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一个晴朗的下午，我在第五大街上闲逛，忽然想起要买双袜子。我拐进印入眼帘的第一家袜店，一个不到17岁的伙计迎上来说：“先生,我能为您效劳吗?”
“我想买双短袜。” 他的双眼充满了热情，说话的声音也饱含着激情：“您知道吗?您来到了世界上最好的袜店!”可我并没意识到这一点。
“随我来，”男孩欣喜若狂地说。我跟着他往里走。他开始从货架上拿下一个又一个盒子，向我展示里面的袜子，让我欣赏……
One fine afternoon I was walking along Fifth Avenue, when I remembered that
it was necessary to buy a pair of socks. I turned into the first sock shop that
caught my eye, and a boy clerk who could not have been more than seventeen years
old came forward. “What can I do for you, sir?” “I wish to buy a pair of socks.”
His eyes glowed. There was a note of passion in his voice. “Did you know that
you had come into the finest place in the world to buy socks?” I had not been
aware of that, as my entrance had been accidental. “Come with me,” said the boy,
ecstatically. I followed him to the rear of the shop, and he began to haul down
from the shelves box after box, displaying their contents for my
delectation.
“Hold on, lad, I am going to buy only one pair!” “I know that,” said he,
“but I want you to see how marvelously beautiful these are. Aren’t they
wonderful?” There was on his face an expression of solemn and holy rapture, as
if he were revealing to me the mysteries of his religion. I became far more
interested in him than in the socks. I looked at him in amazement. “My friend,”
said I, “if you can keep this up, if this is not merely the enthusiasm that
comes from novelty, from having a new job, if you can keep up this zeal and
excitement day after day, in ten years you will own every sock in the United
States.”
My amazement at his pride and joy in salesmanship will be easily understood
by all who read this article. In many shops the customer has to wait for someone
to wait upon him. And when finally some clerk does deign to notice you, you are
made to feel as if you were interrupting him. Either he is absorbed in profound
thought in which he hates to be disturbed or he is skylarking with a girl clerk
and you feel like apologizing for thrusting yourself into such intimacy.
He displays no interest either in you or in the goods he is paid to sell.
Yet possibly that very clerk who is now so apathetic began his career with hope
and enthusiasm. The daily grind was too much for him; the novelty wore off; his
only pleasures were found outside of working hours. He became a mechanical, not
inspired, salesman. After being mechanical, he became incompetent; then he saw
younger clerks who had more zest in their work, promoted over him. He became
sour. That was the last stage. His usefulness was over.
I have observed this melancholy decline in the lives of so many men in so
many occupations that I have come to the conclusion that the surest road to
failure is to do things mechanically. There are many teachers in schools and
colleges who seem duller than the dullest of their pupils; they go through the
motions of teaching, but they are as impersonal as a telephone. |
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发表于 2016-7-10 11:31:12