- Published on
Dean’s Rules For Managers To Live By
1. If you can’t do your subordinates’ job, you shouldn’t be managing them.
2. Never forget that you, the manager, were once a worker.
3. Always remember, your subordinates have lives too.
4. Never ask a subordinate to do a task or job that you are either unwilling or unable to do.
5. If a subordinate asks you a question, make every effort to answer the question as quickly and as accurately as possible.
6. If a subordinate makes a request and it is feasible based on the facts at hand, grant it. If you cannot grant the request, explain fully why not.
7. As a manager and a leader, you must remain calm and collected at all times.
8. Those beneath you support you. Without their support, you will fall. Without their work and dedication, you are nothing.
9. Never make a promise, comment, or statement that you will not stand by or keep.
10. Back your subordinates up. Never leave them “hanging out to dry.”
11. All disciplinary measures should be in-house and confidential. Praise in public, punish in private.
By Dean Tabor
Copyright 1990 by Dean Tabor at
http://www.tomstrong.org/public/misc/rules.for.managers.txt
1. If you can’t do your subordinates’ job, you shouldn’t be managing them.
2. Never forget that you, the manager, were once a worker.
3. Always remember, your subordinates have lives too.
4. Never ask a subordinate to do a task or job that you are either unwilling or unable to do.
5. If a subordinate asks you a question, make every effort to answer the question as quickly and as accurately as possible.
6. If a subordinate makes a request and it is feasible based on the facts at hand, grant it. If you cannot grant the request, explain fully why not.
7. As a manager and a leader, you must remain calm and collected at all times.
8. Those beneath you support you. Without their support, you will fall. Without their work and dedication, you are nothing.
9. Never make a promise, comment, or statement that you will not stand by or keep.
10. Back your subordinates up. Never leave them “hanging out to dry.”
11. All disciplinary measures should be in-house and confidential. Praise in public, punish in private.
By Dean Tabor
Copyright 1990 by Dean Tabor at
http://www.tomstrong.org/public/misc/rules.for.managers.txt
- Published on
The Thumb
Hail to the thumb, the useful thumb,
The grasper, the holder, the doer of deeds,
Where fingers are futile and tools succumb,
Stolid, ungainly, the thumb succeeds.
Hail to the thumb, the homely thumb;
Rings and jewels are not for it,
Compliments, dainty and frolicsome,
For fingers are suited, for thumbs unfit.
Hail to the thumb, the modest thumb;
Gently and calmly it hides away,
Never for it a banner and drum,
Or praise at the end of a strenuous day.
And hail to the men who are like the thumb;
Men who are never sung by a bard,
Men who are laboring, modestly dumb,
Faithfully doing the work that is hard.
Some day, men of the toiling thumb,
Men of the modest, invincible worth,
Some day your high reward will come,
From the Hand of the Lord of Heaven and Earth!
by Author Unknown
Hail to the thumb, the useful thumb,
The grasper, the holder, the doer of deeds,
Where fingers are futile and tools succumb,
Stolid, ungainly, the thumb succeeds.
Hail to the thumb, the homely thumb;
Rings and jewels are not for it,
Compliments, dainty and frolicsome,
For fingers are suited, for thumbs unfit.
Hail to the thumb, the modest thumb;
Gently and calmly it hides away,
Never for it a banner and drum,
Or praise at the end of a strenuous day.
And hail to the men who are like the thumb;
Men who are never sung by a bard,
Men who are laboring, modestly dumb,
Faithfully doing the work that is hard.
Some day, men of the toiling thumb,
Men of the modest, invincible worth,
Some day your high reward will come,
From the Hand of the Lord of Heaven and Earth!
by Author Unknown
- Published on
Hard Work
It’s hard to keep smiling when troubles are piling
Their weight on your neck till it’s sprained;
It’s hard to keep grinning when others are winning
The prizes for which you have strained.
It’s hard to be cheery on days wet and dreary,
When everything near you looks drowned;
It’s hard to be sunny when all of your money
Is sunk in a hole in the ground.
It’s hard to keep laughing when wearily quaffing
The flagon of grief to the dregs,
It’s harder to frolic when you have the colic,
Or gout at the end of your legs.
But how will it aid you, when woe has waylaid you,
To rumble and grumble and swear?
There’s nothing that’s healing in kicking the ceiling,
Or biting the rungs from a chair.
It’s hard to look pleasant when anguish is present,
And yet it is strictly worth while;
Not all of your scowling and fussing and growling
Can show off your grit like a smile.
by Walt Mason: “Terse Verse” (1917)
Walter S. ‘Walt’ Mason was born on 4 May 1862 in Columbus, Ontario, Canada. He started out as a farmhand and a laborer, but soon became a newspaperman, eventually after many years writing a syndicated column, “Rippling Rhymes.” Walter S. ‘Walt’ Mason passed on at 77 years of age on 22 June 1939 in La Jolla, California, United States of America.
It’s hard to keep smiling when troubles are piling
Their weight on your neck till it’s sprained;
It’s hard to keep grinning when others are winning
The prizes for which you have strained.
It’s hard to be cheery on days wet and dreary,
When everything near you looks drowned;
It’s hard to be sunny when all of your money
Is sunk in a hole in the ground.
It’s hard to keep laughing when wearily quaffing
The flagon of grief to the dregs,
It’s harder to frolic when you have the colic,
Or gout at the end of your legs.
But how will it aid you, when woe has waylaid you,
To rumble and grumble and swear?
There’s nothing that’s healing in kicking the ceiling,
Or biting the rungs from a chair.
It’s hard to look pleasant when anguish is present,
And yet it is strictly worth while;
Not all of your scowling and fussing and growling
Can show off your grit like a smile.
by Walt Mason: “Terse Verse” (1917)
Walter S. ‘Walt’ Mason was born on 4 May 1862 in Columbus, Ontario, Canada. He started out as a farmhand and a laborer, but soon became a newspaperman, eventually after many years writing a syndicated column, “Rippling Rhymes.” Walter S. ‘Walt’ Mason passed on at 77 years of age on 22 June 1939 in La Jolla, California, United States of America.
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Don’t Knock
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor polish a marble with knocks;
You’ll not long deceive with great clamor, my son,
Nor profit by throwing of rocks;
You never can rise to the heights of success
By pulling down others who’ve gained it.
By steadily working through storm and stress -
They’ve buckled to work, not disdained it.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor polish a diamond with bricks;
The world soon tires of mere glamor, my son,
And punctures the sharpest of tricks.
You never can rise by mere envy or hate,
Or growling at those who’ve succeeded
By honestly toiling both early and late -
’Tis workers, not shirkers, that’s needed.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor fasten bridge timbers with tacks;
The world soon shuns a wind-jammer, my son;
You can’t build to last with mere wax.
To win you must hustle with might and with main,
And give recompense for your wages,
For those who strive hardest deserve greatest gain -
True worth is the best of all gauges.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor write for the future in sand;
The world asks more than mere clamor, my son -
It’s work of the brain and the hand
So labor away with a whistle and laugh,
And scatter good cheer as you labor.
