1883 



GLEAl^INGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



705 



EVERY MAN TO HIS TRADE. 



ALSO 80MK SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO MAKING 

 OURSELVES USEFUL. 



f|HIS is an old saying, and one we are 

 mostly familiar with, I presume, but I 

 ' do not know that a great many of you 

 are familiar with the great truth that lies in 

 this. 1 suppose, of course, you know that, 

 if you should take your horses to the shoe- 

 maker to have their shoes set, it would take 

 the shoemaker a gieat while longer than it 

 would the blacksmith, and there is very lit- 

 tle likelihood of his having it right when 

 it was done. Well, in our business we 

 every day realize the importance of "• every 

 man to his trade." Sometimes our friend 

 Samuel, who does all the digging all about 

 the premises, happens to be away, and some 

 one else is called upon to do the same dig- 

 ging. 2^ow, almost anybody can dig, after 

 a fashion ; but there is not one in the whole 

 hundred of our employes who can do dig- 

 ging any thing like as well, or as profitably 

 to myself, as Samuel can. And so it is with 

 other things. If you wanted some Simplici- 

 ty hives put up in ten-oate packages, it 

 would take a green hand nearly half a day 

 to put up one; and he would be hardly like- 

 ly to get it right, even then. But if he kept 

 right on, in the afternoon of the same day 

 he might put up two or three such packages, 

 and do it tolerably easy besides. Now, if 

 you should keep him at it week after week, 

 he would soon put them up as fast as he 

 could handle his pieces and his tools, and 

 not make a mistake either. 



In the business of shipping off goods, the 

 reason why we have so much trouble is be- 

 cause a packer has to be constantly chaug- 

 ing around from one thing to another; 

 whereas if we could keep him right along on 

 one thing it would be a great saving to my- 

 self and all concerned. One more item: If 

 we kept one man packing hives, and we got 

 over a thousand ahead, so that no more 

 were wanted for months, when the time 

 came around to have more hives packed, it 

 would be better for us to pay this man two 

 or three dollars a day, if he could be had, 

 than to take a green hand at one dollar per 

 day. The same idea applies to more com- 

 mon things ; for suppose I want some sew- 

 ing-machine oil put into bottles, and ask the 

 girls, " Which one of you has ever put oil into 

 bottlesV" One of the younger ones will say, 

 perhaps, " Why, Mp. Root, 1 have never done 

 it, but 1 am sure I can put oil in a bottle, and 

 cork it up." 



Do you think she can, my friends? I will 

 tell you about how it will turn out, and I 

 presume if I were to set any one of you at 

 it who had never done such a thing, you 

 would get oil all over your clothes and the 

 furniture, and take so much time at it that 

 we should lose money in trying to sell the 

 oil at five cents a bottle. It is true, there 

 are people who have got so much judgment 

 and good sound common sense that they 

 will take a new job and do it pretty well the 

 first time ; but such people are very scarce. 

 When you find them, you can be pretty sure 

 that they will ultimately become foremen 

 of factories or other large places of business. 



There is constantly a great demand for 

 handy people; in fact, the world is clamor- 

 ing for them. We want handy people; oh 

 how sadly we need them ! — children who 

 will not break, spill, destroy, and ruin so 

 much of the work you give them to do that 

 it is cheaper to do it yourself, even though 

 your time may be very valuable. Well, now 

 about the oil: 



Perhaps Mary says she put up the oil last 

 fall. ■■' Well, then," Mary, you take this cau 

 of oil, and these bottles, and do it as nicely 

 as you did before." Suppose, as soon as I 

 have left the room somebody else wants 

 Mary, and she turns the job over to some 

 one who volunteers, with all the best inten- 

 tion in the world. What do you suppose 

 will happen? I will tell you. The oil not 

 only gets spilhd, and the bottles greased, 

 but she uses the wrong implements, making 

 the task so slow that it will take a whole day 

 to put up a gross. Then after it is done, 

 some of the corks will be fitted so loosely 

 that they will come out, and the oil run all 

 over somebody's box of Christmas goods. 

 Other corks, perhaps, will slip down into the 

 bottle all over, and then a good deal of 

 the time will be spent in trying to fish the 

 cork out of the bottle, when the whole thing 

 is worth less than five cents. 



You ma^ say, that inethcient hands should 

 not be set at such work. I agree with you ; 

 but here are hundreds who are teasing for 

 work, some of them saying, " Please, Mr. 

 Root, give me something to work at." Now, 

 I know what a task it will be to teach all 

 these young people to be handy, but they do 

 not, nor can they comprehend why I should 

 pay some, no older than they are, a dollar 

 ai)d a half a day, while I offer them only 75 

 cents. It is simply because they do not 

 know how to do things, and have not yet 

 learned what is safe for them to undertake 

 to do. 



Another point comes in here: We have 

 hands all over the establishment who are do- 

 ing rapidly and well the work they are ac- 

 customed to do. A hand crates a package 

 of ten hives in perhaps fifteen or twenty 

 minutes, so that it does not cost over five 

 cents at the outside for his work on it. 

 Now, instead of wanting ten hives, some in- 

 dividual decides that he must have just ex- 

 actly seven hives, or twelve, and insists on 

 having them put up just that way. Very 

 well ; as we do not want to seem to be diso- 

 bliging, we agree to do it for him. But, 

 seven hives may cost us nearly as much as a 

 package of ten, before we get through with 

 it. And this is because he was unwilling to 

 take regular goods in regular-sized packages. 

 Another friend wants hives made just one 

 inch longer than our regular ones; and if 

 we tell him we shall have to charge him 

 double price for adding the single inch, he 

 gets offended because we do not want to 

 take the trouble to be accommodating and 

 obliging, as it seems to him. My friend, 

 have you accustomed yourself to being a 

 handy man or w^omanV If you have not, 

 just set about it this day, and it will not on- 

 ly put money in your pocket, but it will ena- 

 ble you to ease the trials of life more than 

 you can tell. 



