Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/34

 girl who is always ill, however slightly, who details her aches and her quarrels with her dressmaker, arid neighborhood gossip to her fellow-clerks, or even to her chief, if he allows her to talk on such subjects, is not in line for promotion. Men promote girls who have the health to do more work' not those who complain of being tired from what they are doing already.

Business colleges and commercial schoois, however thorough, generally neglect one branch in preparing girls for office work. Perhaps the word "branch" is misleading. Properly speaking, they fail to train or develop the bump of discretion. They preach accuracy, but they forget to inculcate the golden gift of silence. Many a graduate, wise in stenographic pot-hooks and rapid on the typewriter, has lost her first position, and more, because she did not realize that there is a time to talk and a time to keep silent.

There are times when to tell what you know is almost criminal. Your employer must trust you more or less if you are his stenographer or secretary. Even small matters, appealing to you as unimportant, may be vital to him. You are not the judge. In silence lies safety.

A lawyer, who was just making a name for himself, was blessed, or cursed, with a jealous wife. His private stenographer knew this and used rare discretion in replying to telephone calls, to which his wife was particularly given.