itted by the man at the door
and in the same way often takes care of them without disturbing the
president. He knows more about the petty routine of the job than the
president himself. He is accurate. He is responsible. He is patient. He
is courteous.

In order that he may be all these things it is necessary for the
president to keep him well informed as to what he is doing and where he
is going and what he is planning so that he can give intelligent answers
to the people who come, so that he can keep things running smoothly when
the president is away, so that he can answer without delay when the
president asks whether he has a luncheon engagement on Thursday, and
what he did with the memorandum from the circulation manager, and who is
handling the shipping sheets.

Men who have their minds on larger matters cannot keep all the details
of their jobs in mind, but it is significant to know that most
successful business men know with more than a fair degree of accuracy
what these details amount to. Some secretaries feel very superior to the
men who employ them because they can remember the date on which the
representatives of the Gettem Company called and the employers cannot.
The author knows a chauffeur who drives for a famous New York surgeon
who thinks himself a much better man than the surgeon because he can
remember the numbers of the houses where his patients and his friends
live and the surgeon cannot. The author also knows a messenger boy who
thinks himself a much bigger man than one of the most successful brokers
in Wall Street because the broker sometimes gives him the same message
twice within fifteen minutes, the second time after it has already been
delivered.

The secretary comes to the office every morning neatly clad and on time.
The hour at which his employer comes in has nothing to do with him.
There is a definite time at which he is expected to be at his desk. He
is there.

He opens the letters on his desk--and those addressed to the president
come first to him--and sorts them, throwing aside the worthless
advertising matter, saving that which may be of some interest, marking
the letters that are to be referred to various other members of the
house, and placing them in the memorandum basket, piling into one heap
those that he cannot answer without first consulting the president, and
into another those which must be answered by the president personally.
Intimately personal letters often come mixed i