New Camden Times
New cream works! But then
Didn't the old cream too? Well,
Jump into ice cream!
LITTLE FREDDIE - MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE ©PortWhitmanTimes2006
Out in the factory yard, it was Freddie's job to shovel up the slag from where it came out of the ore works as waste, over to a place where it could be re-introduced to the process as a more or less raw material, to eventually become steel. A dirty, mean job it was, too. "Hey, Freddie - workin hard? Haw, haw," the mill workers would shout to the bespec-tacled twenty-one year old, as they went back and forth to the plant. They mostly all started at the very same level of work themselves, and therefore knew the bone-weariness that accompanies a day's work of that kind. Freddie, nevertheless, kept on keepin' on, as the saying now goes, for he was supporting himself and hoping to attend night school as soon as his eyes were better.
Freddie's analytical mind immediately perceived the boring struggle to survive his life would become if he remained on this bottom rung. But he also contem-plated, as he lugged the dirty waste, that the job-o-work could be improved upon if approached with a fresh outlook each day. So that is what he proceeded to do. He turned the procedure of taking a sho-vel, scooping up what it would hold and carrying it to another place into an organ-ized train of little movements, analyzed and classified them according to the old traditional method, then re-devised a new one and put them back to work. He did this not once but several times, each time keeping part of the task and throwing away part until the best - a combination of many parts of the different ways, and even some of the original way, finally materialized. It was as though he took a picture puzzle and redesigned and recut the pieces so that they could be easily reassembled in a far shorter time, with much less effort. Then he practiced and put them together - fast. He showed what he'd done to his boss, and was very short-ly promoted. It was 1878; Freddie was 21
His eyesight did improve and he, studying for an Engineering degree at night, began to move up through the fac-tory ranks by sheer ingenuity and the use of his new scientific approach to each job he held. By 1884 he was Chief Engineer at the plant where he had started as a yard boy a scant six years before. But most important - he had discovered how to discover, and how to apply his discovery to something useful. His new approach to the organization and performance of work was quite radical for that time, as work had been more or less eyeballed, then Problems were always solved empir-ically, by Rule of Thumb. Sort of "Well, what'll we do, fellas!" Someone would come up with what seemed like a reason-able suggestion, and that would be that. One thing, though...Freddie didn't stumble upon his scientific approach. He invented it, plotted it from scratch with a fearless creative mind, then applied it to ALL work - factory, office, transpor-tation, the whole Industrial Megilla. He eventually developed a brand new profession, that of Consulting Engineer in Management. Frederick Winslow Taylor then went on to use it and to educate others in the use of this same approach to all of business.
Henry Francisco - PW Times
LIMERICKS© Port Whitman Times
We fathom little
Past what we can whittle
Down to a carving
Of life beyond starving
Consigning a lifetime committal
Doors to life's riches
Are guarded in niches
Whose locks are constructed
Thenceforth are conducted
With keys unfound in your britches
Opportunities found
Just lying around
Might spell rejections,
Convey imperfections
Considered but reckoned unsound
Henry Francisco
We pass here but once
So don't be a dunce
Make the most of existence
Go, travel the distance
Addressing what one confronts
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