Part 44 (2/2)

Did he do it? You can be sure he did. He once again became a fast and thorough mechanic. With that reputation Mr. Henke had given him to live up to, how could he do anything else but turn out work comparable to that which he had done in the past.

”The average person,” said Samuel Vauclain, then president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, ”can be led readily if you have his or her respect and if you show that you respect that person for some kind of ability.”

In short, if you want to improve a person in a certain spect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics. Shakespeare said ”a.s.sume a virtue, if you have it not.” And it might be well to a.s.sume and state openly that other people have the virtue you want them to develop. Give them a fine reputation to live up to, and they will make prodigious efforts rather than see you disillusioned.

Georgette Leblanc, in her book Souvenirs, My Life Souvenirs, My Life with Maeterlinck, describes the startling transformation describes the startling transformation of a humble Belgian Cinderella.

”A servant girl from a neighboring hotel brought my meals,” she wrote. ”She was called 'Marie the Dish washer' because she had started her career as a scullery a.s.sistant. She was a kind of monster, cross-eyed, bandylegged, poor in flesh and spirit.

”One day, while she was holding my plate of macaroni in her red hand, I said to her point-blank, 'Marie, you do not know what treasures are within you.'

”Accustomed to holding back her emotion, Marie waited a few moments, not daring to risk the slightest gesture for fear of a castastrophe. Then she put the dish on the table, sighed and said ingenuously, 'Madame, I would never have believed it.' She did not doubt, she did not ask a question. She simply went back to the kitchen and repeated what I had said, and such is the force of faith that no one made fun of her. From that day on, she was even given a certain consideration. But the most curious change of all occurred in the humble Marie herself. Believing she was the tabernacle of unseen marvels, she began taking care of her face and body so carefully that her starved youth seemed to bloom and modestly hide her plainness.

”Two months later, she announced her coming marriage with the nephew of the chef. 'I'm going to be a lady,' she said, and thanked me. A small phrase had changed her entire life.”

Georgette Leblanc had given ”Marie the Dishwasher”

a reputation to live up to - and that reputation had transformed her.

Bill Parker, a sales representative for a food company in Daytona Beach, Florida, was very excited about the new line of products his company was introducing and was upset when the manager of a large independent food market turned down the opportunity to carry it in his store. Bill brooded all day over this rejection and decided to return to the store before he went home that evening and try again.

”Jack,” he said, ”since I left this morning I realized I hadn't given you the entire picture of our new line, and I would appreciate some of your time to tell you about the points I omitted. I have respected the fact that you are always willing to listen and are big enough to change your mind when the facts warrant a change.”

Could Jack refuse to give him another hearing? Not with that reputation to live up to.

One morning Dr. Martin Fitzhugh, a dentist in Dublin, Ireland, was shocked when one of his patients pointed out to him that the metal cup holder which she was using to rinse her mouth was not very clean. True, the patient drank from the paper cup, not the holder, but it certainly was not professional to use tarnished equipment.

When the patient left, Dr. Fitzhugh retreated to his private office to write a note to Bridgit, the charwoman, who came twice a week to clean his office. He wrote:

My dear Bridgit,

I see you so seldom, I thought I'd take the time to thank you for the fine job of cleaning you've been doing. By the way, I thought I'd mention that since two hours, twice a week, is a very limited amount of time, please feel free to work an extra half hour from time to time if you feel you need to do those ”once-in-a-while” things like polis.h.i.+ng the cup holders and the like. I, of course, will pay you for the extra time.

<script>