I picked up a handful of sand and let it stream between my fingers. In the past, whenever my work went well, there had
always been something spontaneous about it, something uncontrived, something free. Lately, it had been calculated,
competentand dead. Why? Because I had been looking past the job itself to the rewards I hoped it would bring. The work
had ceased to be an end in itself, it had been merely a means to make money, pay bills. The sense of giving something, of
helping people, of making a contribution, had been lost in a frantic clutch at security.
In a flash of certainty, I saw that if one’s motives are wrong, nothing can be right. It makes no difference whether you are
a mailman, a hairdresser, an insurance salesman, a housewifewhatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do
the job well. When you are concerned only with helping yourself, you do it less well. This is a law as inexorable as gravity.
For a long time I sat there. Far out on the bar I heard the murmur of the surf change to a hollow roar as the tide turned.
Behind me the spears of light were almost horizontal. My time at the beach had almost run out, and I felt a grudging
admiration for the doctor and the “prescriptions” he had so casually and cunningly devised. I saw, now, that in them was a
therapeutic progression that might well be of value to anyone facing any difficulty.
LISTEN CAREFULLY: To calm a frantic mind, slow it down, shift the focus from inner problems to outer things.
TRY REACHING BACK: Since the human mind can hold but one idea at a time, you blot out present worry when you
touch the happiness of the past.
REEXAMINE YOUR MOTIVES: This was the hard core of the “treatment,” this challenge to reappraise, to bring one’s
motives into alignment with one’s capabilities and conscience. But the mind must be clear and receptive to do thishence the
six hours of quiet that went before.
The western sky was a blaze of crimson as I took out the last slip of paper. Six words this time. I walked slowly out on
the beach. A few yards below the high water mark, I stopped and read the words again: WRITE YOUR TROUBLES ON THE
SAND.
I let the paper blow away, reached down and picked up a fragment of shell. Kneeling there under the vault of the sky, I
wrote several words on the sand, one above the other. Then I walked away, and I did not look back. I had written my
troubles on the sand. And the tide was coming in.
Source: Gordon, A. (1959). A day at the beach. Reader’s Digest. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
89)
What other prescriptions could the author take besides the four mentioned here? Generate your own list based
on your own experiences with stress.
90)
Identify the stressor that work redesign focuses on eliminating. Explain the key components of Hackman’s
model of job redesign and provide examples of how the model can be applied to reduce stress–producing job
strain.
The Turn of the Tide
Not long ago I came to one of those bleak periods that many of us encounter from time to time, a sudden drastic dip in
the graph of living when everything goes stale and flat, energy wanes, and enthusiasm dies. The effect on my work was
frightening. Every morning I would clench my teeth and mutter: “Today life will take on some of its old meaning. You’ve got
to break through this thing. You’ve got to!“
But the barren days went by, and the paralysis grew worse. The time came when I knew I had to have help. The man I
turned to was a doctor. Not a psychiatrist, just a doctor. He was older than I, and under his surface gruffness lay great
wisdom and compassion. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I told him miserably, “but I just seem to have come to a dead end.
38
Can you help me?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. He made a tent of his fingers and gazed at me thoughtfully for a long while. Then,
abruptly, he asked, “Where were you happiest as a child?”
“As a child?” I echoed. “Why, at the beach, I suppose. We had a summer cottage there. We all loved it.“
He looked out the window and watched the October leaves sifting down. “Are you capable of following instructions for a
single day?”
“I think so,” I said, ready to try anything.
“All right. Here’s what I want you to do.”
He told me to drive to the beach alone the following morning, arriving not later than nine o‘clock. I could take some
lunch; but I was not to read, write, listen to the radio, or talk to anyone. “In addition,” he said, “I’ll give you a prescription to
be taken every three hours.”
He then tore off four prescription blanks, wrote a few words on each, folded them, numbered them, and handed them to
me. “Take these at nine, twelve, three, and six.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
He gave a short bark of laughter. “You won’t think I’m joking when you get my bill!”
The next morning, with little faith, I drove to the beach. It was lonely, all right. A northeaster was blowing; the sea looked
gray and angry. I sat in the car, the whole day stretching emptily before me. Then I took out the first of the folded slips of
paper. On it was written: LISTEN CAREFULLY.