Don’t worry - the world soon winnows out chaff -
It’s the wheat that you sell to your neighbor.
by Will M. Maupin: as published in “The Commoner” newspaper
William Major ‘Will’ Maupin was born on 31 August 1863 in Callaway County, Missouri, United States of America. Early in his career he was a roaming reporter, traveling to places as distant as Winnipeg, Canada and Caracas, Venezuela. He became a newspaper columnist, editor, newspaper founder, civil servant, and book author, eventually settling in Nebraska. He worked for some 40 newspapers over his lifetime, including the “Omaha World-Herald,” “The Commoner,” and the “Hastings Democrat.” His published books include “Limnings” (1898), being the collected writings from his newspaper column of the same name, as well as “Whether Common or Not: A Little Book of Sketches and Verse” (1903), “Kiddies Six: A Modest Volume of Verse” (1911), “Nebraska Facts” (1918), and “Sunny Side Up: Poems” (1926). William Major ‘Will’ Maupin passed on at 84 years of age on 8 June 1948 in Nebraska, United States of America.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor polish a marble with knocks;
You’ll not long deceive with great clamor, my son,
Nor profit by throwing of rocks;
You never can rise to the heights of success
By pulling down others who’ve gained it.
By steadily working through storm and stress -
They’ve buckled to work, not disdained it.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor polish a diamond with bricks;
The world soon tires of mere glamor, my son,
And punctures the sharpest of tricks.
You never can rise by mere envy or hate,
Or growling at those who’ve succeeded
By honestly toiling both early and late -
’Tis workers, not shirkers, that’s needed.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor fasten bridge timbers with tacks;
The world soon shuns a wind-jammer, my son;
You can’t build to last with mere wax.
To win you must hustle with might and with main,
And give recompense for your wages,
For those who strive hardest deserve greatest gain -
True worth is the best of all gauges.
You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
Nor write for the future in sand;
The world asks more than mere clamor, my son -
It’s work of the brain and the hand
So labor away with a whistle and laugh,
And scatter good cheer as you labor.
Don’t worry - the world soon winnows out chaff -
It’s the wheat that you sell to your neighbor.
by Will M. Maupin: as published in “The Commoner” newspaper
William Major ‘Will’ Maupin was born on 31 August 1863 in Callaway County, Missouri, United States of America. Early in his career he was a roaming reporter, traveling to places as distant as Winnipeg, Canada and Caracas, Venezuela. He became a newspaper columnist, editor, newspaper founder, civil servant, and book author, eventually settling in Nebraska. He worked for some 40 newspapers over his lifetime, including the “Omaha World-Herald,” “The Commoner,” and the “Hastings Democrat.” His published books include “Limnings” (1898), being the collected writings from his newspaper column of the same name, as well as “Whether Common or Not: A Little Book of Sketches and Verse” (1903), “Kiddies Six: A Modest Volume of Verse” (1911), “Nebraska Facts” (1918), and “Sunny Side Up: Poems” (1926). William Major ‘Will’ Maupin passed on at 84 years of age on 8 June 1948 in Nebraska, United States of America.
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Words of Harlow H. Curtice
Do it the hard way! Think ahead of your job. Then nothing in the world can keep the job ahead from reaching out for you. Do it better than it need be done. Next time doing it will be child’s play. Let no one or anything stand between you and the difficult task, let nothing deny you this rich chance to gain strength by adversity, confidence by mastery, success by deserving it. Do it better each time. Do it better than anyone else can do it. I know this sounds old-fashioned. It is, but it has built the world.
by Harlow H. Curtice
Do it the hard way! Think ahead of your job. Then nothing in the world can keep the job ahead from reaching out for you. Do it better than it need be done. Next time doing it will be child’s play. Let no one or anything stand between you and the difficult task, let nothing deny you this rich chance to gain strength by adversity, confidence by mastery, success by deserving it. Do it better each time. Do it better than anyone else can do it. I know this sounds old-fashioned. It is, but it has built the world.
by Harlow H. Curtice
- Published on
Words of John Burroughs
What is the best thing for a stream? It is to keep moving. If it stops, it stagnates. So the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going, the physical, the moral, and the intellectual currents. Hence the secret of happiness is something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be! Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are kept busy and not left to feed upon themselves. Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it. How important is health to happiness, yet the best promoter of health is something to do. Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
by John Burroughs
John Burroughs was born on 3 April 1837 on a family farm in the Catskill Mountains near Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, United States of America. He became a naturalist and a writer. John Burroughs passed on at 83 years of age on 29 March 1921 near Kingsville, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States of America.
What is the best thing for a stream? It is to keep moving. If it stops, it stagnates. So the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going, the physical, the moral, and the intellectual currents. Hence the secret of happiness is something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be! Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are kept busy and not left to feed upon themselves. Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it. How important is health to happiness, yet the best promoter of health is something to do. Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
by John Burroughs
John Burroughs was born on 3 April 1837 on a family farm in the Catskill Mountains near Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, United States of America. He became a naturalist and a writer. John Burroughs passed on at 83 years of age on 29 March 1921 near Kingsville, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States of America.
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Why I Like Business
I like business because it is competitive. Business keeps books. The books are the score cards. Profit is the measure of accomplishment, not the ideal measure, but the most practical that can be devised.
I like business because it compels earnestness. Amateurs and dilettantes are shoved out. Once in you must fight for survival or be carried to the sidelines.
I like business because it requires courage. Cowards do not get to first base.
I like business because it demands faith. Faith in human nature, faith in one’s self, faith in one’s customers, faith in one’s employees.
I like business because it is the essence of life. Dreams are good, poetical fancies are good, but bread must be baked today, trains must move today, bills must be collected today, payrolls met today. Business feeds, clothes, and houses man.
I like business because it rewards deeds and not words.
I like business because it does not neglect today’s task while it is thinking about tomorrow.
I like business because it undertakes to please, not to reform.
I like business because it is orderly.
I like business because it is bold in enterprise.
I like business because it is honestly selfish, thereby avoiding the hypocrisy and sentimentality of the unselfish mind.
I like business because it is promptly penalized for its mistakes, shiftlessness, and inefficiency.
I like business because its philosophy works.
I like business because each day is a fresh, adventure.
by William Feather: as published in the “Herald-Times Reporter” (21 July 1927), page 3; a newspaper of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, United States of America
William Arthur Feather was born on 25 August 1889 in Jamestown, New York, United States of America. He was married to Ruth Elizabeth Presley on 30 October 1912, and together the couple had two children. He became a publisher and a writer. He spent much of his life in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America, where he owned a profitable printing business and published, “The William Feather Magazine.” William Arthur Feather passed on at 91 years of age on 7 January 1981.
I like business because it is competitive. Business keeps books. The books are the score cards. Profit is the measure of accomplishment, not the ideal measure, but the most practical that can be devised.
I like business because it compels earnestness. Amateurs and dilettantes are shoved out. Once in you must fight for survival or be carried to the sidelines.
I like business because it requires courage. Cowards do not get to first base.
I like business because it demands faith. Faith in human nature, faith in one’s self, faith in one’s customers, faith in one’s employees.
