“How did Mr. Knapp take it?”
“Oh, very decently—too decently! It made it all the harder. He admitted, when I asked him, that his work didn’t interest him—that he hated it. When I halfway offered to give him a try at the selling end, he said he was sure he wouldn’t like it any better—was sure he wouldn’t do even so well there. He said he knew he’d hate selling. Then when I put it up to him whether he thought a man can ever do good work if he doesn’t like his job, he didn’t say a thing, just kept getting whiter and whiter, and listened and listened. I did my best to let him down easy. Thanks of the firm for long and faithful service, take plenty of time to look for something else, no hurry. But it was no go. He’s got plenty of brains of a queer sort, enough to see through that sort of talk. It was damned unpleasant. He has a very uncomfortable personality anyhow. Something about him that rubs you the wrong way.” His voice was sharp with personal discomfort. He looked exasperated and aggrieved.
Out of her experience of his world and her knowledge of him, his wife’s sympathy was instant. “It is hard on you having all those uncomfortable personal relations!” she said. “It always seems unfair that I can stay here at home with the children and draw a salary for writing advertisements that I love to do without sharing any of the dirty work.”
“It’s no joke,” he agreed rather somberly. He looked at his watch. “Will I have time for a cigar before dinner?” he asked.
“Just about. I didn’t know when you might be in, so the children and I have had ours. I told Kate to start broiling the steak when she heard you come in, but she’s always slow.”
He clipped and lighted his cigar with an air of immense comfort. Wasn’t it something like to come back to such a home after working your head off, and find everything so easy and smooth!
“I’ve often thought,” said his wife, “that letting people go would be the hardest part of administrative work for me.”
He drew his first puff from his cigar and relaxed in his chair again. “Did I ever happen to tell you about the first time I had to fire anyone?” He had told her several times but she gave no intimation of this, listening with a bright eager attention as he went on. “Way back when I’d only just pulled up to being head of the hosiery department at Burnham Brothers. She was a weak-kneed, incompetent, complaining old maid who was giving the whole department a black eye with the customers—ought to have been cleared out long before. Well, at last I got my nerve up to telling her to go, and she took it hard—made a scene, cried, threatened to kill herself, said her sick sister would starve. She was ninety percent hysteric when she finally flung out of my office; and I was all in. So I beat it right up to the chief’s office and sobbed out the whole talk on old J. P. Burnham’s bosom.”
Nell smiled reminiscently. “Yes, how we all used to lean on old J. P. when things went wrong. He always made me think of a dog-tired old Atlas, holding everything up on those stooped old shoulders of his. What did he say?”
“Oh, he didn’t look surprised. I suppose I wasn’t the first youngster to lose my nerve that way. He limped over and shut the door as if he was going to give me a long talk, but after all he didn’t say much. Just a few pieces of advice with long pauses to let them sink in. But I’ve never forgotten them.”
“No, you never did forget what he said,” agreed Nell. She was very anxious to get on to another matter of importance but she saw by her husband’s manner that he was talking himself out of his discomfort, so she gave him another chance to go on, by remarking, “But I don’t see what anybody can say about dismissing employees that would help a bit. It’s just horrid and that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, he sort of stiffened me up, anyhow. Reminded me that running a store isn’t philanthropy, that everybody from the boss down is there not to make a living for himself but to get goods sold. Made me see that for a department manager to keep an incompetent salesperson is just as dishonest as if he’d put his hand in the cash register. Worse, because the firm can stand losing a little cash enough sight better than having its customers snapped at and slighted. But what made the biggest impression on me was when he made me think of the other girls in the department who did do their work, how unfair it was to them to keep a lame duck that shoos everybody away from the department so they can’t make any sales. They don’t come into the office and throw a fit, but they don’t get a fair deal just the same. Besides incompetence is as catching as measles.”
“That’s so.” Nell saw the point, thoughtfully. “But it doesn’t make it any pleasanter when the one you’re dismissing is throwing the fit.”
“You bet your life it does not,” agreed her husband, drawing with satisfaction on his excellent cigar, “and old J. P. didn’t put up any bluff about it. He never said he enjoyed it. He said it was just a part of the job, and you’ve got to stand up to it if you’re going to grow up to carry a man’s load. You’re there to do your best for the business. He got another point over to me, a good one—even for the lame ducks, it’s kinder to throw ’em right out as soon as you’re sure they can’t make good. Don’t let ’em stay on and