I stared at the two words. “Why,” I thought, “the man must be mad.” He had ruled out music and newscasts and human
conversation. What else was there? I raised my head and I did listen. There were no sounds but the steady roar of the sea, the
creaking cry of a gull, the drone of some aircraft high overhead. All these sounds were familiar. I got out of the car. A gust of
wind slammed the door with a sudden clap of sound. “Am I supposed to listen carefully to things like that?” I asked myself.
I climbed a dune and looked out over the deserted beach. Here, the sea bellowed so loudly that all other sounds were
lost. And yet, I thought suddenly, there must be sounds beneath soundsthe soft rasp of drifting sand, the tiny wind
whisperings in the dune grassesif the listener got close enough to hear them.
On an impulse I ducked down and, feeling fairly ridiculous, thrust my head into a clump of sea oats. Here, I made a
discovery: If you listen intently, there is a fractional moment in which everything seems to pause, wait. In that instant of
stillness, the racing thoughts halt. For a moment, when you truly listen for something outside yourself, you have to silence
the clamorous voices within. The mind rests.
I went back to the car and slid behind the wheel. LISTEN CAREFULLY. As I listened again to the deep growl of the sea, I
found myself thinking about the white–fanged fury of its storms.
I thought of the lessons it had taught us as children. A certain amount of patience: you can’t hurry the tides. A great deal
of respect: the sea does not suffer fools gladly. An awareness of the vast and mysterious interdependence of things: wind and
tide and current, calm and squall and hurricane, all combining to determine the paths of the birds above and the fish below.
And the cleanness of it all, with every beach swept twice a day by the great broom of the sea. Sitting there, I realized I was
thinking of things bigger than myselfand there was relief in that.
Even so, the morning passed slowly. The habit of hurling myself at a problem was so strong that I felt lost without it.
Once, when I was wistfully eyeing the car radio, a phrase from Carlyle jumped into my head: “Silence is the element in which
great things fashion themselves.”
By noon, the wind had polished the clouds out of the sky, and the sea had merry sparkle. I unfolded the second
“prescription.” And again I sat there, half amused and half exasperated. Three words this time: TRY REACHING BACK. Back
to what? To the past, obviously. But why, when all my worries concerned the present or the future?
I left the car and started tramping reflectively along the dunes. The doctor had sent me to the beach because it was a
place of happy memories. Maybe that was what I was supposed to reach for: the wealth of happiness that lay half–forgotten
behind me.
I decided to experiment: to work on these vague impressions as a painter would, retouching the colors, strengthening the
outlines. I would choose specific incidents and recapture as many details as possible. I would visualize people complete with
dress and gestures. I would listen (carefully) for the exact sound of their voices, the echo of their laughter.
The tide was going out now, but there was still thunder in the surf. So I chose to go back 20 years to the last fishing trip I
made with my younger brother. (He died in the Pacific during World War II and was buried in the Philippines.) I found that
if I closed my eyes and really tried, I could see him with amazing vividness, even the humor and eagerness in his eyes that
far–off morning. In fact, I could see it all: the ivory scimitar of beach where we were fishing; the eastern sky smeared with
sunrise; the great rollers creaming in, stately and slow. I could feel the backwash swirl warm around my knees, see the
sudden arc of my brother’s rod as he struck a fish, hear his exultant yell. Piece by piece I rebuilt it, clear and unchanged under
39
the transparent varnish of time. Then it was gone.
I sat up slowly. TRY REACHING BACK. Happy people were usually assured, confident people. If, then, you deliberately
reached back and touched happiness, might there not be released little flashes of power, tiny sources of strength?
This second period of the day went more quickly. As the sun began its long slant down the sky, my mind ranged eagerly
through the past, reliving some episodes, uncovering others that had been completely forgotten. For example, when I was
around 13 and my brother 10, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunch there was a phone call: Some urgent
business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say, “No, I won’t be
down. It’ll have to wait.”
When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. “The circus keeps coming back, you know.“
“I know,” said Father. “But childhood doesn’t.”
Across all the years I remembered this and knew from the sudden glow of warmth that no kindness is ever wasted or
ever completely lost.
By three o’clock, the tide was out and the sound of the waves was only a rhythmic whisper, like a giant breathing. I
stayed in my sandy nest, feeling relaxed and contentand a little complacent. The doctor’s prescriptions, I thought, were easy
to take.
But I was not prepared for the next one. This time, the three words were not a gentle suggestion. They sounded more like
a command. REEXAMINE YOUR MOTIVES.
My first reaction was purely defensive. “There’s nothing wrong with my motives,” I said to myself. “I want to be
successfulwho doesn’t? I want to have a certain amount of recognitionbut so does everybody. I want more security than
I’ve gotand why not?”
