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Illustrations on this page are:

Overworked

Boss Or Leader

How To Succeed

Short Quotes

Use It Or Lose It

Do Right And Then Some

Excellence Involves Risk

Would You Hire Them?

Boss Or Leader?

A boss creates fear - a leader creates confidence.
A boss creates resentment - a leader breeds enthusiasm.

A boss says " I " - a leader says "We."
A boss fixes blame - a leader fixes mistakes.

A boss knows how - a leader shows how.
A boss makes work a drudgery - a leader makes work interesting.

A boss relies on authority - a leader relies on cooperation.
A boss drives - a leader leads.

Which are you?

Overworked

Are you always tired?
Some would think it is because of a lack of sleep.
Others might believe it is from too much pressure on the job.
The reason I'm tired is because of overwork!

The population of this country is 237 million.

  • 104 million are retired. That leaves 133 million to do the work.
  • There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work.
  • Of these there are 29 million employed by the federal government,
     leaving 19  million to do the work.
  • 2.8 million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 16.2 million to do the work.
  • Take from the total, the 14,800,000 people who work
     for the State and City  Governments and that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.
  • At any given time there are 188,000 people sick or hurt and in hospitals,
     leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.
  • Now there are 1,211,998 people in prisons.
     
  • That leaves just two people to do the work.
     
  • You and me.
     
  • And you're sitting at your computer reading this joke.

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Use It Or Lose It!

A manufacturing firm once used an advertisement which stated that it wasn't the Goths that defeated Rome; it was the free circuses.
Luxuries, power, indulgences had made the Roman people soft.
The ad went on to say that to stay popular, the  emperors gave the people more
and more of the ease they craved -- free bread,  free circuses, and easy living.

So, the Romans were too soft when the  ambitious, hard-working barbarians invaded.
Then, in A.D. 410 the greatest nation the world had ever seen fell.

We are beginning to understand the danger of complacency and neglect.
As someone once said: "When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence,
it may be that they take better care of it over there."

In the ‘60s and ‘70s it was out of vogue to talk about hard work.
Creative use of leisure was the concern of the day.
What we  forgot was that the human creature is designed in such a way that complacency
and neglect are destructive to the human spirit.

The time-honored principal -- “ use it to or lose it “ -- is still true!

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Excellence Involves Risk

Excellence requires not only hard work, but it also requires a spirit of adventure.

I read about a man who was invited to try out a friend's new sailboat.

The owner said, "I have been sailing for 70 years, and would you believe that in all those years
I have never tipped over a sailboat
?"

The other men looked at him unbelieving.
They were veteran sailors.

"Are you serious?" One of them asked.
"You sailed for 70 years and never tipped over?
 I don't think you have ever really sailed
."

The veteran sailors knew that part of sailing was the possibility of capsizing.

Excellence always involves risk!

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How To Succeed

1. Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands.

People with documents in their hands look like hard-working employees heading for important meetings.
People with nothing in their hands look like their heading for the cafeteria.
People with the newspaper in their hands look like their heading for the restroom.
Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

2. Use computers to look busy.
    
Anytime you use a computer, it looks like work to the casual observer.
You can send and receive personal email, calculate your finances and generally have a blast
without doing anything remotely related to work.

When you get caught by your boss – and you will get caught – your best defense  is to claim
you’re teaching yourself to use the new software, thus saving valuable training dollars.
You’re not a loafer, you’re a self-starter.
Offer to show your boss what you learned.
That will make your boss scurry away like a frightened salamander.

3. Messy desk.

Top management can get away with a clean desk.
For the rest of us, it looks like you’re not working hard enough.
Build huge piles of documents around your workspace.
To the observer, last year’s work looks the same as today’s work; it’s volume that counts.
Pile them high and wide.

If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle,
bury the document you’ll need halfway down in an existing stack
and rummage for it when he/she arrives.

4. Voice mail.

Never answer your phone if you have voice mail.
People don’t call you just because they want to give you something for nothing – they call because
they want you to do work for them.
That’s no way to live.

Screen all your calls through voice mail.
If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work,
respond during lunch hour.
That way, you’re hard-working and conscientious even though you’re being a devious weasel.

If you diligently employ the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls
when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that they will give up
or look for a solution that doesn’t involve you.

The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is “Ignore my last message. I took care of it.”
If your voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach
that “a limit” frequently.
One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages.

If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages.
Your callers will hear a recorded message that says, “Sorry, this mailbox is full” – a sure sign
 that you are a hard-working employee in high demand.

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Do Right And Then Some!

A successful salesman summed up his success in three simple words:
"And then some."

"I discovered at an early age that most of the differences
between average and successful people can be explained in three words.
The successful people did what was expected of them... and then some.

They were considerate of others; they were thoughtful and kind... and then some.

They met their obligations and responsibilities as expected of them... and then some.

They could be counted on in an emergency... and then some
."

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Would You Hire Them?

500 employees – would you hire them?

Can you imagine working at the following company?
It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:
29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
3 have been arrested for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 our current defendants in lawsuits
In 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving

This is the 535 members of your United States Congress.
This is the same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds
of all hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line.

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Short Quotes

Charles Schwab, the successful businessman, said,
 "I have yet to find the man, however exatled his station, who did not do better work
and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism
.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said:
"The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight.
 But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night
."

"I would rather fail in a cause that someday will triumph than to win in a cause
that I know someday will fail.
" —Woodrow Wilson

Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.

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