I like business because it is the essence of life. Dreams are good, poetical fancies are good, but bread must be baked today, trains must move today, bills must be collected today, payrolls met today. Business feeds, clothes, and houses man.
I like business because it rewards deeds and not words.
I like business because it does not neglect today’s task while it is thinking about tomorrow.
I like business because it undertakes to please, not to reform.
I like business because it is orderly.
I like business because it is bold in enterprise.
I like business because it is honestly selfish, thereby avoiding the hypocrisy and sentimentality of the unselfish mind.
I like business because it is promptly penalized for its mistakes, shiftlessness, and inefficiency.
I like business because its philosophy works.
I like business because each day is a fresh, adventure.
by William Feather: as published in the “Herald-Times Reporter” (21 July 1927), page 3; a newspaper of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, United States of America
William Arthur Feather was born on 25 August 1889 in Jamestown, New York, United States of America. He was married to Ruth Elizabeth Presley on 30 October 1912, and together the couple had two children. He became a publisher and a writer. He spent much of his life in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America, where he owned a profitable printing business and published, “The William Feather Magazine.” William Arthur Feather passed on at 91 years of age on 7 January 1981.
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“Barber: A brilliant conversationalist who occasionally cuts and styles hair.” -Author Unknown
Becca: Are you getting a new hairdo for the party?
Bella: No, I’m having a henna-do.
Becca: What’s a henna-do?
Bella: It runs around and goes, “Cluck, cluck, cluck!”
“You’re only as good as your last haircut.” -Fran Lebowitz (Frances Ann ‘Fran’ Lebowitz (born 1950))
Neil: What is the difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut?
Nellie: About three days.
Sudden Awakening
A clergyman told from his text
How Samson was scissored and vexed.
Then a barber arose
From his sweet Sunday doze,
Got rattled, and shouted, “Who’s next?”
by Author Unknown
A fellow rushed into a barbershop. “Cut everything short,” he said. “Hair, whiskers - and conversation.”
“Hair is vitally personal to children. They weep vigorously when it is cut for the first time; no matter how it grows, bushy, straight or curly, they feel they are being shorn of a part of their personality.” -Charlie Chaplin (Charles Spencer ‘Charlie’ Chaplin (1889 - 1977))
Tonsurephobia is a persistent fear of haircuts. ‘Tonsurephobia’ is derived from the Greek words ‘tonsore’ meaning ‘to cut’ and ‘phobos’ meaning ‘fear.’ It is a common fear in young children and to a lesser extent in adults. Some barbers give free lollipops or free combs to children to try to make the experience less scary for them.
Fern: What kind of haircuts to bees get?
Fran: Buzzzzzcuts.
Hair dresser (hare dres•er), noun: A magician who creates a hair style you can never duplicate.
I went to the barbershop the other day. The barber looked at my hair and said, “Sir, this is a comb, not a magic wand.”
Marv: Why did the barber win the race?
Merv: He knew a short cut.
“When you own a pair of haircutting scissors, you cut your own hair constantly.” - Emily Weiss
A woman’s conversation about a haircut: Oh! That is so cute! Do you think so? I wasn’t sure when she was gave me the mirror. I mean, you don’t think it’s too fluffy looking? Oh goodness no! No, it’s perfect. I would love to get my hair cut like that, but I think my face is too wide. I’m pretty much stuck with this stuff I think. Are you serious? I think your face is adorable. And you could easily get one of those layer cuts that would look so cute I think. I was actually going to do that except that I was afraid it would accent my long neck. Oh, that’s funny! I would love to have your neck! Anything to take attention away from this two-by-four I have for a shoulder line. Are you kidding? I know girls that would love to have your shoulders. Everything drapes so well on you. I mean, look at my arms. See how short they are? If I had your shoulders, I could get clothes to fit me so much easier. A man’s conversation about a haircut: Haircut? Yep.
“Brylcreem - a little dab’ll do ya.” -Author Unknown: advertising slogan for Brylcreem hair lotion
A barbershop owner put up a sign in response to the fancy salon down the street. The sign read, “Why pay forty dollars? We give haircuts for eight dollars.” The salon owner responded by putting up a sign that read, “We repair eight-dollar haircuts!”
“Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hairstylist you like.” -Author Unknown
Barbershop
When you visit the barber
And sit in his chair,
Don’t squirm
Like a worm
While he’s cutting your hair.
Don’t shiver
And quiver
And bounce up and down.
Don’t shuffle
And snuffle
And act like a clown.
Each wiggle
Will jiggle
The blades of the shears.
Clip-clip,
Clip-clip.
Those scissors can slip
And snip
Off a tip
Of one of your tender pink ears!
by Martin Gardner
Barber Shop: A place to go to when things get hairy.
A famous Hollywood actor went to a stylist and asked for a great haircut. The actor would be going to London for a command performance and would be meeting the Queen. The stylist did his best. A few weeks later the actor returned. Back in the stylist chair, he described his trip. The flight over to England was magnificent. In London, he had had three gorgeous days. The command performance had gone splendidly. After the show, he had been granted a private audience with the Queen. The stylist said, “Tell me what happened, tell me!” The actor said, “The Queen leaned over to me and said, ‘Who gave you that horrible haircut?’”
“Hairstylist: A person who is amazing when good, and horrible when bad.” -Author Unknown
Sign seen on a barbershop: During vacation of owner, a competent hairstylist will be here.
And then there was the hippie who finally decided he needed to get a haircut, because he was tired of falling flat on his face every time his hair became tangled up with his toes.
“Even the worst haircut eventually grows out.” -Lisa Kogan
Arnie: What man shaves twenty times a day?
Arnold: A barber.
“You can make a lot of mistakes with hair because it grows back.” -Paul Rudd
“Young man, take a haircut; you look like a chrysanthemum.” -P. G. Wodehouse (Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881 - 1975))
A priest walked into a barbershop in Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America. After he got his haircut, he asked how much it would be. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the Lord.” The next morning, the barber came to work and there were twelve prayer books and a thank you note from the priest in front of the door. Later that day, a police officer came in and got his hair cut. He then asked how much it was. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the community.” The next morning, he came to work and there were a dozen donuts and a thank you note from the police officer. Then, a Senator came in and got a haircut. When he was done he asked how much it was. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the country.” The next morning, the barber came to work and there were twelve Senators in front of the door.
Waldo: Where do sheep go to get sheared?
Oswald: The baa-baa shop.
11 March of every year is National Haircut Day. If you have a skilled barber or hairstylist, you won’t have to wear a hat on 12 March.
“As you grow older and wiser, the hairs that sprout from your body also grow older and wiser, making them more difficult to cut or trim. They learn to watch for you coming at them with trimmers and scissors, and they deftly move ever-so-slightly, escaping the consequences of those sharply edged cutting tools. If it helps, you can try to pretend that this isn’t so.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
Eclipse, verb: What an English Cockney barber does for a living.
Son: Dad, did you get a haircut?
Dad: No I got them all cut.
“I don’t need a hairstylist, my pillow gives me a new hairstyle every morning.” - Author Unknown
Miserly tip: The best part of cutting your own hair is that you do not have to tip the barber - who is, of course, yourself.
