April 30, 2018
This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
Today’s
story may have a theme that is found even today in the workforce. That is of finding good help or employees who
are dedicated to getting the work done they were hired to do. Well, this is a story about one of Geary
County’s successful farmers, who called the Junction City Union newspaper
office on a spring morning in 1912 to advertise for two farm hands he needed to
help him get his work done. However, he
did not specify whether they should have had experience working on a farm, but
simply stated emphatically that “they must be able to keep awake while on the
job during the day.” Apparently he had
just fired two of the laziest, sleepiest men that had ever loafed on a farm
job.
He
complained that there was a time in the past when hired hands would work from 4
AM until 9 PM each day for $10 a month, plus room and board. But those days were long gone. He recently hired two workers to drive horses
while pulling plows. The first day went
well, he stated, but soon the men began sleeping on the plow and would cut
corners at every turn wasting about two acres of field. One of them even erected an umbrella over the
plow so he could sleep in the shade.
When one of the workers wasn’t sleeping, he was smoking a cob pipe that
was so strong it made the horses sick every time the wind blew the smoke in
their direction. Finally, the farmer took to riding on a plow between them and
every time they neared a corner he would yell at them to wake them up. This went well until they became accustomed
to his voice and continued to sleep in spite of his yelling.
The farmer
became so frustrated, he fired them!!” That was the reason for the statement in
the want ad that anyone who applied needed to be able to keep awake while
working during the day.
And… that is
today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical
Society.
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