“Maybe,” said a small voice somewhere inside my head, “those motives aren’t good enough. Maybe that’s the reason the
wheels have stopped going around.”
I picked up a handful of sand and let it stream between my fingers. In the past, whenever my work went well, there had
always been something spontaneous about it, something uncontrived, something free. Lately, it had been calculated,
competentand dead. Why? Because I had been looking past the job itself to the rewards I hoped it would bring. The work
had ceased to be an end in itself, it had been merely a means to make money, pay bills. The sense of giving something, of
helping people, of making a contribution, had been lost in a frantic clutch at security.
In a flash of certainty, I saw that if one’s motives are wrong, nothing can be right. It makes no difference whether you are
a mailman, a hairdresser, an insurance salesman, a housewifewhatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do
the job well. When you are concerned only with helping yourself, you do it less well. This is a law as inexorable as gravity.
For a long time I sat there. Far out on the bar I heard the murmur of the surf change to a hollow roar as the tide turned.
Behind me the spears of light were almost horizontal. My time at the beach had almost run out, and I felt a grudging
admiration for the doctor and the “prescriptions” he had so casually and cunningly devised. I saw, now, that in them was a
therapeutic progression that might well be of value to anyone facing any difficulty.
LISTEN CAREFULLY: To calm a frantic mind, slow it down, shift the focus from inner problems to outer things.
TRY REACHING BACK: Since the human mind can hold but one idea at a time, you blot out present worry when you
touch the happiness of the past.
REEXAMINE YOUR MOTIVES: This was the hard core of the “treatment,” this challenge to reappraise, to bring one’s
motives into alignment with one’s capabilities and conscience. But the mind must be clear and receptive to do thishence the
six hours of quiet that went before.
The western sky was a blaze of crimson as I took out the last slip of paper. Six words this time. I walked slowly out on
the beach. A few yards below the high water mark, I stopped and read the words again: WRITE YOUR TROUBLES ON THE
SAND.
I let the paper blow away, reached down and picked up a fragment of shell. Kneeling there under the vault of the sky, I
wrote several words on the sand, one above the other. Then I walked away, and I did not look back. I had written my
troubles on the sand. And the tide was coming in.
Source: Gordon, A. (1959). A day at the beach. Reader’s Digest. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
40
91)
How was the stressed man’s emotional intelligence developed through the beach experience? Provide
justification for your answer.
92)
Are these prescriptions effective coping strategies or merely escapes?
The Case of the Missing Time
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 23, 1959, Chet Craig, manager of the Norris Company’s Central Plant,
swung his car out of the driveway of his suburban home and headed toward the plant located some six miles away, just
inside the Midvale city limits. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining brightly and a cool, fresh breeze was blowing. The
trip to the plant took about 20 minutes and sometimes gave Chet an opportunity to think about plant problems without
interruption.
The Norris Company owned and operated three printing plants. Norris enjoyed a nationwide commercial business,
specializing in quality color work. It was a closely held company with some 350 employees, nearly half of whom were
employed at the Central Plant, the largest of the three Norris production operations. The company’s main offices were also
located in the Central Plant building.
Chet had started with the Norris Company as an expediter in its Eastern Plant in 1948, just after he graduated from Ohio
State. After three years Chet was promoted to production supervisor, and two years later he was made assistant to the
manager of the Eastern Plant. Early in 1957, he was transferred to the Central Plant as assistant to the plant manager and one
month later was promoted to plant manager when the former manager retired (see Figure 7).
Chet was in fine spirits as he relaxed behind the wheel. As his car picked up speed, the hum of the tires on the newly
paved highway faded into the background. Various thoughts occurred to him, and he said to himself, “This is going to be the
day to really get things done.”
He began to run through the day’s work, first one project, then another, trying to establish priorities. After a few minutes,
he decided that the open–end unit scheduling was probably the most important, certainly the most urgent. He frowned for a
moment as he recalled that on Friday the vice president and general manager had casually asked him if he had given the
project any further thought. Chet realized that he had not been giving it much thought lately. He had been meaning to get to
work on this idea for over three months, but something else always seemed to crop up. “I haven’t had much time to sit down
and really work it out,” he said to himself. “I’d better get going and hit this one today for sure.” With that, he began to break
down the objectives, procedures, and installation steps of the project. He grinned as he reviewed the principles involved and
calculated roughly the anticipated savings. “It’s about time,” he told himself. “This idea should have been followed up long
ago.” Chet remembered that he had first conceived of the open–end unit scheduling idea nearly a year and a half ago, just
prior to his leaving Norris’s Eastern Plant. He had spoken to his boss, Jim Quince, manager of the Eastern Plant, about it then,
and both agreed that it was worth looking into. The idea was temporarily shelved when he was transferred to the Central
Plant a month later.
