Imperial Valley Press

DALE CARNEGIE Author of How to Win Friends and Influence People

This item is for bosses. If you're not a boss, don't read it, unless, of course, you mean to some day become a boss.

Employers, don't ever get the idea you can't learn something new about your business from the humblest person in your employ.

Robert K. Christenberry is an outstanding hotel man. He has been a hotel man most of his life. His name is spoken with awe in the hotel world. There's not a curlycue in the whole business he doesn't know. He is general manager of the famous Hotel Astor, in New York.

One day as he was walking thru a corridor in his hotel, he saw a scrub woman down on her knees scrubbing the marble hallway. He paused and watched her for a moment, then asked her if a wire brush wouldn't make the job easier than the bristle brush she was using.

The woman said she thought it wouldn't be a good idea, then explained why. She said that a wire brush would make scratches on the marble and on the cement; these would fill with dirt and pretty soon the halls would look gray and smudged.

Mr. Christenberry had not thought of that. He made a few experiments and learned that what the scrub woman had said was true. He found that most of the scrub women in the hotel were using wire brushes. He ordered their use discontinued and bristle brushes substituted. His hotel has exceptionally clean looking corridors. And the credit is probably due to a humble woman down on her knees working with a scrubbing brush.

Be always on the lookout for new ideas. You succeed or perish by your ideas. Learn from anybody you can. Don't think that just because a woman is on her knees that she can't tell you things you don't know.