Title: Thinking About It Is Worse Than Doing It

The Jorrie Furniture Company’s very first Employees was a man named Ray Tumlinson, and he had gone to work for my Grandfather, Reuben Jorrie about 1935.

It was his first and only job in the workplace,

and he was a wonderfully loyal and faithful Employee …

but while he would try faithfully to do anything asked of him,

he just wasn’t much good at anything.

Between Sam Jorrie and I, we had “manufactured” jobs for him and “carried him” on the payroll, for13 years!

In an attempt to “Do Right” by him and not just discard him callously after the Company had outgrown him,

finally I went to my Dad and explained to him that we really had to find a way to make Ray “Productive” to the Company or fire him.

He told me, (then, I was the President of Jorrie Furniture Company) to take as long as I wanted to figure out how to find another job for Ray,

and failing that, that I was to discharge him in the kindest, most gentle way possible.

For 13 weeks, I agonized every day over what I could do to help find a way to make Ray productive and I just couldn’t think of anything that he could do useful for the Company.

So one Friday afternoon, I called him to my office and said:

“Ray, you’ve been the Company’s Loyal and Faithful Employee for 27 years,

and for the last 13 years, we’ve manufactured jobs for you to try to find some “niche”where you can be Productive to the Company …

We’ve let you load trucks,work in the office, be an outside collector, buy trade ins and 2nd hand furniture, we’ve let you run a 2nd hand store that we created for you especially to give you something useful to do,

we’ve let you be a salesman on the retail floor, we’ve let you be in charge of keeping the floors “straight”

we’ve let you work in Customer Service, but we just can’t seem to find a place where you can be “Productive to the Company,”…

So what we’d like to do is to ask you to tell me

if there is any job in the Company that you think you can do,

       where the Company can earn a profit on you …and if you can,

and it’s within our power to do so, we’ll give you the job willingly …

because we will not forget your long years of Faithful Service to this Company,

and we will not just abandon you and “let you go” if there is any way out of it … but if we can’t, then we will have to ask you to find another job.

Do you know of anything that you can do for the Jorrie Furniture Company that will make you productive to it ?”

He answered “No, I’ll go find another job … but I do have a question to ask you …

What took you so long?”

WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME:

Sometimes it’s Harder to Think About Doing Something

than to Actually Do It!

Robert Jorrie