Sally: Why did the rabbit go to the barbershop?
Sammy: To get a ‘harecut.’
There is a young schoolboy named Jason,
Whose mom cuts his hair with a basin.
When he stands in one place,
With a scarf round his face,
It’s a mystery which way he’s facing.
-Author Unknown
“I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others.” -Mitch Hedberg (Mitchell Lee ‘Mitch’ Hedberg (1968 - 2005))
Phil: Do you think I need a haircut?
Len: Is there ever a time when you don’t need one?
“Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.” -Daniel Greenberg
A ringlet is a type of hairstyle achieved by wrapping a lock of hair around the length of a thin curling iron, and it can also be sported naturally by people with sufficiently tightly curled hair. Ringlets are also known as tube curls. Child actress Shirley Temple was famous for her ringleted hair, which was styled every day by her mother.
The Barber
He cuts our hair
And shaves our face,
And talks and talks
With ease and grace.
by Author Unknown
You are in a better place now . . . welcome to MFOL! . . . we have much more humor and inspiration for you on a huge variety of topics on the website, and we add new material regularly, so be sure to visit often.
Becca: Are you getting a new hairdo for the party?
Bella: No, I’m having a henna-do.
Becca: What’s a henna-do?
Bella: It runs around and goes, “Cluck, cluck, cluck!”
“You’re only as good as your last haircut.” -Fran Lebowitz (Frances Ann ‘Fran’ Lebowitz (born 1950))
Neil: What is the difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut?
Nellie: About three days.
Sudden Awakening
A clergyman told from his text
How Samson was scissored and vexed.
Then a barber arose
From his sweet Sunday doze,
Got rattled, and shouted, “Who’s next?”
by Author Unknown
A fellow rushed into a barbershop. “Cut everything short,” he said. “Hair, whiskers - and conversation.”
“Hair is vitally personal to children. They weep vigorously when it is cut for the first time; no matter how it grows, bushy, straight or curly, they feel they are being shorn of a part of their personality.” -Charlie Chaplin (Charles Spencer ‘Charlie’ Chaplin (1889 - 1977))
Tonsurephobia is a persistent fear of haircuts. ‘Tonsurephobia’ is derived from the Greek words ‘tonsore’ meaning ‘to cut’ and ‘phobos’ meaning ‘fear.’ It is a common fear in young children and to a lesser extent in adults. Some barbers give free lollipops or free combs to children to try to make the experience less scary for them.
Fern: What kind of haircuts to bees get?
Fran: Buzzzzzcuts.
Hair dresser (hare dres•er), noun: A magician who creates a hair style you can never duplicate.
I went to the barbershop the other day. The barber looked at my hair and said, “Sir, this is a comb, not a magic wand.”
Marv: Why did the barber win the race?
Merv: He knew a short cut.
“When you own a pair of haircutting scissors, you cut your own hair constantly.” - Emily Weiss
A woman’s conversation about a haircut: Oh! That is so cute! Do you think so? I wasn’t sure when she was gave me the mirror. I mean, you don’t think it’s too fluffy looking? Oh goodness no! No, it’s perfect. I would love to get my hair cut like that, but I think my face is too wide. I’m pretty much stuck with this stuff I think. Are you serious? I think your face is adorable. And you could easily get one of those layer cuts that would look so cute I think. I was actually going to do that except that I was afraid it would accent my long neck. Oh, that’s funny! I would love to have your neck! Anything to take attention away from this two-by-four I have for a shoulder line. Are you kidding? I know girls that would love to have your shoulders. Everything drapes so well on you. I mean, look at my arms. See how short they are? If I had your shoulders, I could get clothes to fit me so much easier. A man’s conversation about a haircut: Haircut? Yep.
“Brylcreem - a little dab’ll do ya.” -Author Unknown: advertising slogan for Brylcreem hair lotion
A barbershop owner put up a sign in response to the fancy salon down the street. The sign read, “Why pay forty dollars? We give haircuts for eight dollars.” The salon owner responded by putting up a sign that read, “We repair eight-dollar haircuts!”
“Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hairstylist you like.” -Author Unknown
Barbershop
When you visit the barber
And sit in his chair,
Don’t squirm
Like a worm
While he’s cutting your hair.
Don’t shiver
And quiver
And bounce up and down.
Don’t shuffle
And snuffle
And act like a clown.
Each wiggle
Will jiggle
The blades of the shears.
Clip-clip,
Clip-clip.
Those scissors can slip
And snip
Off a tip
Of one of your tender pink ears!
by Martin Gardner
Barber Shop: A place to go to when things get hairy.
A famous Hollywood actor went to a stylist and asked for a great haircut. The actor would be going to London for a command performance and would be meeting the Queen. The stylist did his best. A few weeks later the actor returned. Back in the stylist chair, he described his trip. The flight over to England was magnificent. In London, he had had three gorgeous days. The command performance had gone splendidly. After the show, he had been granted a private audience with the Queen. The stylist said, “Tell me what happened, tell me!” The actor said, “The Queen leaned over to me and said, ‘Who gave you that horrible haircut?’”
“Hairstylist: A person who is amazing when good, and horrible when bad.” -Author Unknown
Sign seen on a barbershop: During vacation of owner, a competent hairstylist will be here.
And then there was the hippie who finally decided he needed to get a haircut, because he was tired of falling flat on his face every time his hair became tangled up with his toes.
“Even the worst haircut eventually grows out.” -Lisa Kogan
Arnie: What man shaves twenty times a day?
Arnold: A barber.
“You can make a lot of mistakes with hair because it grows back.” -Paul Rudd
“Young man, take a haircut; you look like a chrysanthemum.” -P. G. Wodehouse (Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881 - 1975))
A priest walked into a barbershop in Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America. After he got his haircut, he asked how much it would be. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the Lord.” The next morning, the barber came to work and there were twelve prayer books and a thank you note from the priest in front of the door. Later that day, a police officer came in and got his hair cut. He then asked how much it was. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the community.” The next morning, he came to work and there were a dozen donuts and a thank you note from the police officer. Then, a Senator came in and got a haircut. When he was done he asked how much it was. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the country.” The next morning, the barber came to work and there were twelve Senators in front of the door.
Waldo: Where do sheep go to get sheared?
Oswald: The baa-baa shop.
11 March of every year is National Haircut Day. If you have a skilled barber or hairstylist, you won’t have to wear a hat on 12 March.
“As you grow older and wiser, the hairs that sprout from your body also grow older and wiser, making them more difficult to cut or trim. They learn to watch for you coming at them with trimmers and scissors, and they deftly move ever-so-slightly, escaping the consequences of those sharply edged cutting tools. If it helps, you can try to pretend that this isn’t so.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
Eclipse, verb: What an English Cockney barber does for a living.
Son: Dad, did you get a haircut?
Dad: No I got them all cut.
“I don’t need a hairstylist, my pillow gives me a new hairstyle every morning.” - Author Unknown
Miserly tip: The best part of cutting your own hair is that you do not have to tip the barber - who is, of course, yourself.