A blast from a passing horn startled him, but his thoughts quickly returned to other plant projects he was determined to
get underway. He started to think through a procedure for simpler transport of dies to and from the Eastern Plant.
Visualizing the notes on his desk, he thought about the inventory analysis he needed to identify and eliminate some of the
slow–moving stock items, the packing controls that needed revision, and the need to design a new special–order form. He
also decided that this was the day to settle on a job printer to do the simple outside printing of office forms. There were a few
other projects he couldn’t recall offhand, but he could tend to them after lunch, if not before. “Yes, sir,” he said to himself,
“this is the day to really get rolling.”
Chet’s thoughts were interrupted as he pulled into the company parking lot. When he entered the plant Chet knew
something was wrong as he met Al Noren, the stockroom foreman, who appeared troubled. “A great morning, Al,” Chet
greeted him cheerfully.
“Not so good, Chet; my new man isn’t in this morning,” Noren growled.
“Have you heard from him?” asked Chet.
“No, I haven’t,” replied Al.
41
Chet frowned as he commented, “These stock handlers assume you take it for granted that if they‘re not here, they’re not
here, and they don’t have to call in and verify it. Better ask Personnel to call him.“
Al hesitated for a moment before replying, “Okay, Chet, but can you find me a man? I have two cars to unload today.”
As Chet turned to leave, he said, “I’ll call you in half an hour, Al, and let you know.“
Making a mental note of the situation, Chet headed for his office. He greeted the group of workers huddled around
Marilyn, the office manager, who was discussing the day’s work schedule with them. As the meeting broke up, Marilyn
picked up a few samples from the clasper, showed them to Chet, and asked if they should be shipped that way or if it would
be necessary to inspect them. Before he could answer, Marilyn went on to ask if he could suggest another clerical operator for
the sealing machine to replace the regular operator, who was home ill. She also told him that Gene, the industrial engineer,
had called and was waiting to hear from Chet.
After telling Marilyn to go ahead and ship the samples, he made a note of the need for a sealer operator for the office and
then called Gene. He agreed to stop by Gene’s office before lunch and started on his routine morning tour of the plant. He
asked each foreman the types and volumes of orders they were running, the number of people present, how the schedules
were coming along, and the orders to be run next; helped the folding–room foreman find temporary storage space for
consolidating a carload shipment; discussed quality control with a pressman who had been running poor work; arranged to
transfer four people temporarily to different departments, including two for Al in the stockroom; and talked to the shipping
foreman about pickups and special orders to be delivered that day. As he continued through the plant, he saw to it that
reserve stock was moved out of the forward stock area, talked to another pressman about his requested change of vacation
schedule, had a “heart–to–heart” talk with a press helper who seemed to need frequent reassurance, and approved two type
and one color–order okays for different pressmen.
Returning to his office, Chet reviewed the production reports on the larger orders against his initial productions and
found that the plant was running behind schedule. He called in the folding–room foreman and together they went over the
lineup of machines and made several necessary changes.
During this discussion, the composing–room foreman stopped in to cover several type changes, and the routing foreman
telephoned for approval of a revised printing schedule. The stockroom foreman called twice, first to inform him that two
standard, fast–moving stock items were dangerously low, later to advise him that the paper stock for the urgent Dillion job
had finally arrived. Chet made the necessary subsequent calls to inform those concerned.
He then began to put delivery dates on important and difficult inquiries received from customers and salesmen. (The
routine inquiries were handled by Marilyn.) While he was doing this he was interrupted twice, once by a sales correspondent
calling from the West Coast to ask for a better delivery date than originally scheduled, once by the personnel vice president
asking him to set a time when he could hold an initial training and induction interview with a new employee.
After dating the customer and salesmen inquiries, Chet headed for his morning conference in the executive offices. At
this meeting, he answered the sales vice president’s questions in connection with “hot” orders, complaints, and the status of
large–volume orders and potential new orders. He then met with the general manager to discuss a few ticklish policy matters
and to answer “the old man’s” questions on several specific production and personnel problems. Before leaving the executive
offices, he stopped at the office of the secretary–treasurer to inquire about delivery of cartons, paper, and boxes and to place a
new order for paper.
