乔治·洛里默/George Lorimer
While we're on this subject of favors I want to impress on you the importance of deciding promptly. Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clear and straight and lays bare the fat and the lean；indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it. Say yes or no—seldom perhaps.
When a fellow asks for a job in your department there may be reasons why you hate to give him a clear-cut refusal, but tell him frankly that you see no possibility of placing him, and while he may not like the taste of the medicine, he swallows it and it's down and forgotten. But you say to him that you're very sorry your department is full just now, but that you think a place will come along later and that he shall have the frst call on it, and he goes away with his teeth in a job. You've simply postponed your trouble for a few weeks or months. And trouble postponed always has to be met with accruedinterest.
Of course, I don't mean that you want to go rampaging along, trampling on people's feelings and goring every one who sticks up a head in your path. But there's no use shilly-shallying and doddering with people who ask questions and favors they have no right to ask. Don't hurt any one if you can help it, but if you must, a clean, quick wound heals soonest.
When you can, it's better to refuse a request by letter. In a letter you need say only what you choose；in a talk you may have to say more than you want to say.
With the best system in the world you'll find it impossible, however, to keep a good many people who have no real business with you from seeing you and wasting your time. Of course, the man whose errand could be attended to by the offce-boy is always the one who calls loudest for the boss, but with a little tact you can weed out most of these fellows, and it's better to see ten bores than to miss one buyer.
You've got to open a good many oysters to fnd a pearl.