Sally: Why did the rabbit go to the barbershop?
Sammy: To get a ‘harecut.’
There is a young schoolboy named Jason,
Whose mom cuts his hair with a basin.
When he stands in one place,
With a scarf round his face,
It’s a mystery which way he’s facing.
-Author Unknown
“I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others.” -Mitch Hedberg (Mitchell Lee ‘Mitch’ Hedberg (1968 - 2005))
Phil: Do you think I need a haircut?
Len: Is there ever a time when you don’t need one?
“Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.” -Daniel Greenberg
A ringlet is a type of hairstyle achieved by wrapping a lock of hair around the length of a thin curling iron, and it can also be sported naturally by people with sufficiently tightly curled hair. Ringlets are also known as tube curls. Child actress Shirley Temple was famous for her ringleted hair, which was styled every day by her mother.
The Barber
He cuts our hair
And shaves our face,
And talks and talks
With ease and grace.
by Author Unknown
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The Spirit of Work
A this momentous point of time, when the Old Year and the New Year are blending imperceptibly into that mystic web of human history called Past and Present, what says the dial of our destiny? On what figure in the round of man’s life and progress does the rising sun of the Future shed its clearest and most commanding ray? Let us look up and see! Let us lift our eyes from our dreary self-absorption and miserable personal and petty cares, let us read the shining numeral that marks our immediate national duty Work! Work is the center from which all the lines of a nation’s power and prosperity radiate; and work is, with us, the burning topic of the day. Work that is urgently sought and demanded; work that needs doing; work waiting to be taken strenuously in hand; work that must and shall be done, or all the forces of God and Nature will demand why it is left undone! Before all rulers, priests, statesmen, and people in our Empire lies a vast field of labor a field in which as yet so little of the soil has been tilled, and so scanty the grain which has been sown, that such harvest as may be gathered in is well-nigh profitless. Work is, to a certain extent, slowly going on, but the real ‘spirit’ of work is almost, if not entirely, lacking. And success is impossible in any undertaking, unless one has all one’s heart and soul in the means whereby success is attained. The simplest task has its result in something satisfactory, if per formed by a cheerful and willing worker, while the most brilliant opportunities of high achievement are stultified and rendered nil by a laggard, reluctant, or prejudiced humor. The ‘spirit’ of work must be centered in work before any work can be done worth doing.
There are certain persons of singular and altogether diseased mind who look upon work as a hardship scarcely to be borne. These are the outcasts of Nature. For if we faithfully study Nature, our divine Mother, we find that never for a single second does she know any cessation of toil. Forever and ever she patiently essays to teach us, her children, the secret of her beauty, her fruitfulness, her wisdom; and forever and ever we turn aside, striving in puny fashion to oppose ourselves to her immutable laws while creating impracticable ones of our own. She shows us that the loveliness of land and sea, the blossoming of trees and flowers, the plumage of birds and butterflies, the formation of precious gems in the rocks and among the shells of the ocean, are all the result of Work. The diamond is the brilliant effect of patient conformation to the necessary elements of its composition in the mine. The pearl is merely the proof of laborious effort on the part of a poor bivalve to mend a wound in its shell. When with the coming spring we see the first dainty aconites breaking the dark ground into gold, we know they have been ‘working’ their way through the earth determinedly, moved by the divine instinct and desire of light. Strange it is that we cannot at least do our work as well as these simple organisms which passively obey the Divine Command! We judge ourselves ‘superior’ to them; but in that we cannot or will not do our ‘work’ so well, we are inferior. We have less patience than the diamond; less adaptability than the oyster; less courage than the aconite. The particular kind of work which we perhaps find ready to our hand to do, does not suit our ‘convenience.’ We are too ‘great’ for anything that savors of the ‘menial.’ The duties to which honor, conscience, and self-respect bind us are ‘narrow’ or ‘monotonous.’ We want to be something we are not, and for which we were never intended to be; and like the fabled frog who sought to become a bull, we burst ourselves with an inflated idea of our own value. The famous Quentin Matsys was a blacksmith. But he did not scorn the blacksmith’s trade or the blacksmith’s shop: he raised the smithy work to the height of his own creative genius, as is testified to this day by his exquisitely fashioned iron fountain in the Cathedral Square of Antwerp. Benvenuto Cellini was a metal worker, and his ‘trade’ was his joy. He was content to stick to his trade; and to design such marvels of work in his trade, that his name has come down to us in our generation as one of the few among the masters of art in the world.
In Great Britain there is, most unfortunately, a certain ‘class’ contempt for ‘trades.’ The worker in any one of them is hampered on all sides; and his individuality, if he happens to possess any, is too frequently condemned and repressed. The man who is occupied in a trade is called a ‘common’ man. Many folks among us are a great deal too fond of this word ‘common.’ They use it on all occasions, in and out of season depreciatively, or contemptuously. They have a fastidious abhorrence for ‘common’ things. They dislike the ‘common’ people. The brave soul who has climbed inch by inch up the ladder of prosperity, beginning at the very lowest rung and arriving success fully at the top, receives but a grudging meed of praise ‘he comes of common family’ he is quite a ‘common’ person! This expression ‘common’ is a favorite one with the sort of people who are found languishing idly among the ‘hangers-on’ of ‘county’ magnates, striving to claim kinship (through some pre-Adamite ‘family connection’) with a lord, or a duke, or some such human toy of material circumstance; and preferring to pass their time generally in disseminating stupid scandal and mischievous gossip, rather than mix with ‘common’ everyday honest men and women who have work to do in the world, and who honestly do it. Among them are most of the toadies, time-servers, and hypocrites of the community; creatures who crawl before a trumpery ‘title’ as abjectly as a beaten cur trails its body along in the dust under the whip of its master, and who have neither the courage nor the perception to see that there is nothing in God’s universe that we dare call ‘common.’ Every smallest particle of creation, from a star to a dewdrop, is designed to be perfect in itself, and individually adapted to individual uses. We may not rightly call any man, woman, or child ‘common,’ except in so far as they belong to our ‘common’ humanity, and share with us the joys of the ‘common’ sunshine, the ‘common’ fresh air, the privilege of a ‘common’ grave, and the right of a ‘common’ faith in God. And the ‘common’ man who has worked, and through work alone has performed the un-‘common’ feat of raising himself from the low to the high, is far more to be admired and respected than he who, born to the heritage of millions, trifles away his time in idle squandering and foolish dissipation. Nature marks this latter class of wealthy ‘loafers’ so that we may know them. Their banking-accounts may be written in raised letters of gold, but on their faces we read in unmistakable characters what may be called a ‘Public Warning.’ The man who himself works for his own, is a much healthier type of humanity than the man who merely takes what others have made for him.
