WHAT ARE YOU WORTH TO THE ORGANIZATION?

A father had three sons, and they wall worked as buyers for the same man, an old boyhood friend who was the broker and the President of a large import firm specializing in fine items from the Orient. One day the father went down to talk to his old friend. He went into the office and said, "Jim, my sons all work for you and I appreciate your company firing them. I have one question that is bothering me. You pay one of them $400 a week, one of them $500 a week and one of them $1,000. Why?" The President leaned back in his chair and was silent for a few moments. Then his face brightened as he answered, "Well, maybe I can show you why. Have you got enough time so that you can stay here awhile?" "Sure I can stay all day," the father said. "Fine, then make yourself at home here in the office and listen to my conversations with each of your sons." He picked up the phone and called one of the sons, the $400 son. The President said "I understand the cargo ship, Ontario, has just docked at the wharf loaded with goods. Please go down there and see what cargo it is carrying that we would be interested in buying and let me know." About five minutes later the President's telephone rang and the young man said "I didn't even have to go down there to get the information. I just telephoned and they said they have 500 bolts of silk on board." The President said "thank you" and shared this information with the father. He then buzzed the next son, the $500 son and said, "The Ontario has just docked, will you please go down and see what it has on board that we would be interested in and let me know at your earliest convenience." About an hour later the telephone rang and the second son said, "I just went down and checked the Ontario, it has 500 bolts of silk on board." The President said "thank you" and shared the information with the father. He then rang the third son, the $1,000 son, and he said, "The Ontario had docked," and told him the same story that he did the other two sons and made the same request. The young man returned four hours later and came to the President's Office. He said, "Well, the boat had 500 bolts of silk on board and all are excellent quality. I bought them for $200 each and filled that order we had waiting from one of our customers. He bought all of them from us for $400 each. The Ontario also had 200 oriental rugs. We don't usually handle rugs, but I know who does, so I called him long distance and made the sale. The deal will net us about $40,000. There were also 75 jade statues on board. I examined them and they looked beautiful to me, but you are the expert; you always handle the jade trade yourself, so I took an option on them for 24 hours so you can have time to go down and look at them and decide." The President said "thank you," and the young man left. The President then asked the father, "Is the question you asked when you came in answered?" "Yes," replied the father, "one of my sons didn't even obey you, the other one went only half way but the last one gave you everything he had." The bottom line of this story is:

LEARN TO TAKE AN ORDINARY JOB AND MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT!

A winner is always ready to find a way to EXCEL!