Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1890 — The Forgetful Employe. [ARTICLE]

The Forgetful Employe.

A successful business man says there were two things which he learned when he was 18 which were afterward of great use to him, namely: “Never to lose anything, and never to forget anything.” An old lawyer sent him with an important paper with certain instructions what to do with it. “But, ” inquired the young man, “suppose I lose it, what shall I do then?” “You must not lose it.” “I don’t mean to,” said the young man, “but suppose I should happen to?” “But I say you must not happen to; I shall make no provision for such an occurrence; you must not lose it!” This put a new train of thought into the young man’s mind, and he found that if he was determined to do a thing he could do It. He made such a provision against every contingency that he never lost anything. He found this equally true about forgetting. If a certain matter of/importance was to be remembered, he pinned It down in his mind, fastened it there and made it stay. He used to say: “When a man tells me he forgot to do something, I tell him he might as well have said: ‘I do not care ’enough about your business to take the trouble to think about it again.’ ” I once had an intelligent young man in my employ who deemed it sufficient excuse for neglecting any important task to say: “I forgot it.” I told him that would not answer. If he was sufficiently interested he would be careful to remember. It was because he did not care enough that he forgot it. I drilled him with this truth. He worked for me three years, and during the last of the three he was utterly changed in this respect He did not forget a thing. His forgetting, he found, was a lazy, careless habit of the mind, which he cured. —American Grocer.