future
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just because your employer is not what he ought to be, No matter how
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mean and stingy he may be. Your opportunity for the time is with him,
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and it rests with you, whether you will use it or abuse it,
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whether you will make of it a stepping stone or a stumbling block.
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The fact is that your present position, your way of doing your work,
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is the key that will unlock the door above you. Slighted work, botched
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work will never make a key to unlock the door anything but failure and disgrace.
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There is nothing else so valuable to you as an opportunity to build a
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name for yourself. Your reputation is the foundation for your future success. And
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if you slip rotten hours and slighted, botched work into the foundation, your
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superstructure will topple. The foundation must be clean, solid and firm. The
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quality which you put into your work will determine the quality of your life.
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The habit of insisting upon the best of which you are capable of, always
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demanding of yourself the highest, never accepting the lowest or second best, no
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matter how small your remuneration, will make all the difference to you between mediocrity
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or failure and success. If you bring to your work the spirit of an
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artist instead of an artisan, a burning zeal, an absorbing enthusiasm, these
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will take the drudgery out of it and make it a delight. Take no
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chances of marring your reputation by the picquiyune and unworthy endeavor to get square,
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whether stingy or mean employer, Never mind what kind of a man he is.
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Resolve that you will approach your task in the spirit of a master,
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that whether he is a man of high ideals or not, you will be
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one. Remember that you are a sculptor, and that every act is a
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chisel blow upon life's marble block. You cannot afford to strike false blows which
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may mar the angel that sleeps in the stone. Whether it is beautiful or
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hideous, divine or brutal, the image you evolve from the block must stand
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as an expression of yourself, of your ideals. Those who do not care
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how they do their work, if they can only get through with it and
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get their salary for it, pay very dearly for their trifling. They cut
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very sorry figures in life. Regard your work as a great life school for
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the broadening, deepening, rounding into symmetry, harmony, beauty of your God
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given faculties, which are uncut diamonds sacredly entrusted to you for the polishing and
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bringing out of their hidden wealth and beauty. Look upon it as a man
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builder, a character builder, and not as a mere living ghetto. Regard
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the living, getting money making part of your career as a mere incidental as
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compared with the man making part of it. The smallest people in the world
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are those who work for salary alone. The little money you get in your
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pay envelope is a pretty small, a low motive for which to work.
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It may be necessary to secure your bread and butter. But you have something
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infinitely higher to satisfy than that. That is your sense of the right,
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the demand in you to do your level best, to be a man,
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to do the square thing, the fair thing. These should speak so loud
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in you that the mere bread and butter question would be insignificant in comparison.
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Many are employees just because they do not get quite as much salary as they
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think they should, deliberately throw away all of the other larger, grander remuneration
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possible for them outside of their pay envelope for the sake of getting square with
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their employer. They deliberately adopt as shirking do as little as possible policy,
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and instead of getting this larger, more important salary which they can pay themselves,
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they prefer the consequent arrested development and become small, narrow, inefficient,
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rutty men and women with nothing larger or magnanimous, nothing broad, noble,
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progressive in their nature. Their leadership faculties, their initiative, their planning ability,
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their ingenuity and resourcefulness, inventiveness, and all the qualities which make the
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leader the large, full complete man remain undeveloped while trying to get square with
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their employer. By giving him pinched service. They blight their own growth,
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strangle their own prospects, and go through life halfmen instead of full men,
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small narrow, weak men instead of the strong, grand, complete men they
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might be. I have known employees actually to work harder in scheming, shirking,
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trying to keep from working hard in the performance of their duties, than
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they would have worked if they had tried to do their best and had given
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the largest, the most liberal service possible to their employers. The hardest work
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in the world is that which is grudgingly done. Start out with a tacit
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understanding with yourself that you will be a man, that you will express in
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your work the highest thing in you, the best thing in you. You
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cannot afford to debase or demoralize yourself by bringing out your mean side, the
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lowest and most despicable thing in you. Never mind whether your employer appreciates the
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high quality of your work or not, or thinks more of you for your
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conscientiousness. You will certainly think more of yourself after getting the approval of that
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still small voice within you, which says, write to the noble act.
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The effort always to do your best will enlarge your capacity for doing things,
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and will encourage you to push ahead toward larger triumphs. Everywhere we see people
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who are haunted by the ghosts of half finished jobs, the dishonest work done
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away back in their youth. These covered up defects are always coming back to
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humiliate them later, to trip them up, and to bar their progress.
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The great failure army is full of people who have tried to get square with
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their employers for the small salary and lack of appreciation. No one can respect
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himself or have that sublime faith in himself which makes for high achievement while he
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puts half hearted, mean service into his work. The man who has not
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learned to fling his whole souls into his task, who has not learned the
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secret of taking the drudgery out of his work by putting the best of himself
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into it, has not learned the first principles of success or happiness. Let
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other people do the poor jobs, the botched work, if they will keep
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your standard up. It is a lofty ideal that redeems the life from the
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curse of commonness and imparts a touch of nobility to the personality. No matter
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how small your salary or how unappreciative your employer, Bring the entire man to
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your task. Be all there, fling your life into it with all the
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energy and enthusiasm you can muster. Poor work injures your employer a little,
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but it may ruin you. Be proud of your work, and go to
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it every morning, superbly equipped. Go to it in the spirit of a
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master of a conqueror. Determine to do your level best, and never to
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demoralize yourself by doing your second best. Conduct yourself in such a way that
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you can always look yourself in the face without wincing. Then you will have
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a courage born of conviction of personal nobility and integrity, which have never been
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tarnished. What your employer thinks of you, what the world thinks of you,
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is not half as important as what you think of yourself. Others are
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with you comparatively little through life. You have to live with yourself day and
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night, through your whole existence. And you cannot afford to tie that divine
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thing in you to a scoundrel end of Chapter forty two. The salary you
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do not find in your pay envelope Recording by Luke Sartour, Brisbane, Queensland,