There is no degradation in any sort of work. The field-laborer turning the heavy clods of earth, in preparation for the sowing of grain, is every whit as noble as the student who, by patient research, prepares the way for a harvest of fresh scientific discovery, always providing that the true ‘spirit’ of work is in both men. For the ‘spirit’ of work is the love of work; it is the bending of all one’s energies, for love’s sake, upon the particular task we have in hand. With love all things are easy; without love, the smallest duty becomes burdensome. There is no reason why another Benvenuto Cellini should not arise in the metal trade, no cause why another Michael Angelo should not paint ceilings in fresco. We are frequently shamed, not so much by the enterprise of other nations, as by our own idleness and inefficiency. We make a great clamor about ‘gentility’ a form of snobbishness more prevalent in the British Islands than anywhere else. Many a working-man’s wife would rather place her sons as clerks in city offices than apprentice them to a useful trade, because she foolishly imagines clerks are ‘gentlemen,’ forgetting that ‘gentlemen’ are not made by position, but by conduct. Every so-called ‘gentleman’ in the land would be much the better for learning some trade before considering his education completed. No trade is, of itself, contemptible; each branch offers its own chances of new discovery and higher development, depending on the invention, ambition, energy, and resource of those employed in it. Thought and perseverance in a worker are bound to raise whatever work he or she is employed in to an art. Personally speaking, I am bound to say that I have never found any one who is really clever, trustworthy, and persevering, in any trade or profession, among the ‘Unemployed.’ The real lovers of work seem always to have enough, and more than enough, work to do. I endorse every word recently written by a clever American writer who, discussing the ‘Unemployed,’ and the men who declare they have ‘no chance nowadays,’ says: ‘I do not believe that life is more difficult than it used to be. To-day, perhaps, you may have to know French, shorthand, or typewriting among the means of livelihood. But to learn them all does not require a greater sacrifice of brain power than was required of our grandfathers to learn reading and writing. They often had to walk six miles there and six miles back from a school, and when they had learnt an accomplishment the ‘competition’ was ‘fearful.’ At the bottom of much of this modern outcry of the terrible difficulties of life nowadays, there appears to me to be a good deal of self-conceit, when the cry is raised by a successful man, and of self-excuse when the cry is used by an unsuccessful man. The former likes to impress upon you that he has done something heroic; the latter that he has failed simply because nobody could have succeeded.
‘The world seems overstocked with everything,’ a gloomy-minded man remarked to Lord Palmerston. ‘I can tell you some things that the world has never enough of,’ replied Palmerston, ‘and that it is always willing to pay for: intelligence, honesty, courage, and perseverance. In these the supply will never exceed the demand.’
Intelligence, honesty, courage, and perseverance are never found in the worker who does not truly love his work. Love brings all the virtues in its train. Love means earnest concentration on the thing beloved. Goethe’s inspiring lines should animate the mind and brace the energies of every worker:
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute,
Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it;
Boldness has genius, power, magic in it;
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin! and then the work will be completed.
Nature never knows ‘short hours.’ She works at midnight as steadily as she does at mid-day. In the very sleep of her manifold creatures she has designed a working remedial system by which the wear and tear of brain and body shall be repaired. I doubt if any living organism in the whole vast Cosmos ever seeks a holiday save Man. I have often marveled that so sagacious a person as ‘St. Lubbock,’ now Lord Avebury, should have instituted ‘Bank Holidays’ for men, seeing that he has studied the habits and customs of bees. When we complain of working ‘over-time,’ we are really proclaiming ourselves as inferior to the ants and beetles. When we indulge ourselves in idleness and ‘loafing’ we are doing something diametrically opposed to all the laws of the universe. What wonder then if the secret forces of that universe forces whose vast movements we only as yet dimly realize should cast us out among the unfit and ‘Unemployed’? In the bird-world, if one of the feathered community refuses to work for its own living, it is quickly dispatched, as an abnormal and diseased creature. And there is not the slightest doubt that voluntary idleness is nothing less than a morbid growth in the mind, as devastating as a cancer in the body. Nowadays we find scores of people bent on ‘amusing’ themselves. ‘How are you going to ‘amuse’ yourself?’ is a daily question, or ‘What shall we do to kill time and ‘amuse’ ourselves?’ Nobody seems to grasp the fact that in Work, and work alone, is the source of both ‘amusement’ and happiness, as well as of prosperity and power. As for ‘killing time,’ that is a criminal act, for every moment is precious to those who know how to use it honestly. By-and-by our little clocks in this world must stop, and we shall be spared no more of the golden minutes, laden with blessing, opportunity, and love, which, while we live, are given to us freely from the treasuries of God. To ‘kill’ one of them is to murder a living thing.
Certain it is, however, that ‘amusement,’ or what is called by that name, is the fetish of the hour. The wealthy classes of our day set a most mischievous example of time-wasting to the rest of the community, and until they cease to create scandal by their extravagance, licentiousness, sensualism, and luxury, so long will there be discontent and disorder among what we are pleased to call the ‘lower’ majority of the people. If the rich man passes his time in shooting tame partridges and pheasants, the poor man sees no reason why he should not equally pass his time in playing football. He, too, will be ‘amused’ in his way. And supposing football does not appeal to him, he will seek ‘amusement’ in the public-house, getting drunk on the ‘doctored’ beer provided for him by prosperous brewers, of whom some are in Parliament, and some, with the most sublime hypocrisy, profess to support the ‘temperance’ cause. Honest interest in honest work, and the State encouragement of ambition in honest workers, would serve ‘temperance’ better than a million sermons. Government prizes given for specimens of superlative work done by British workmen in British trades would at least show that statesmen thought of something more than their own positions in the House, ‘tea on the Terrace,’ and Bridge, which three things at present would often appear to occupy them, to the forgetfulness of more pressing matters. Aspiration, research, discovery, and invention should be ‘officially’ encouraged and recognized in every trade and profession not checked, repressed, or ‘sneered down.’ For work is not only the making but the preservation of an Empire, arid all those engaged in work merit first consideration from an Empire’s rulers.
A Worker is always a dignified figure. He is the nearest approach to all that we may reverently conceive or guess of God. The Divine Source of Creation must be an ever-working Power. There can be no cessation, no rest from toil, for that prolific Intelligence which creates by a thought and sustains with a breath. Work must needs bring us into unison with Him who hath made us. And if we work faithfully, in the true ‘spirit’ of work, we shall come closer to the Infinite Life of all things, and shall understand, perchance, the deepest, purest meaning and higher intention of our own existence in this world, from which, when our work here is finished, we shall pass to a higher sphere of Labor and a fuller fruition of Love.
by Marie Corelli (1906)
A this momentous point of time, when the Old Year and the New Year are blending imperceptibly into that mystic web of human history called Past and Present, what says the dial of our destiny? On what figure in the round of man’s life and progress does the rising sun of the Future shed its clearest and most commanding ray? Let us look up and see! Let us lift our eyes from our dreary self-absorption and miserable personal and petty cares, let us read the shining numeral that marks our immediate national duty Work! Work is the center from which all the lines of a nation’s power and prosperity radiate; and work is, with us, the burning topic of the day. Work that is urgently sought and demanded; work that needs doing; work waiting to be taken strenuously in hand; work that must and shall be done, or all the forces of God and Nature will demand why it is left undone! Before all rulers, priests, statesmen, and people in our Empire lies a vast field of labor a field in which as yet so little of the soil has been tilled, and so scanty the grain which has been sown, that such harvest as may be gathered in is well-nigh profitless. Work is, to a certain extent, slowly going on, but the real ‘spirit’ of work is almost, if not entirely, lacking. And success is impossible in any undertaking, unless one has all one’s heart and soul in the means whereby success is attained. The simplest task has its result in something satisfactory, if per formed by a cheerful and willing worker, while the most brilliant opportunities of high achievement are stultified and rendered nil by a laggard, reluctant, or prejudiced humor. The ‘spirit’ of work must be centered in work before any work can be done worth doing.
