Grandfather's advice still resonates 52 years later
Published: Sunday, May 15, 2011, 5:00 AM
In May of 1959, Billy Marchal received a letter from his grandfather, John W. Moore. As he recalls, his grampa handed it to him when his family went to his grandparents’ house for dinner one night.
John W. Moore“I think I just told him, ‘Thank you’ and put it away to read later,” Marchal says.
The New Orleanian had finished his junior year at Isidore Newman School and was about to begin his first job -- as an office boy with Standard Supply & Hardware Company, an offshore industrial supply company on Tchoupitoulas Street. It was a minimum wage position that involved such duties as running errands, sorting mail and making copies on the mimeograph machine.
“Dear Billy,” the letter began. “You are going to work, and I am so anxious that you get the right start.”
In a three-page single-spaced letter, Moore -- who had never mastered the electric typewriter -- painstakingly typed up his ideas for getting that “right start.” The letter included lessons he had learned in 69 years of living and five decades of working -- first as a farmhand, then as a railroad man and finally as a business owner in New Orleans.
High school and college students heading to summer jobs might want to consider Moore’s advice from 52 years ago.
Here are some excerpts from his letter:
“Work can be fun. Even if it takes a lifetime to prove it to you, earning money is more fun than spending it.”
“I want you to look at this job as a place to learn how business is done and be happy that you have a part in it, not sorry you have to work.”
“If I understood you right, you get $1.10 an hour, or $44 a week. I am a little sorry about that because you will simply have to earn that $1.10 an hour. If they paid you 50 cents an hour, they would likely expect about half as much work, and you could easily do it, but you must keep mighty busy to earn $1.10. And don’t forget this: If you do not earn it, they will not keep you on the payroll for long.”
“When you are ‘out of a job,’ ask someone, anyone in the office, ‘Isn’t there something I can do for you?’ Pretty soon you should know things you can do between errands to keep busy. Do them.”
“Begin at the very beginning to see how USEFUL you can be.”
“You will probably have to punch a clock to show what time you got to work and what time you left, but there is no law against your getting there five or 10 minutes early or leaving five or 10 minutes late, at least occasionally. You will find most of those who have executive jobs get there early, and many of them work till way after quitting time. That is the reason they are executives. If they weren’t willing to do this in years gone by and keep on doing it, they would not have an executive position.”
“Don’t be fooled. Every executive in the business will know, without looking at the clock card, whether you are a clock watcher or not, and clock watchers are not promoted. They are dismissed at the first opportunity.”
“Maybe you will not work for Standard more than this one summer, but how well you learn to work this summer will have a lot to do with how you work for somebody else in later years, and if you are good there, their recommendations would be worth a lot anywhere you might apply for a job.”
“If you have to make an outside delivery and are gone an hour, it has cost the company $1.10 to deliver that item. Many times this will be more than the item sells for. So wherever you go, go and come as quickly as possible.”
“Remember this. You were hired because they, the executives, need someone to help run the company. You are not working for them, but with them, and you must do your share. And remember this. The company could hardly get along without a president or head supervisor, but neither could it get along without an office boy. . . It ought to be fun, joining a good, big successful organization like Standard to help run the works.”
“No one can promote you but you. The only way you can even hope for a promotion is to do your work well and know how to do the other fellow’s work also. Then and then only can you be promoted to his desk or his work.”
“You will always get paid for the service you render. Little service, little pay. Much service, much pay. It is as inevitable as the rising sun. It is not how much you get but how much service you render that counts.”
He closed the letter to his grandson by writing, “Through it all you will need the blessing of God. Every and any life which does not take him into consideration is a hard one, so -- God bless you.”
Marchal never got to tell his grampa how much that letter meant to him. Moore died less than four years later, when Marchal was a junior in college, studying engineering at Georgia Tech. That was long before he came to fully appreciate his grandfather’s words.
Later, though, when he was a father of sons embarking on their first jobs, Marchal passed the letter along to them.
He first shared the letter with Bear, his older son, when Bear got a job working at a concession stand at Audubon Zoo. He was surprised, earlier this year, to receive a letter from Bear, 37, father of Will, almost 3.
Bear wrote to say that he had just come across his great-grandfather’s letter and that it had had “a much more profound impact” than it had when he’d read it all those years ago.
“Perhaps I’ve worked long enough at this point to know ‘first hand’ just how wise his words are,” Bear wrote. “Maybe it’s because it makes me think of guidance that I will be giving Will one day. I hope to be able to capture and communicate these lessons as well as your grandfather did. (I’ll probably do as you and give him the letter.)
Bear went on to say that he realized the lessons his great-grandfather offered still resonate today.
“Work ethic, value of a dollar earned, responsibility, integrity, taking charge of one’s own development/career, and going beyond the minimum job expectation to be successful are the main lessons that stand out to me,” he wrote.
He thanked his dad for passing along his grandfather’s wisdom.
“Reading the letter has helped me step back and get refocused on the core things needed to be successful,” he wrote. “Everything is built on this foundation.”
