From John Graham, at the Schweitzerk?senhof, Karlsbad, Austria, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago.
Mr. Pierrepont has shown mild symptoms of an attack of society fever, and his father is administering some simple remedies.
No. 16
KARLSBAD, October 6, 189–
Dear Pierrepont: If you happen to run across Doc Titherington you’d better tell him to go into training, because I expect to be strong enough to lick him by the time I get back. Between that ten-day boat which he recommended and these Dutch doctors, I’m almost well and about broke. You don’t really have to take the baths here to get rid of your rheumatism – their bills scare it out of a fellow.
They tell me we had a pretty quiet trip across, and I’m not saying that we didn’t, because for the first three days I was so busy holding myself in my berth that I couldn’t get a chance to look out the port-hole to see for myself. I reckon there isn’t anything alive that can beat me at being seasick, unless it’s a camel, and he’s got three stomachs.
When I did get around I was a good deal of a maverick – for all the old fellows were playing poker in the smoking-room and all the young ones were lallygagging under the boats – until I found that we were carrying a couple of hundred steers between decks. They looked mighty homesick, you bet, and I reckon they sort of sized me up as being a long ways from Chicago, for we cottoned to each other right from the start. Take ’em as they ran, they were a mighty likely bunch of steers, and I got a heap of solid comfort out of them. There must have been good money in them, too, for they reached England in prime condition.
I wish you would tell our people at the Beef House to look into this export cattle business, and have all the facts and figures ready for me when I get back. There seems to be a good margin in it, and with our English house we are fixed up to handle it all right at this end. It makes me mighty sick to think that we’ve been sitting back on our hindlegs and letting the other fellow run away with this trade. We are packers, I know, but that’s no reason why we can’t be shippers, too. I want to milk the critter coming and going, twice a day, and milk her dry. Unless you do the whole thing you can’t do anything in business as it runs to-day. There’s still plenty of room at the top, but there isn’t much anywheres else.
There may be reasons why we haven’t been able to tackle this exporting of live cattle, but you can tell our people there that they have got to be mighty good reasons to wipe out the profit I see in it. Of course, I may have missed them, for I’ve only looked into the business a little by way of recreation, but it won’t do to say that it’s not in our line, because anything which carries a profit on four legs is in our line.
I dwell a little on the matter because, while this special case is out of your department, the general principle is in it. The way to think of a thing in business is to think of it first, and the way to get a share of the trade is to go for all of it. Half the battle’s in being on the hilltop first; and the other half’s in staying there. In speaking of these matters, and in writing you about your new job, I’ve run a little ahead of your present position, because I’m counting on you to catch up with me. But you want to get it clearly in mind that I’m writing to you not as the head of the house, but as the head of the family, and that I don’t propose to mix the two things.
Even as assistant manager of the lard department, you don’t occupy a very important position with us yet. But the great trouble with some fellows is that a little success goes to their heads. Instead of hiding their authority behind their backs and trying to get close to their men, they use it as a club to keep them off. And a boss with a case of big-head will fill an office full of sore heads.
I don’t know anyone who has better opportunities for making himself unpopular than an assistant, for the clerks are apt to cuss him for all the manager’s meanness, and the manager is likely to find fault with him for all the clerks’ cussedness. But if he explains his orders to the clerks he loses his authority, and if he excuses himself to the manager he loses his usefulness. A manager needs an assistant to take trouble from him, not to bring it to him.
The one important thing for you to remember all the time is not to forget. It’s easier for a boss to do a thing himself than to tell someone twice to do it. Petty details take up just as much room in a manager’s head as big ideas; and the more of the first you store for him, the more warehouse room you leave him for the second. When a boss has to spend his days swearing at his assistant and the clerks have to sit up nights hating him, they haven’t much time left to swear by the house. Satisfaction is the oil of the business machine.
Some fellows can only see those above them, and others can only see those under them, but a good man is cross-eyed and can see both ends at once. An assistant who becomes his manager’s right hand is going to find the left hand helping him; and it’s not hard for a clerk to find good points in a boss who finds good ones in him. Pulling from above and boosting from below make climbing easy.
In handling men, your own feelings are the only ones that are of no importance. I don’t mean by this that you want to sacrifice your self-respect, but you must keep in mind that the bigger the position the broader the man must be to fill it. And a diet of courtesy and consideration gives girth to a boss.