e manager's chief of staff,
who, as she soon discovered, had wanted someone else. She began to think
out the position in which she found herself. "It is quite plain," she said
to herself, "that the chief is a more important person than I am. He is not
going to lose his position because he does not like me. It would not be
just or right or good business if he did. The truth is that if I do not
get on with him and convince him that I can do good work I am going to be
a failure. It is part of my business to get on with the chief of staff."
She had made the important discovery that it is wise to put oneself in the
background and to work harmoniously with one's associates. After a year's
hard work she had the satisfaction of being told by her chief, that,
notwithstanding his early dissatisfaction with her appointment, she had
won his approval, for she had convinced him of her efficiency.

The other illustration can be given in a few words, but it teaches a truth
about paid employment which many girls need to learn. One day a woman
called to see an important public man on a matter of business. When she
came he was dictating a letter. He saw his caller as soon as he had
finished. Before the conversation had well begun, his secretary came to
the door and asked him to what address he wished the letter sent. When the
secretary had gone out again, the man looked at his visitor and said
laughing, yet with an expression of annoyance, "I cannot teach my secretary
that it is her work to look up addresses. She is here to save me trouble.
I am not here to save her trouble. But I cannot get her to understand
that." The girl in question was behaving in her work as if she had been a
spoiled child at home. It is to be hoped that she would have been ashamed
to ask her mother, for instance, to tell her an address which she could
look up for herself. Yet this girl was being paid to find addresses as
part of her work.

The girl who is beginning paid employment will have to learn largely from
others how her work ought to be done, but she must learn to depend on her
own observation. Questions must be asked occasionally, but it is unwise to
ask too many. Ask information only from those who are willing to answer.
Everyone in the world of work is busy as a rule, and comparatively few
people will stop their work to explain to someone else how a task ought to
be done. There are two classes of workers--those who require direction
always, and those who