SEEKING A SITUATION.
WHEN seeking a situation, do not propose to take an advanced post. Ask for a chance to work, beginning at the bottom. You may be considered qualified for something better, yet be placed at the foot to test your temper and fidelity to ascertain if you will be "faithful over a few things," as a qualification to become "a ruler over many things." If you sweep, make fires, dust, do anything and everything promptly and cheerfully, you will be advanced so fast as you are seen to have mastered your allotted position.
Grumbling at your lot, and asking to be put forward, will disgust your superiors, who are perhaps planning to obtain some one to fill your place, that you may be put forward. Men like to manage their own business dislike to have boys make suggestions as to their own occupation or pay.
Plants are not put in large pots until, by healthy growing, they seem to have filled the small ones. If a puny plant were to tease the gardener for a large pot, or open air planting, he would wisely say "Fill the place you occupy first, and thus show your adaptation to a larger one;" or, in disgust, he would jerk out the feeble starveling and put a vigorous successor in its place. Many a boy has lost his situation because he whined for a post of duty beyond his present capacity to fill.
He who, in store or shop, begins at the bottom and learns how to do everything, and is competent to every duty, has his position and ultimate success in his own keeping; and he will be sought after by many, if it is known he is at liberty to accept of a new engagement. We have seen a faithful boy take a selfish man's place in a shop or store, with its increased responsibilities, a more elevated position, and better pay.
Selected.
KEEP good company or none.
SEEKING PROMOTION.
"I WISH, father, you would find me a good situation," said Thomas, earnestly. "I should like so much to be in business; but it seems so long to wait for a good place."
Mr. Reed, lifting his eyes from the evening paper, looked at his son with some surprise, and then said, "I think you have a situation, Thomas!"
"Yes; but then I mean a good situation. The place I am in now is noting, only to run messages all the time for everybody in the establishment; and then I am paid almost nothing." "And what sort of a situation do you want, Thomas," asked his father.
"I would like," said Thomas, to be in some good office where I would receive a large salary, and not be under everybody, to run at their nod and call."
"But that is why I placed you in your present situation," said his father.
"You have every opportunity to rise to one of the best positions in the city, if you are only content to work and wait for it."
"I am afraid I should have a long time to wait," said Thomas. "Every place above me is filled; and they are all too well paid to resign very soon; and then I do not know how to work for promotion. Must I apply to the head of the firm? And what else have I to do to obtain it?"
"No, Thomas; that is not the work I mean. An application is about the last thing you should make to your employer; and, indeed, you may not be required to apply for anything, if you take the proper course."
"Well, father, I will take any course that will procure promotion for me," said Thomas, eagerly.
"Then there is hope that you will follow my directions if I tell you how to work. You say you have to run errands for every one in the place; well, that is just what I expected when you went there. I suppose it is not pleasant; it may be quite tiresome and discouraging; but then you gain a good knowledge of the city, become known to other firms; besides, you are not in the lowest place there, as you suppose, or you would not be entrusted to carry the mail to and from the post office. I was surprised when I heard that Mr. Edwards had entrusted you with that duty the third week after you went there. It shows me that he has confidence in your integrity, and I think you are getting promotion already."
Thomas laughed at the novel mode of preferment, and informed his father that Mr. Edwards had no one else who cared to go or whom he could send for the mails.
"Perhaps he has quite a different reason for his action," said the father.
"Probably he does not care to trust some others who are above you, and whom he might send. Thomas, you must work well and carefully, whether it be running messages or carrying the mail, and you will soon discover that that is the work which will procure for you promotion."
"But it is a very low beginning, father," said Thomas.
"Yes. Let me see; were you with us last summer when we visited Baltimore, and went up to the top of Washington's monument?"
"Yes, father, you remember we all went up, and little Fred was so tired he could hardly gain the top."
"Do you recollect how we ascended? Were we lifted up from the street by an elevator?"
"No, father; you remember that a man let us in at the door, and we went up the winding steps; we had no light only that of a smoky lantern, and it was along time before we reached the top."
"And we got up at last," said his father, "after patiently stepping one hundred and eighty times, one after the other; and were we not repaid at the top with the magnificent view, which we enjoyed?"
"It was perfectly grand," said Thomas.
"Now, Thomas, as you ascended that monument, so you must rise in business. You are now standing on the lower steps you are on the steps and there is nothing to hinder you, if your health is good, from standing on the top. But in order to succeed, you must cultivate several qualities, and the very first which you need to possess is contentment with what you already have. That does not mean that you are to have no ambition to rise; but rather that you must be willing to wait till your turn comes.
Then, again, be willing to serve all who are over you; they may be no better than you, but they have a position above you, and are therefore your superiors. Remember that he is the best commander who himself is willing to ‘obey orders' and serve those above him."
New York Observer.
STEP BY STEP, A STEP AT A TIME.