One day, many years ago, I was talking with the president of our railroad and he gave me some priceless advice. He said, “Art, if you hire one more employee you should not automatically believe that you will increase the amount or the quality of work you produce. You might just be hiring someone for your other workers to talk with and your quality and your productivity could go down.” At that time I had just two part time employees, Roger, a fantastic photographer and sound man and an artist who made charts for the slide shows we were producing. I offered Roger full time employment with fringe benefits but he declined. He was an independent soul and treasured his freedom. I am certain that if Roger came on full time we would get less work done. When Roger reported to work he was ready to work and he worked non-stop until he went home.
Ever hear of the expression, “A lean, mean, fighting machine”? It means that you don’t have a lot of people standing around griping about things, that you have a well trained unit that knows exactly what their mission is and are eager to get to it. This sort of unit demands discipline and leadership. I sure hope that somehow we are developing that sort of people here in America today. – Art Fettig
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Art, still enjoying your message after all these years .. inspired by your desire to continue to improve and stay engaged in safety and life … keep up the good work.