THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR 585to render service that would make the law of increasing returns work
for him.
Was he told to do this? No.
Was he paid to do it? Yes! He was paid by the opportunity it
offered for him to bring himself to the attention of the man who
had it within his power to promote him.
We are now approaching the most important part of this lesson,
because this is an appropriate place to suggest that you have the same
opportunity to make use of the law of increasing returns that Mr.
Downes had, and you can go about the application of the law in exactly
the same way that he did-by being on hand and ready to volunteer
your services in the performance of work that others may shirk because
they are not paid to do it.
Stop. Don't say it-don't even think it-if you have the slightest
intention of using the argument "but my employer is different:'
Of course yours is different. All people are different in most
respects, but the majority are very much alike in being somewhat selfish.
In fact they are selfish enough not to want a man such as Carol Downes
to go to work for their competitor, and this very selfishness may be
made to serve you as an asset, not as a liability-if you have the good
judgment to make yourself so useful that the person to whom you sell
your services cannot get along without you.
One of the most advantageous promotions I ever received came
about through an incident that seemed so insignificant at the time
that it appeared to be unimportant. One Saturday afternoon, a lawyer
whose office was on the same floor as that of my employer came in and
asked if I knew where he could get a stenographer to do some work
that he was compelled to finish that day.
I told him that all our stenographers had gone to the ball game,
and that I would have been gone too had he called five minutes later,
but that I would be very glad to stay and do his work as I could go to
a ball game any day and his work had to be done then.