Service (work)

“ From the selfish point of view the chief interest of the employer is to keep the bills down and to get the greatest possible amount of service even at the cost of the greatest expenditure of human strength; among employees, it is to do sufficient work to retain a good place, and to use whatever materials are most convenient. ”

“ We are determined to return the benefits we have received from the country by doing a service to those amongst whom we have lived.
“We feel that we shall succeed, to some extent, at any rate. As long as we have that task before us we shall know no despair. ”

“ There grew up a regular profession of doing things for people, which gave an outlet for a laudable desire for service, but which contributed nothing whatever to the self-reliance of the people nor to the correction of the conditions out of which the supposed need for such service grew. ”

“ Among the forty different lines of service are: teaching English, history, and citizenship to foreigners; teaching drawing, electricity, manual training, music and other subjects; conducting men’s and boys’ clubs and boy scout and big brothers work; giving noon shop talks in factories; giving instruction in hygiene and first aid, athletics, etc.; holding educational classes in labor unions; conducting socials, entertainments, observation trips and week-end camps; doing charity organization work; investigating working, living and recreative conditions, etc. ”

“ It seems possible in view of the facts stated in this second group of propositions to draw these conclusions. In states containing a relatively high urban population it is possible for wealth to command the services of a large proportion of persons for work in domestic service. ”

“ Indeed this obedience varies according to the various kinds of service wherein servants are connected with their masters. The sorts of servants most common among us are, 1. Labourers, or workmen, with whom we agree by the day, to do such work at such a price, and who accordingly serve us during that time: 2. ”

“ If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him.
If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him—speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution that he represents.
I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. ”

“ Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;
Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
And the long, long shift is over ... Master, I've earned it—Rest. ”

“ You will, however, in general, avail yourself of the services of any persons, whether fugitives from labor or not, who may offer them to the National Government; you will employ such persons in such services as they may be fitted for, either as ordinary employees, or, if special circumstances seem to require it, in any other capacity, with such organization, in squads, companies, or otherwise, as you deem most beneficial to the service. ”

“ It is as if the community entered into a sort of agreement with the worker to the effect that it will provide him with a living in return for definite service to the community or for the product of his labor. What we call "business" is SELLING A SERVICE. It may be personal service, such as teaching, or prescribing medicine, or nursing, or giving legal advice, or cutting hair, or driving a team, or running an automobile. ”

“ With regard to any particular service or concern, I would ask, Is it more convenient, more likely to lead to economy and efficiency, to let this service rest in the hands of some single person or group of persons who may offer to do the service or administer the concern, and whom we will call the owners, or to place it in the hands of some single person or group of persons, elected or chosen by lot, whom we will call the official or group of officials? ”

“ To attach the men to the system, as well as to confer upon them the due reward for their labour, he provided for all the workmen who had been injured, worn out, or become superannuated in his service. ”

“ The question how to improve the present condition of domestic service is, however, not a hopeless one, but the answer to it must be based on an examination of the historical and economic principles underlying the subject. ”

“ Service—purposeful service, not slavery—is productive of the highest satisfaction and is expressive of the divinest dignity. Service—more service, increased service, difficult service, adventurous service, and at last divine and perfect service—is the goal of time and the destination of space. ”

“ It is equally well settled, however, that it is the duty of the employer to select and retain servants who are fitted and competent for the service, and to furnish sufficient and safe materials, machinery, or other means by which it is to be performed, and to keep them in repair and order. ”

“ So with the engineer, the surveyor, the accountant, or the technician generally, who has to maintain standards of service and of efficiency against the bias of profit-making. So with the manager, the secretary, or the officer of a corporation — for here business as- sumes most nearly the aspect of a profession — who has to reconcile the trust imposed on him by his employers with the duty he owes to himself and to those whose service he in turn controls. ”

“ If we can improve the spirit and actual working conditions of these 326,000 men and women who do this [Pg 28] job, that in itself is an accomplishment, and it is just as certain to bring a consequent improvement in the service as the coming of tomorrow's sun. ”

“ William Adams Brown, "a service that is directed to the satisfaction of needs already in existence, and there is a service that is itself the creator of new needs which enlarge the capacity of the man to whom it would minister. ”

“ Just now for a little while we want to talk together about one of these, the potent yellow golden-touch. The word service has been thought of quite commonly as referring to certain restricted things that one may do for another. It has a broader meaning too. Whatever we do to help another is service. Not merely the direct activities, but praying and giving are service of most potent influence. Money supplies a channel through which one may reach most intimately to others, near by and around the world. It is the golden channel of service. ”

“ And doubt not that in the active life before you, you will find abundant opportunity for such service to your fellowmen as the plan of all creation thus summons you to render. Those who have chosen their profession can easily discern the particular benefit that in its exercise they can confer on others. Make the doing of that good your main design. True, it is by your labour you must live, and it would not be right or wise to forget this aspect of the case. ”

“ For a reform in domestic service a moral revolution is everywhere needed, bringing with it to every person an appreciation of his responsibility to all connected with the employment, whether employer or employee. ”

