14. Business as a employes of business concerns think and speak of their positions as "jobs." To them the job means more or less disagreeable work for eight or ten hours a day. Their compensation may be on a weekly basis, in which case it is called wages, or it may have an annual rating and be called a salary.
The typical man with a "job" is very much given to thinking that he is overworked and underpaid; he is glad when the day is over, for the job means hard work and no pleasure.
He also has a habit of thinking that mere length of service entitles him to increased pay or to promotion to a better job.
He often is heard to complain about the big salaries that are paid to men who do not do half the work he does. He usually has a special grudge against his immediate superior, the man who directs his work. He is certain that he works harder than that fellow and that his work is not appreciated.
If a few months elapse without any increase in his pay envelop, he complains to his friends that his job has no future in it. You hear him say: "All the places down there are already filled and there is no chance for a live young fellow like me. I want to get into some place where there is a chance to climb up." The trouble with men of this kind, and unfortu nately, they are numerous, is that they do not know what business means. They ignorantly think of them selves as business men, whereas they are mere routine job holders, thinking more about their pay tban they do about the possibilities of their job, or of how they can make it helpful to them in places higher up.
There is a sense in which every business "job" is a gold mine. The man who works for the gold in the job rather than, for the money in, the pay envelop, is the fellow who gets on. Then, no matter how humble his job, he is learning the A B C of business.
But our typical "job man" is doomed to be a drudge all his days. Business is much more than a "job." 15. Business as a fascinating till the reader has finished the twenty-four volumes of the Modern Business Text will he have at hand all the evidence justifying the foregoing sidehead. Yet we may give him a glimpse of the truth.
A game is ordinarily thought of as play, but when you analyze some of the most interesting games, such as baseball, tennis and golf, you will find in all of them what is called work when the element of inter est is lacking. Seeking for the element of interest
which makes the "work" a pleasure, you will find it in three circumstances: first, the number of difficulties and obstacles in the way of successful play; second, in the joy the human animal takes in triumphing over obstacles, particularly if at the same time he has proved himself the better fellow; third, in the freakish behavior of the goddess of chance, which accounts for the charm of gambling.
All these interesting game elements are found in business, and your real business man, if he is in good health, gets as much pleasure out of his day's "work" as Ile ever did out of any game be played as a boy. In fact, some men get so engrossed in their business— which is only another way of saying they get so much satisfaction out of its conduct—that they devote prac tically all their waking hours to it and cannot be per suaded to give it up even after they have accumulated much more money than they or their families can ever need. Of course, this policy is a mistake. Not only is a man's health likely to break down if he overplays the business game, but he fails also to get the most out of life. He breaks one of the fundamental laws of psychology, that of variety, which is founded, on the well-known fact that pleasures pall as a result of frequent repetition. Children unconsciously obey this law and are forever varying their games.
But business is such a fascinating game to the man who is really interested in its principles that many men keep on playing it to the exclusion of all other games, and are with the greatest difficulty persuaded by their relatives to abandon it when old age comes on. Fre quently we read in the newspapers about the death of some octogenarian of whom it is said, "He was at his desk only a few days before his death," or "He has not missed a day at his office in forty years." Young men cannot understand such interest and wonder why the old man with all his wealth still kept on working. They do not realize that to him it was not work. He loved the game and since death bad to come, he wanted to die playing.