Volume 8, Issue 6, page 10

for your employer, for which he spends money on you, you begin to
wonder, taking care to stay busy with your
hands at your paid tasks, whether you'Ve beenentirely honest with
either yourself or your employer.

you ask yourself questions:

Did I ever drop a suggestion into the suggestion box? I ' ve had
some good ideas, too . I've gotten them right
here at the plant. They were produced in my head by my work, or
my lack of it. Your employer. you realized, had a
perfect right to those ideas you had never passed on to him.
There had even been conversation between you about it.

"If ever you have any suggestions," your employer had said,
collectively to all employes, to you alone on several
occasions, "be sure to drop them into the box. Sign them or not,
as you please. If they're good, we'll remember
you. If we use them you'll probably get paid in some way. If your
suggestions are not used we'll be glad to have
them anyway."

"If anything occurs to me," you answered heartily, "I'll drop it
in the box. My name will be on it, too, even if
it's critical. I like credit for what I do, even if it's only
thinkingl"

YOU HAD agreed, but you'd spent several years

at the same place now, and h adn't dropped in one suggestion.
There was, you felt, a good reason. Other men and
women, every_ bit as smart as you, dropped in suggestion after
suggestion, every last one of which had been
ignored. Maybe. some of them had thought, the suggestion box is
just a trap for people who don't like their jobs.
You, and they, know better, but that was a good excuse.

Well, take the matter of suggestions alone. If you did something
about them, where would you begin. The
instant you asked yourself that question you got quite a shock,
for the answer went like this: "First of all, I'd make
sure you pulled your weight, all of it, or I'd fire youl" To
yourself, and of yourself, you said this, feeling that
somewhere near Jesus was smiling at you. It made you feel humble,
just to think about it. Instantly another idea
came to you. You'd thought mostly of spending hours at your desk.
Why not break down the hours? spend quarters
of hours at your work, making each one count. But why stop at
quarter hourst or half hours? Why not spend,
meaning why not return honestly for, the minutes and seconds? You
knew you could fill an hour with more
tangible. profitable results than you had hitherto been doing. in
order to do that. you could start with the seconds,
the minutes. Fill each one tightly with honest effort, and the
hours would get fat, profitably fat for your employer,
especially if everybody he hired did likewise.

I How to fill the secondS4 so very fast in passing, with profit
for yourself and your employer? Well, to do that,
you began considering. very thoughtfully, your own work, your
projects. yourself. Couldn't you do more, and much
better, if you tried harder, second by second? Would it be much
of a strain on you if you did)

Did ynu reach for something, second by second, that, coulO be
placed closer to you? If you sat more squarely,
could you work better? If the light. or the window, were located
differently with reference to your work, would you
be more efficient? If you could see better, wouldn't You be more
efficient? Say the work was with the hands, the
fingers. Could the method, or technique. or routine to which you
had accustomed yourself, be changed for the better,
the faster? When you began examining

10 The RBERREE

~z-

yourself and your work, and yourself in relation to your work,
you were not too surprised to discover that there were
many ways in which you could "increase production". if you could
, then everybody inyour outfit could. You
wouldn't say that. wouldn't perhaps put it into the suggestion
box, but if you stepped out and away from the others,
intent on progress, the others would just naturally tag along,
and the entire plant would benefit - not just the
employer or employers, but employes as well. Business generally
would benefit. it was startling how much more
one could do without fatigue. Doing less than the employer
expected was actually more tiring. You were sure of
that, for when you'd loafed on the job-and you confessed to
yourself, with Jesus in your mind like that, that you had
done your share of loafing - you' d been more tired than when you
had kept yourself so busy you had lost track of
time.

Had you ever joined in plant activities not entirely connected
with your work? Plant charity projects, for
example') Plant hobbies, or Picnics? You had shown yourself, of
coursethat was " good politics " -but had you
actually ever participated in your heart, to the beneflt of
someone, anyone, else?

When you began considering your job - and the whole plant, even
if you hadn't visited all of it, was your job -
you saw where there was so much more you could do ""to pass the
time" than you were doing. To do theadditional
would profit everybody, yourself included. It would do more - it
would do something significant to the slow feet of
time. Actually, you told youlself quickly when the idea came to
you, just because time was made to pass much
faster was no proof that it actually had; by dedicating yourself
to the job for which you were paid, you were not
hastening to your grave. Maybe it would seem so, eventually, but
you could live with death a lot more
companionably if you felt your life had been successful; if you
owed no man at the end; if you wholly. completely.
andsincerely paid your way.

YOU LOOKED at the clock, largely as a matter of habit. Then you
deliberately started filling the minutes, then
even the seconds. with more personal efficiency. You weren't
after fame, unless fame paid dividends, but Jesus,
in three short years-after, of course, 30 years of
preparation-had sent His name ringing joyously down the better
part of 20 centuries, as of now. You knew that 40 centuries hence
He would be even more"famous".

"Don't belittle fame," you felt Him say. "If fame were not worth
having there would be no such thing, for
everything in My Father's Kingdom has a purpose."

"But aren't we supposed to be humble, selfeffacing?" you asked.
"Isn't it, well, out of line, to push yourself?"

"Push your work, and the work will sufficiently push the self,
your self."

"That sounds too much like me talking," you told yourself
dubiously. "You're really here, aren't you, Sir? or am
I just imagining it?"

The silence was just long enough not to waste too much of your
precious business time, and that of your
employer. When the answer came you felt a chuckle in it, a kind
of inspired chuckle:

"When I was born, in Bethlehem of Judea, herald angels sang in
the heavens. Just what was the use. my friend, of
herald angels if my 'fame' were to be hidden?"

(Continued in the next issue)

OCTOBER, 1961