Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/302

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things, and have an ordinary amount of intelligence, he knows that in time you will earn your salary.

He does not want to know that you need a new hat, or that your invalid brother needs a rolling-chair, or that your mother is ill and ought to hire a maid with your salary, or that your father has met with reverses. If any of these afflictions have befallen your family, you are welcome to spend your salary alleviating them; but the one important factor in this man's calculations is: "Will she do the work and do it well?"

Tell him what you can do or what you mean to do when you are trained for the work, and never mind how you expect to spend your salary. Talk of your talents, not of your troubles. Stand on your merit as a worker, and not on your needs. Then your employer will say: "Here is a business-like, self-reliant girl, and I need her."

Girls, earning your living is work—and if you are not very careful it degenerates into the most monotonous, deadening, slavish form of work. Your one salvation will be your sincerity, your enthusiasm. Start out by believing in your employer, in yourself, and in your ability to rise. If you do this you will be the sort of girl the business world needs, the sort of girl who has