There are certain persons of singular and altogether diseased mind who look upon work as a hardship scarcely to be borne. These are the outcasts of Nature. For if we faithfully study Nature, our divine Mother, we find that never for a single second does she know any cessation of toil. Forever and ever she patiently essays to teach us, her children, the secret of her beauty, her fruitfulness, her wisdom; and forever and ever we turn aside, striving in puny fashion to oppose ourselves to her immutable laws while creating impracticable ones of our own. She shows us that the loveliness of land and sea, the blossoming of trees and flowers, the plumage of birds and butterflies, the formation of precious gems in the rocks and among the shells of the ocean, are all the result of Work. The diamond is the brilliant effect of patient conformation to the necessary elements of its composition in the mine. The pearl is merely the proof of laborious effort on the part of a poor bivalve to mend a wound in its shell. When with the coming spring we see the first dainty aconites breaking the dark ground into gold, we know they have been ‘working’ their way through the earth determinedly, moved by the divine instinct and desire of light. Strange it is that we cannot at least do our work as well as these simple organisms which passively obey the Divine Command! We judge ourselves ‘superior’ to them; but in that we cannot or will not do our ‘work’ so well, we are inferior. We have less patience than the diamond; less adaptability than the oyster; less courage than the aconite. The particular kind of work which we perhaps find ready to our hand to do, does not suit our ‘convenience.’ We are too ‘great’ for anything that savors of the ‘menial.’ The duties to which honor, conscience, and self-respect bind us are ‘narrow’ or ‘monotonous.’ We want to be something we are not, and for which we were never intended to be; and like the fabled frog who sought to become a bull, we burst ourselves with an inflated idea of our own value. The famous Quentin Matsys was a blacksmith. But he did not scorn the blacksmith’s trade or the blacksmith’s shop: he raised the smithy work to the height of his own creative genius, as is testified to this day by his exquisitely fashioned iron fountain in the Cathedral Square of Antwerp. Benvenuto Cellini was a metal worker, and his ‘trade’ was his joy. He was content to stick to his trade; and to design such marvels of work in his trade, that his name has come down to us in our generation as one of the few among the masters of art in the world.
In Great Britain there is, most unfortunately, a certain ‘class’ contempt for ‘trades.’ The worker in any one of them is hampered on all sides; and his individuality, if he happens to possess any, is too frequently condemned and repressed. The man who is occupied in a trade is called a ‘common’ man. Many folks among us are a great deal too fond of this word ‘common.’ They use it on all occasions, in and out of season depreciatively, or contemptuously. They have a fastidious abhorrence for ‘common’ things. They dislike the ‘common’ people. The brave soul who has climbed inch by inch up the ladder of prosperity, beginning at the very lowest rung and arriving success fully at the top, receives but a grudging meed of praise ‘he comes of common family’ he is quite a ‘common’ person! This expression ‘common’ is a favorite one with the sort of people who are found languishing idly among the ‘hangers-on’ of ‘county’ magnates, striving to claim kinship (through some pre-Adamite ‘family connection’) with a lord, or a duke, or some such human toy of material circumstance; and preferring to pass their time generally in disseminating stupid scandal and mischievous gossip, rather than mix with ‘common’ everyday honest men and women who have work to do in the world, and who honestly do it. Among them are most of the toadies, time-servers, and hypocrites of the community; creatures who crawl before a trumpery ‘title’ as abjectly as a beaten cur trails its body along in the dust under the whip of its master, and who have neither the courage nor the perception to see that there is nothing in God’s universe that we dare call ‘common.’ Every smallest particle of creation, from a star to a dewdrop, is designed to be perfect in itself, and individually adapted to individual uses. We may not rightly call any man, woman, or child ‘common,’ except in so far as they belong to our ‘common’ humanity, and share with us the joys of the ‘common’ sunshine, the ‘common’ fresh air, the privilege of a ‘common’ grave, and the right of a ‘common’ faith in God. And the ‘common’ man who has worked, and through work alone has performed the un-‘common’ feat of raising himself from the low to the high, is far more to be admired and respected than he who, born to the heritage of millions, trifles away his time in idle squandering and foolish dissipation. Nature marks this latter class of wealthy ‘loafers’ so that we may know them. Their banking-accounts may be written in raised letters of gold, but on their faces we read in unmistakable characters what may be called a ‘Public Warning.’ The man who himself works for his own, is a much healthier type of humanity than the man who merely takes what others have made for him.
There is no degradation in any sort of work. The field-laborer turning the heavy clods of earth, in preparation for the sowing of grain, is every whit as noble as the student who, by patient research, prepares the way for a harvest of fresh scientific discovery, always providing that the true ‘spirit’ of work is in both men. For the ‘spirit’ of work is the love of work; it is the bending of all one’s energies, for love’s sake, upon the particular task we have in hand. With love all things are easy; without love, the smallest duty becomes burdensome. There is no reason why another Benvenuto Cellini should not arise in the metal trade, no cause why another Michael Angelo should not paint ceilings in fresco. We are frequently shamed, not so much by the enterprise of other nations, as by our own idleness and inefficiency. We make a great clamor about ‘gentility’ a form of snobbishness more prevalent in the British Islands than anywhere else. Many a working-man’s wife would rather place her sons as clerks in city offices than apprentice them to a useful trade, because she foolishly imagines clerks are ‘gentlemen,’ forgetting that ‘gentlemen’ are not made by position, but by conduct. Every so-called ‘gentleman’ in the land would be much the better for learning some trade before considering his education completed. No trade is, of itself, contemptible; each branch offers its own chances of new discovery and higher development, depending on the invention, ambition, energy, and resource of those employed in it. Thought and perseverance in a worker are bound to raise whatever work he or she is employed in to an art. Personally speaking, I am bound to say that I have never found any one who is really clever, trustworthy, and persevering, in any trade or profession, among the ‘Unemployed.’ The real lovers of work seem always to have enough, and more than enough, work to do. I endorse every word recently written by a clever American writer who, discussing the ‘Unemployed,’ and the men who declare they have ‘no chance nowadays,’ says: ‘I do not believe that life is more difficult than it used to be. To-day, perhaps, you may have to know French, shorthand, or typewriting among the means of livelihood. But to learn them all does not require a greater sacrifice of brain power than was required of our grandfathers to learn reading and writing. They often had to walk six miles there and six miles back from a school, and when they had learnt an accomplishment the ‘competition’ was ‘fearful.’ At the bottom of much of this modern outcry of the terrible difficulties of life nowadays, there appears to me to be a good deal of self-conceit, when the cry is raised by a successful man, and of self-excuse when the cry is used by an unsuccessful man. The former likes to impress upon you that he has done something heroic; the latter that he has failed simply because nobody could have succeeded.