On the way back to his own office, Chet conferred with Gene about two current engineering projects concerning which
he had called earlier. When he reached his desk, he looked at his watch. It was 10 minutes before lunch, just time enough to
make a few notes of the details he needed to check in order to answer the knotty questions raised by the sales manager that
morning.
After lunch, Chet started again. He began by checking the previous day’s production reports, did some rescheduling to
get out urgent orders, placed appropriate delivery dates on new orders and inquiries received that morning, and consulted
with a foreman on a personal problem. He spent some 20 minutes at the TWX going over mutual problems with the Eastern
Plant.
By midafternoon, Chet had made another tour of the plant, after which he met with the personnel director to review with
him a touchy personal problem raised by one of the clerical employees, the vacation schedules submitted by his foremen, and
the pending job–evaluation program. Following this conference, Chet hurried back to his office to complete the special
statistical report for Universal Waxing Corporation, one of Norris’s best customers. As he finished the report, he discovered
that it was 10 minutes after six and he was the only one left in the office. Chet was tired. He put on his coat and headed
through the plant toward the parking lot; on the way, he was stopped by both the night supervisor and night layout foremen
for approval of type and layout changes.
With both eyes on the traffic, Chet reviewed the day he had just completed. “Busy?” he asked himself. “Too much sobut
did I accomplish anything?” His mind raced over the day’s activities. “Yes and no” seemed to be the answer. “There was the
42
usual routine, the same as any other day. The plant kept going and I think it must have been a good production day. Any
creative or special–project work done?” Chet grimaced as he reluctantly answered, “No.”
With a feeling of guilt, he probed further. “Am I an executive? I’m paid like one, respected like one, and have a
responsible assignment with the necessary authority to carry it out. Yet one of the greatest values a company derives from an
executive is his creative thinking and accomplishments. What have I done about it? An executive needs some time for
thinking. Today was a typical day, just like most other days, and I did little, if any, creative work. The projects that I so
enthusiastically planned to work on this morning are exactly as they were yesterday. What’s more, I have no guarantee that
tomorrow night or the next night will bring me any closer to their completion. This is the real problem and there must be an
answer.“
Chet continued, “Night work? Yes, occasionally. This is understood. But I’ve been doing too much of this lately. I owe my
wife and family some of my time. When you come down to it, they are the people for whom I’m really working. If I am
forced to spend much more time away from them, I’m not meeting my own personal objectives. What about church work?
Should I eliminate that? I spend a lot of time on this, but I feel I owe God some time, too. Besides, I believe I’m making a
worthwhile contribution in this work. Perhaps I can squeeze a little time from my fraternal activities. But where does
recreation fit in?”
Chet groped for the solution. “Maybe I’m just rationalizing because I schedule my own work poorly. But I don’t think so.
I’ve studied my work habits carefully and I think I plan intelligently and delegate authority. Do I need an assistant? Possibly,
but that’s a long–term project and I don’t believe I could justify the additional overhead expenditure. Anyway, I doubt
whether it would solve the problem.”
By this time, Chet had turned off the highway onto the side street leading to his homethe problem still uppermost in his
mind. “I guess I really don’t know the answer,” he told himself as he pulled into his driveway. “This morning everything
seemed so simple, but now …” His thoughts were interrupted as he saw his son running toward the car calling out, “Mommy,
Daddy’s home.”
Source: McNichols, T. J. (1973). The case of the missing time. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Kellogg School of
Business.
93)
Which of Chet’s personal characteristics inhibit his effective management of time?
The Turn of the Tide
Not long ago I came to one of those bleak periods that many of us encounter from time to time, a sudden drastic dip in
the graph of living when everything goes stale and flat, energy wanes, and enthusiasm dies. The effect on my work was
frightening. Every morning I would clench my teeth and mutter: “Today life will take on some of its old meaning. You’ve got
to break through this thing. You’ve got to!“
But the barren days went by, and the paralysis grew worse. The time came when I knew I had to have help. The man I
turned to was a doctor. Not a psychiatrist, just a doctor. He was older than I, and under his surface gruffness lay great
wisdom and compassion. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I told him miserably, “but I just seem to have come to a dead end.
Can you help me?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. He made a tent of his fingers and gazed at me thoughtfully for a long while. Then,
abruptly, he asked, “Where were you happiest as a child?”
