“Starting in Life.”

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 35, 4 November 1922, Page 11

“Starting in Life.”

Arnold Bennett’s Tips.

MR. ARNOLD BENNETT writes about “Starting in Life” in the current numbers of the “Strand Magazine.” The average employee, according to Mr. Bennett, does not give of his best to his employer, as his salary does not increase with his employer's profits. Mr. Bennett declares this is a wrong policy. \ “There is a sort of rough justice in the argument, and tho beginner usually accepts it at its face value and acts accordingly. Nevertheless, the policy is a mistake from the employee’s point of view. True, the employee who does his best will, in the case of nineteen employees out of twenty, give more than he receives, and to other employees he will'have the air of a philanthropist. But he will not continue for very long to give more than he receives; for he* will either receive promotion in the place where he is; or he will find a better situation in some other place. Tho rumour of a good active employee soon spreads abroad, the reason being that good, active employees are very rare.” , WAITING FOR REWARD. People seldom get their reward at once, more often they must wait live or ten years. . . , “And when we see, as we not seldom do, old men apparently obtaining large salaries'for light labour, we should bpar this m mind. What they are being paid for is their reputation, their reliability, their experience, their reserves of skill and force ready for emergencies which may anse." The industrious apprentice will often feel that his industry is a sin in the eyes of his fellow-corkers. \ ‘‘Again, the industrious apprentice sometimes falls into the habit of conscious moral superiority even to his employer, who perhaps is a bit of a slacker himself. He may go so far as to put his employer m the wrong. Now employers, like princes, are never wrong. Therefore, l<?t the industry ous apprentice go warily. The art of dealing with one’s employer and the art of dealing with one’s fellow-employees are scarcely less important than the art of dealing with the work itself.”

1 TAKING RISKS. The man who will never take risks, but is content to stay in the same groove, never “gets there.” “Seldom does it occur that a genuine improvement of status can'be attained without facing risks. There are scores of tine opportunities round about any ambitious employee. They are useless until they are explored, and not a solitary one of them can be explored unless the employee is prepared to burn his boats. Nearly all very successful men have burnt their boats, not onco but several times. They have continually explored opportunities, now and then with lamentable temporary results. They have gone on. Their lives have been dramatic, and often melodramatic. Great success cannot be achieved without serious risks, and therefore without the abandonment of security.” How should one make a success of life? “The trouble about discussing how to make the best of life is that one is forced to make so-many excursions into the obvious. The'failure to make the best of life is due, as often as not, to the neglect of the conspicuously obvious—to the omission to do some perfectly simple thing which everybody agrees ought to be done, or to the commission of some perilous l imprudence which everybody agrees ought to be very carefully avoided. Mr. Bennett advises all young men to take out life insurance policies. “As regards himself, however, the youth has a very considerable advantage in insuring. To insure is a dodge for compelling-,himself to save. Mirther, an insurance policy provides automatically the readiest and cheapest method of borrowing money that exists.” Finally, all starters in life’s game should remember that it is the small things that matter and lead up to the big things. “The smallest things, the prosaic and humdrum things, the things that superior spirits are so apt impatiently to scorn, Deed to be handled with the same efficiency as the greatest things.” v