A foundation as solid as it was more than half a century ago.
Sheila Stroup's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in Living. Contact her at sstroup@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4831.
John W. MooreThe New Orleanian had finished his junior year at Isidore Newman School and was about to begin his first job -- as an office boy with Standard Supply & Hardware Company, an offshore industrial supply company on Tchoupitoulas Street. It was a minimum wage position that involved such duties as running errands, sorting mail and making copies on the mimeograph machine.
“Dear Billy,” the letter began. “You are going to work, and I am so anxious that you get the right start.”
In a three-page single-spaced letter, Moore -- who had never mastered the electric typewriter -- painstakingly typed up his ideas for getting that “right start.” The letter included lessons he had learned in 69 years of living and five decades of working -- first as a farmhand, then as a railroad man and finally as a business owner in New Orleans.
High school and college students heading to summer jobs might want to consider Moore’s advice from 52 years ago.
Here are some excerpts from his letter:
“Work can be fun. Even if it takes a lifetime to prove it to you, earning money is more fun than spending it.”
“I want you to look at this job as a place to learn how business is done and be happy that you have a part in it, not sorry you have to work.”
“If I understood you right, you get $1.10 an hour, or $44 a week. I am a little sorry about that because you will simply have to earn that $1.10 an hour. If they paid you 50 cents an hour, they would likely expect about half as much work, and you could easily do it, but you must keep mighty busy to earn $1.10. And don’t forget this: If you do not earn it, they will not keep you on the payroll for long.”
“When you are ‘out of a job,’ ask someone, anyone in the office, ‘Isn’t there something I can do for you?’ Pretty soon you should know things you can do between errands to keep busy. Do them.”
“Begin at the very beginning to see how USEFUL you can be.”
“You will probably have to punch a clock to show what time you got to work and what time you left, but there is no law against your getting there five or 10 minutes early or leaving five or 10 minutes late, at least occasionally. You will find most of those who have executive jobs get there early, and many of them work till way after quitting time. That is the reason they are executives. If they weren’t willing to do this in years gone by and keep on doing it, they would not have an executive position.”
“Don’t be fooled. Every executive in the business will know, without looking at the clock card, whether you are a clock watcher or not, and clock watchers are not promoted. They are dismissed at the first opportunity.”
“Maybe you will not work for Standard more than this one summer, but how well you learn to work this summer will have a lot to do with how you work for somebody else in later years, and if you are good there, their recommendations would be worth a lot anywhere you might apply for a job.”
“If you have to make an outside delivery and are gone an hour, it has cost the company $1.10 to deliver that item. Many times this will be more than the item sells for. So wherever you go, go and come as quickly as possible.”
“Remember this. You were hired because they, the executives, need someone to help run the company. You are not working for them, but with them, and you must do your share. And remember this. The company could hardly get along without a president or head supervisor, but neither could it get along without an office boy. . . It ought to be fun, joining a good, big successful organization like Standard to help run the works.”
“No one can promote you but you. The only way you can even hope for a promotion is to do your work well and know how to do the other fellow’s work also. Then and then only can you be promoted to his desk or his work.”
“You will always get paid for the service you render. Little service, little pay. Much service, much pay. It is as inevitable as the rising sun. It is not how much you get but how much service you render that counts.”
He closed the letter to his grandson by writing, “Through it all you will need the blessing of God. Every and any life which does not take him into consideration is a hard one, so -- God bless you.”
Marchal never got to tell his grampa how much that letter meant to him. Moore died less than four years later, when Marchal was a junior in college, studying engineering at Georgia Tech. That was long before he came to fully appreciate his grandfather’s words.
Later, though, when he was a father of sons embarking on their first jobs, Marchal passed the letter along to them.
He first shared the letter with Bear, his older son, when Bear got a job working at a concession stand at Audubon Zoo. He was surprised, earlier this year, to receive a letter from Bear, 37, father of Will, almost 3.
Bear wrote to say that he had just come across his great-grandfather’s letter and that it had had “a much more profound impact” than it had when he’d read it all those years ago.
“Perhaps I’ve worked long enough at this point to know ‘first hand’ just how wise his words are,” Bear wrote. “Maybe it’s because it makes me think of guidance that I will be giving Will one day. I hope to be able to capture and communicate these lessons as well as your grandfather did. (I’ll probably do as you and give him the letter.)
Bear went on to say that he realized the lessons his great-grandfather offered still resonate today.
“Work ethic, value of a dollar earned, responsibility, integrity, taking charge of one’s own development/career, and going beyond the minimum job expectation to be successful are the main lessons that stand out to me,” he wrote.
He thanked his dad for passing along his grandfather’s wisdom.
“Reading the letter has helped me step back and get refocused on the core things needed to be successful,” he wrote. “Everything is built on this foundation.”
A foundation as solid as it was more than half a century ago.
Sheila Stroup's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in Living. Contact her at sstroup@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4831.
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