“ Stores, offices, shops, domestic service, messenger service absorb these boys and girls, untrained and unfocused, and the truly formidable burden is placed upon them of making their skilful way in the world. ”

“ Leete; "while frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted, every worker is allowed, of course, under certain regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. ”

“ As they are so truly our benefactors and furnish us with so much genuine enjoyment and absorbing interest, we are under obligation to repay their services to us by some form of service to them, which will minister also to the well-being of our communities. ”

“ He who employs laborers, with the right to command, is a master, and he who lets himself to work, with an obligation to obey, a servant. Thus there are house, or domestic servants, farm servants, shop servants, and various other servants ”

“ The classified service, the service in which the merit system is applied, has grown fast. It is true that the outside service where the spoils theories are still applied in all their original nakedness, has grown only less fast. ”

“ The interchange of commodities is a service rendered to the community. It ought to be so regarded, and the service rendered, rather than the gain secured, should be its inspiration and motive. The service of man is a form of the service of GOD, and the operations of financiers and business men ought to be capable of interpretation as forms of social service. ”

“ The old Company may have erred in the opposite direction, by permitting young fellows to enter their service before, indeed, their education was sufficiently advanced; yet, what able men they produced! ”

“ If we establish a system of professed workers, amateur or paid, we shall [Pg 27] quickly begin to hug our system, and perhaps to want to perpetuate it even to the extent of making work for it. Well, here we have then our wonderful company of visitors full of real care for the people, with time and intelligence to apply the wisest principles, did they but know them, with fullest thought, to individual cases; capable of inspiring confidence, of winning allegiance; of getting those whom they visit to understand what is best for their future, and to make up their minds to do it. ”

“ Their growth is part of the movement by which the fulfilment of function is substituted as a social force for the tradition of birth or race, by which the activity of service supersedes the passivity of station. ”

“ In your application at any time for a new service, express yourself with frankness and sincerity on every point of enquiry—Avoid the error of requiring too high wages—many good situations have been lost through it. Do not undertake a service to which you are not competent. It is no disgrace not to know every thing ”

“ The leading words of the title limit each other; it is a history of the civil service from the standpoint of the patronage, and of the patronage with regard solely to the public offices. The aim has been to give fully the development of policy and practice as to the relation of these two elements of our public life, from the foundation of the government to the present day. ”

“ You will do good service at least in teaching any of these who will listen to you, that if they can once make up their minds to a fixed state of life, and a fixed income, and a fixed expenditure—if they can by any means get their servants to stay long enough with them to fit into their places and know the run of the furrows—then something like service and mastership, and fulfilment of understood and reciprocal duty, may become possible ”

“ And yet, my boy, there are many in the world, with larger responsibilities than yours are at present; think, for instance, of a great employer of labour who has to decide great things, affecting, perhaps, the welfare of both his employés and his business. ”

“ The men in the employ of a great establishment can be taught a new interest in their task as they learn to understand its processes and the relation of these processes to society at large, which can easily be done by lectures, etc. Such work as this is a work that demands the leadership, the organizing power, which the employer can best furnish. ”

“ I am satisfied that both in and out of the classified service great benefit would accrue from the adoption of some system by which the officer would receive the distinction and benefit that in all private employments comes from exceptional faithfulness and efficiency in the performance of duty. ”

“ The first topic to which I shall call your attention is your daily employment, and by that I mean the method by which you earn your livelihood. Or, supposing that, having some independent means of support, you are not compelled to labour for your daily bread, then I shall point out that special form of work, the doing of which Providence has plainly made to be your duty. ”

“ We feel that a general Agency of this description to be really useful must embrace every variety of service, and that acute attention should be paid to the smallest trifle, often regulating the comfort and convenience of those by whom we are employed. ”

“ The supplies of various descriptions have been of good quality, and regularly issued at all of the posts. A system of economy and accountability has been introduced into every branch of the service which admits of little additional improvement. ”

“ Again, people about us are continually doing this service and that for some other people—running errands, mending fences, bearing messages, building, and tearing down; and they all demand equal service in return. ”

“ To the employers of operatives, and to all of wealth and influence amongst us, this example ought to manifest that a strict and diligent performance of daily duties, in work prolonged even more than in our own factories, is no impediment to the exercise of those faculties, and the gratification of those tastes, which, whatever was once thought, can no longer be held to be limited by station. ”

“ Be the Economic service whatever it may which any human being—from inventor to chattel slave—contributes to the satisfaction of human wants, such service belongs in the same basic category with every other Economic service. Consequently, it must be identified in fundamental Economic classification by the same technical term. ”

“ In either service a good and honourable career is open to you—for you have everything found for you, food, housing, clothing, and hospital, with good pay and the certainty of promotion and pension for the rest of your life if you make up your mind to serve loyally, steadily, and well. ”

“ We have a paper [Pg 170] organization which would exactly fit the accomplishments of men of that character. Men having exceptional knowledge of the handling and distribution of great quantities of supplies would be invaluable. ”