A Message to Garcia (and Every Entrepreneur) - Abridgment Series
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
A MESSAGE TO GARCIA (and Every Entrepreneur)
[Abridged*] [The year is 1899, c.125 years ago.]
When war broke out, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leaders.?General Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness—no one knew where.?No mail nor telegraph message could reach him.?
But, the President needed to secure his cooperation, and quickly.?What to do!?Someone said to the President, "A fellow by the name of Rowan will find General Garcia for you."
So, Rowan was given the message to be delivered to [General] Garcia.?Rowan took the letter, sealed it, strapped it over his heart, and, in four days, he landed by night off the coast from an open boat.?He disappeared into the jungle, and, in three weeks, came out on the other side of the island, having traversed the hostile country on foot.?[He delivered the letter to Garcia, but that is not my point.]
The point I wish to make is this: the President gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia.?Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?"?By the Eternal!?This man's form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land.?
It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that.??Men need a stiffening of their vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—"Carry a message to Garcia."
You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within call.?Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio."?But, he will look at you out and ask one or more of the following questions: "Who was he??Where is the encyclopedia??Was I hired for that??Is there any hurry??What do you want to know for?"
Now, if you are wise, you will not bother to explain, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.
We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," and with it all often go many hard words for the politicians.
Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy never-do-wells to do intelligent work; and the long patient striving with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned.?In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on.?
The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on.?No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer—but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.?
It is the survival of the fittest.?Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best—those who can carry a message to Garcia.
I know one man of really brilliant parts who cannot manage a business of his own, and is yet absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him.?He cannot give orders, and he will not take them.?Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work.?No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent.?He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.
Of course, I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless.
Have I put the matter too strongly??Possibly I have.?But, when all the world has gone a-slumming, I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds—the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.?
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I have carried a dinner pail and worked for day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides.?There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.
My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home.?And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages.
Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals.?Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go.?He is wanted in every city, town and village—in every office, shop, store and factory.?
The world cries out for such: he is needed, and needed badly—the man who can carry a message to Garcia.
~ THE END ~
* Abridged by Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.??
*?Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.,?is Managing Shareholder of?Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC.?Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups,?INC. 500, and publicly traded companies.?He is author of?One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus,?and?The Business of Aesop? article series, and co-author with his father,?Arnold Zegarelli, of?The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers.?Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.?
Gregg can be contacted through?LinkedIn.?Read more articles here.
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5 年Inspiringly challenging, thanks Gregg.