CHAPTER I

   Whenever a new line of thought or a new method of attack on a social or economic problem is proposed, among the first reactions are likely to be the thoughts: - it is too simple to be practical, or, why should we bother with something different!

   Again in this highly technical world of ours, job names have different meanings to different men. The general manager of a wholesale house has about the same duties as the treasurer of a cotton mill. In three different industries the duties of an equipment engineer, a maintenance engineer and a millwright are about the same. Use the wrong name in talking with a man, and though you both mean the same work, he will misunderstand you. Describe the functions in work language and there is established a common ground for discussion and result.

     Continue until you have five of them. If well thought out they will describe accurately your capabilities for work. They will tell you more about yourself than you ever knew before. When you feel that you have done a good piece of work have your wife or mother check it. Try it on the grown up children.

    You will all be astonished at what you will learn, even though every one of you thought you knew the "you" that had been so familiar for years. Think of the effect that such a description will have on your friends and employers, not to mention your own morale.

   It is not only the big things in life that have a bearing on our future. Everything that we have done or experienced has its bearing on, and has contributed to what we are today. To picture our life and capabilities to ourselves as well as to others we must include everything.

   From the record of "What I Have Done" that we have carefully and exactly composed, let us pick one general classification - for example Engineer. If we follow that through the stages of idea, concept and field it will help us in describing the "Functions I Can Perform."

   We have told in our "What I Have Done" section that our engineering has been practiced in certain fields, in definite industries or localized activities. By stating clearly and comprehensively the fields in which our abilities can be used profitably we give further point and additional clarity to the word picture we are composing. A civil engineer who had worked all his life on railroad maintenance would probably not be very helpful in laying out the concrete work for Boulder Dam. A stationary engineer who had operated saw-mill power plants in the backwoods ought not to seek an opportunity to operate a large turbo-generating station.

   Experience has shown that any man can describe his capabilities accurately and adequately by stating fully five of these functions. We can perform satisfactorily any one of our five functions in the fields we have specified for each or any combination of them. The combined and somewhat complex abilities made up of two or more of the five primary functions we have set down, yield nine more "things we can do." What we actually have to offer therefore is not only the five primary "things we can do," but fourteen. A prospective employer may be interested in one only, but he has fourteen offered for his consideration. That covers a good deal of ground for the best of us.

   At the other extreme of the industrial scale from the vice president stood a man who spoke little English, who had been on relief for two years and who had been classified as a moron by three psychologists. Relief officials considered him a hopeless case. Guidance was given him in making out his Man Power Specification - which he wrote himself-and three weeks after its completion he was working at $50 a week. He still holds that same position.

   One sheet of paper will carry all the information that he needs in order to make a wise decision. He can read it in less than five minutes and retains a much more complete knowledge of you as you really are. He can determine how useful you might be to his organization and, if interested, can scan the supporting evidence.

   The result of making up such a folder of one's experience and preparations, focused down to the point of telling what one can do, has a most surprising reaction on the individual going through the thinking processes needful to a successful con clusion. Life is no longer a series of semi-hopeless interviews with men who do not want to listen to a stammered and badly told life history. Instead a concise well-thought-out word picture is presented which in itself makes a good impression.

   Now he is making out a new set of Specifications, using all the knowledge and experience gained in drawing up the first one, in the firm belief that he can once more double his pay.