Chapter 10 HUMAN RELATIONS IN LIFE AND BUSINESS

1. Problems Growing from interdependence  We promised early in this book to tell more about some of the features of modern business life that are quite different from, say home or school life.  Reubens experiences- his account will be a good start toward making good on this promise.  Reuben- did not like the way his father bossed him on the farm, nor the way his mother tried to keep track of his spare-time pleasures. - After his 21 birthday, he left home to work in a small City. -he earned more money each week that his father had given him each month.  Poor distraught Reuben failed to realize that is life, like everyone elses, was bound to be complicated by people. He could not get away from them by running from the farm to the small city or from the mall city to the big one, for each of us is in partnership with hundreds of others. Job ability counts-perhaps more than previously for a small share of jobs-today it is essential to get along with people, on all kinds of jobs, if one is to get ahead. 2. Human Relations a Personal Matter  Human relations- it is simply getting along with other people, keeping their loyalty and good will. -whenever two or persons are work together, problems in human relation arise.  Contacts with others may be brief, but they may be momentous.

3. Human Relations Begin at Home  The individuals human relations begin in the family.  Sometimes these family relationships are rough. Unappreciative parents can strain childrens home relationships to the breaking point.  Dorothea L. Dix-the prison reformer who ran away from home to live with her more appreciative grandmother.  John Fitch-steamboat inventor -his nagging wife made home relations so uncomfortable for him that he left home and family.  School brings problems in human relation too.

 Matthew Vassar- founder of Vassar College walked out-the easiest way he could figure to solve his clash of temperament with his first boss, a tailor. Later Vassar took stock of himself and changed his philosophy from running away to My motto is progress.  Evasion, or walking out, seldom solves a problem. And it may start the habit of evading rather than solving. 4. Person-Centered Attitudes Needed That turret lathe sounds a bit sick. Get the master mechanic right away. That machine cost t much to let it break down. Ill back in half an hour to see how shes going.  Gertrude-a typist who stood in his office doorway.  Dont stand there acting like a baby he barked. You know where the first-aid room is. Dont be so clumsy next time. Accidents cost money.  People who are centered on machines, profits, or themselves are likely t have difficulties in human relations. Every individual is the center of his own universe, and his likes, interests, and aspirations have to be considered by others. 5. Principle of Reciprocal Behavior  The golden rule is an application of the principle of reciprocal behavior.  Aristotle-taught a version of that rule-we should behave to people as we would wish people to behave to us. Reciprocal behavior is an ageless principle.  You get back what you hand out-sometimes with interest added. That is the principle. 6. You-Point, a Key Approach  Listen in on conservations, and you will be amazed o hear how often the word I is used. It is the most used word in the language. But for good human relations, you should be used more.  It is not as easy to quit using I and substitute you as you Dolly Madison might think.  2 girls from the same office went on a mountain vacation together. Each sent numerous picture post cards t her fellow employees.  Blonde Mary wrote: you enjoy swimming and would love a dip in this sparkling lake. You could dance forever to the music of this band. Wish you were here. And on a card to her boss, she wrote; you would probably catch all the big trout on this stream.  Brunette Agnes wrote: I swim every afternoon, then I lie on the sand. Last night I slept under blankets. I dance to this band every evening and have met some lovely boys. And on her card to the boss, Agnes wrote; I miss the office and hope it misses me.  Mary had the you-point. Agnes was afflicted with I-strain. 7. From Family Sufficiency to Modern Business

 The you-point, reciprocal behavior, and person-centered attitudes are more needed now than in the past, because working conditions have change greatly.  Your ability to get along with others will be aided if you understand how these changes have affected human relations.  Family was the unit of industry-big families, with seven to ten children.  Many family names originated from a special ability of an ancestor. Such vocational names include: Baker, Butcher, Carpenter, Carver, Clark (clerk), Cooper, Mason, Shoemaker, Smith, and Taylor.  Eli Terry-one who had a special ability. He was a born mechanic. When he was twenty-while Washington was still President-Terry made his first wooden clock, works and all. It is still keeping god time!  Thomas Jefferson-was inaugurated, selling the clocks was so easy that Terry, then twenty-eight, hired two helpers. One of these was a fourteen-year-old boy, Seth Thomas, who became a skilled cabinetmaker. He built sturdy cases of cherry, maple, and pine for the tall grandfather clocks.  It was not until the time of the Civil War that Wanamaker and Macy started marking prices in plain figures and allowed no haggling.  The story of these clocks illustrates how human-relations problems pyramided with the growth of the country and business.  Many employees are practically strangers to one another and have scarcely a speaking with the boss. Human-relations problems, of individuals and of business, are more complicated as a result. 8. Congestion and Specialization  The shift from family industry to factory industry is more recent than you may have realized.  Seth Thomas- when he went into business for himself, there were no cigarettes, no baseball, no steel, no vertical files or carbon paper, no interchangeable parts.  The first adhesive postage stamps were yet to be invented- in England in 1839.  The first in the United States were used July 1Sth, 1847, in New York City.  Erie Canal-the speediest transportation.  -a mile and a half an hour at a cent and a half a mile. The only alarm clocks were family roosters, crowing in dawns early light. They never needed winding, but they could not be turned off for another cat nap.  Edward Jenner-he developed vaccination for smallpox in 1790 but people did not believe in it and preferred to die early, or to be disfigured by the pox like their fathers. Seths Thomass day-the life expectancy at birth was only 35 years.

 .  President Eisenhower has said: today the business of living is far complex than it was in my boyhood.  Electric motors and safety devices-made the modern elevator possible, which in turn made high buildings practicable.  We are apt to overlook the reward which lies in the deep personal satisfaction from doing something worthwhile , said Frank W. Pierce, a mechanical engineer who changed to personnel work and became president and director of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. The worker who merely solders two radio connections hour after hour does not gain that personal satisfaction of creating-but the high school boy who builds a crude radio set that actually works has a great thrill from his accomplishment.  Henry Ford II-has observed: Mass production did not invent the human equation, but it alter it in a number of important respects which we have been slow to take into account.  All these changes have made human relations the central problem for most people today. The changes have given some of feeling of futility that is a symptom of poor personal morale. 9. People Who Are Hard to Get Along With In business, said president George H. Bucker of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, we must have patience to bear with things that are not pleasant.  It takes all kinds of people to make the world. You will always be running into the faultfinding, bossy, critical, moody, outspoken, buck-passing, belittling, deceitful, jealous person and others who are a pain in the neck. 10. Levels of Human Relations  A human-relations problem may be largely individual, as getting along with a crotchety neighbor or handling a domineering fellow employee.  Group relations-the problem of one group getting along with a different group: such as members of one church getting along members of another church; or of diesinkers getting along with the time-study men.  Race relations-the problems may be still wider, as when people of different races have to live in the same community and work together.  International relations- when the relations between nations are involved.

11. Morale

 Morale in the individual is his zest for living and working-or lack of it.  Person with high morale-believes in himself, in his future, and in others. He thinks his work is worth doing, and that he is doing a good job at it.  -high morale makes a man unbeatable.  Good personal morale-is evidence that the person has adjusted his whims and aspirations to life as it must be lived.  Dr. Nancy C. Morse-has found a fall, then rise, of workers satisfaction, as reported for office clerks. The working conditions and treatment were the same for all these whitecollar people in the home office. But the workers went through what can be called an occupational morale cycle.  A persons morale is a rough index of how well he has solved his human relations.  Modern business has made an important niche for experts who are trained in psychological methods to ease the strains on human relations.