‘The world seems overstocked with everything,’ a gloomy-minded man remarked to Lord Palmerston. ‘I can tell you some things that the world has never enough of,’ replied Palmerston, ‘and that it is always willing to pay for: intelligence, honesty, courage, and perseverance. In these the supply will never exceed the demand.’
Intelligence, honesty, courage, and perseverance are never found in the worker who does not truly love his work. Love brings all the virtues in its train. Love means earnest concentration on the thing beloved. Goethe’s inspiring lines should animate the mind and brace the energies of every worker:
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute,
Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it;
Boldness has genius, power, magic in it;
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin! and then the work will be completed.
Nature never knows ‘short hours.’ She works at midnight as steadily as she does at mid-day. In the very sleep of her manifold creatures she has designed a working remedial system by which the wear and tear of brain and body shall be repaired. I doubt if any living organism in the whole vast Cosmos ever seeks a holiday save Man. I have often marveled that so sagacious a person as ‘St. Lubbock,’ now Lord Avebury, should have instituted ‘Bank Holidays’ for men, seeing that he has studied the habits and customs of bees. When we complain of working ‘over-time,’ we are really proclaiming ourselves as inferior to the ants and beetles. When we indulge ourselves in idleness and ‘loafing’ we are doing something diametrically opposed to all the laws of the universe. What wonder then if the secret forces of that universe forces whose vast movements we only as yet dimly realize should cast us out among the unfit and ‘Unemployed’? In the bird-world, if one of the feathered community refuses to work for its own living, it is quickly dispatched, as an abnormal and diseased creature. And there is not the slightest doubt that voluntary idleness is nothing less than a morbid growth in the mind, as devastating as a cancer in the body. Nowadays we find scores of people bent on ‘amusing’ themselves. ‘How are you going to ‘amuse’ yourself?’ is a daily question, or ‘What shall we do to kill time and ‘amuse’ ourselves?’ Nobody seems to grasp the fact that in Work, and work alone, is the source of both ‘amusement’ and happiness, as well as of prosperity and power. As for ‘killing time,’ that is a criminal act, for every moment is precious to those who know how to use it honestly. By-and-by our little clocks in this world must stop, and we shall be spared no more of the golden minutes, laden with blessing, opportunity, and love, which, while we live, are given to us freely from the treasuries of God. To ‘kill’ one of them is to murder a living thing.
Certain it is, however, that ‘amusement,’ or what is called by that name, is the fetish of the hour. The wealthy classes of our day set a most mischievous example of time-wasting to the rest of the community, and until they cease to create scandal by their extravagance, licentiousness, sensualism, and luxury, so long will there be discontent and disorder among what we are pleased to call the ‘lower’ majority of the people. If the rich man passes his time in shooting tame partridges and pheasants, the poor man sees no reason why he should not equally pass his time in playing football. He, too, will be ‘amused’ in his way. And supposing football does not appeal to him, he will seek ‘amusement’ in the public-house, getting drunk on the ‘doctored’ beer provided for him by prosperous brewers, of whom some are in Parliament, and some, with the most sublime hypocrisy, profess to support the ‘temperance’ cause. Honest interest in honest work, and the State encouragement of ambition in honest workers, would serve ‘temperance’ better than a million sermons. Government prizes given for specimens of superlative work done by British workmen in British trades would at least show that statesmen thought of something more than their own positions in the House, ‘tea on the Terrace,’ and Bridge, which three things at present would often appear to occupy them, to the forgetfulness of more pressing matters. Aspiration, research, discovery, and invention should be ‘officially’ encouraged and recognized in every trade and profession not checked, repressed, or ‘sneered down.’ For work is not only the making but the preservation of an Empire, arid all those engaged in work merit first consideration from an Empire’s rulers.
A Worker is always a dignified figure. He is the nearest approach to all that we may reverently conceive or guess of God. The Divine Source of Creation must be an ever-working Power. There can be no cessation, no rest from toil, for that prolific Intelligence which creates by a thought and sustains with a breath. Work must needs bring us into unison with Him who hath made us. And if we work faithfully, in the true ‘spirit’ of work, we shall come closer to the Infinite Life of all things, and shall understand, perchance, the deepest, purest meaning and higher intention of our own existence in this world, from which, when our work here is finished, we shall pass to a higher sphere of Labor and a fuller fruition of Love.
by Marie Corelli (1906)
- Published on
Clinching the Bolt
It needed just an extra turn to make the bolt secure,
A few more minutes on the job and then the work was sure;
But he begrudged the extra turn, and when the task was through,
The man was back for more repairs in just a day or two.
Two men there are in every place, and one is only fair,
The other gives the extra turn to every bolt that’s there;
One man is slip-shod in his work and eager to be quit,
The other never leaves a task until he’s sure of it.
The difference ’twixt good and bad is not so very much,
A few more minutes at the task, an extra turn or touch,
A final test that all is right - and yet the men are few
Who seem to think it worth their while these extra things to do.
The poor man knows as well as does the good man how to work,
But one takes pride in every task, the other likes to shirk;
With just as little as he can, one seeks his pay to earn,
The good man always gives the bolt that clinching, extra turn.
by Edgar A. Guest
Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest was born on 20 August 1881 in Birmingham, England. He immigrated with his family to the United States of America in 1891. From his first published work in the “Detroit Free Press” until his passing in 1959, he penned some 11,000 poems that were syndicated in 300 newspapers and collected into more than twenty books. Mr. Guest is reputed to have had a new poem published in a newspaper every day for more than thirty years. He became known as ‘The People’s Poet,’ writing poems that were of a sentimental and optimistic nature. Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest passed on at 77 years of age on 5 August 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.
It needed just an extra turn to make the bolt secure,
A few more minutes on the job and then the work was sure;
But he begrudged the extra turn, and when the task was through,
The man was back for more repairs in just a day or two.
Two men there are in every place, and one is only fair,
The other gives the extra turn to every bolt that’s there;
One man is slip-shod in his work and eager to be quit,
The other never leaves a task until he’s sure of it.
The difference ’twixt good and bad is not so very much,
A few more minutes at the task, an extra turn or touch,
A final test that all is right - and yet the men are few
Who seem to think it worth their while these extra things to do.
The poor man knows as well as does the good man how to work,
But one takes pride in every task, the other likes to shirk;
With just as little as he can, one seeks his pay to earn,
The good man always gives the bolt that clinching, extra turn.
by Edgar A. Guest
Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest was born on 20 August 1881 in Birmingham, England. He immigrated with his family to the United States of America in 1891. From his first published work in the “Detroit Free Press” until his passing in 1959, he penned some 11,000 poems that were syndicated in 300 newspapers and collected into more than twenty books. Mr. Guest is reputed to have had a new poem published in a newspaper every day for more than thirty years. He became known as ‘The People’s Poet,’ writing poems that were of a sentimental and optimistic nature. Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest passed on at 77 years of age on 5 August 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.