“As a child?” I echoed. “Why, at the beach, I suppose. We had a summer cottage there. We all loved it.“
He looked out the window and watched the October leaves sifting down. “Are you capable of following instructions for a
single day?”
“I think so,” I said, ready to try anything.
“All right. Here’s what I want you to do.”
He told me to drive to the beach alone the following morning, arriving not later than nine o‘clock. I could take some
lunch; but I was not to read, write, listen to the radio, or talk to anyone. “In addition,” he said, “I’ll give you a prescription to
be taken every three hours.”
He then tore off four prescription blanks, wrote a few words on each, folded them, numbered them, and handed them to
me. “Take these at nine, twelve, three, and six.”
43
“Are you serious?” I asked.
He gave a short bark of laughter. “You won’t think I’m joking when you get my bill!”
The next morning, with little faith, I drove to the beach. It was lonely, all right. A northeaster was blowing; the sea looked
gray and angry. I sat in the car, the whole day stretching emptily before me. Then I took out the first of the folded slips of
paper. On it was written: LISTEN CAREFULLY.
I stared at the two words. “Why,” I thought, “the man must be mad.” He had ruled out music and newscasts and human
conversation. What else was there? I raised my head and I did listen. There were no sounds but the steady roar of the sea, the
creaking cry of a gull, the drone of some aircraft high overhead. All these sounds were familiar. I got out of the car. A gust of
wind slammed the door with a sudden clap of sound. “Am I supposed to listen carefully to things like that?” I asked myself.
I climbed a dune and looked out over the deserted beach. Here, the sea bellowed so loudly that all other sounds were
lost. And yet, I thought suddenly, there must be sounds beneath soundsthe soft rasp of drifting sand, the tiny wind
whisperings in the dune grassesif the listener got close enough to hear them.
On an impulse I ducked down and, feeling fairly ridiculous, thrust my head into a clump of sea oats. Here, I made a
discovery: If you listen intently, there is a fractional moment in which everything seems to pause, wait. In that instant of
stillness, the racing thoughts halt. For a moment, when you truly listen for something outside yourself, you have to silence
the clamorous voices within. The mind rests.
I went back to the car and slid behind the wheel. LISTEN CAREFULLY. As I listened again to the deep growl of the sea, I
found myself thinking about the white–fanged fury of its storms.
I thought of the lessons it had taught us as children. A certain amount of patience: you can’t hurry the tides. A great deal
of respect: the sea does not suffer fools gladly. An awareness of the vast and mysterious interdependence of things: wind and
tide and current, calm and squall and hurricane, all combining to determine the paths of the birds above and the fish below.
And the cleanness of it all, with every beach swept twice a day by the great broom of the sea. Sitting there, I realized I was
thinking of things bigger than myselfand there was relief in that.
Even so, the morning passed slowly. The habit of hurling myself at a problem was so strong that I felt lost without it.
Once, when I was wistfully eyeing the car radio, a phrase from Carlyle jumped into my head: “Silence is the element in which
great things fashion themselves.”
By noon, the wind had polished the clouds out of the sky, and the sea had merry sparkle. I unfolded the second
“prescription.” And again I sat there, half amused and half exasperated. Three words this time: TRY REACHING BACK. Back
to what? To the past, obviously. But why, when all my worries concerned the present or the future?
I left the car and started tramping reflectively along the dunes. The doctor had sent me to the beach because it was a
place of happy memories. Maybe that was what I was supposed to reach for: the wealth of happiness that lay half–forgotten
behind me.
I decided to experiment: to work on these vague impressions as a painter would, retouching the colors, strengthening the
outlines. I would choose specific incidents and recapture as many details as possible. I would visualize people complete with
dress and gestures. I would listen (carefully) for the exact sound of their voices, the echo of their laughter.
The tide was going out now, but there was still thunder in the surf. So I chose to go back 20 years to the last fishing trip I
made with my younger brother. (He died in the Pacific during World War II and was buried in the Philippines.) I found that
if I closed my eyes and really tried, I could see him with amazing vividness, even the humor and eagerness in his eyes that
far–off morning. In fact, I could see it all: the ivory scimitar of beach where we were fishing; the eastern sky smeared with
sunrise; the great rollers creaming in, stately and slow. I could feel the backwash swirl warm around my knees, see the
sudden arc of my brother’s rod as he struck a fish, hear his exultant yell. Piece by piece I rebuilt it, clear and unchanged under
the transparent varnish of time. Then it was gone.
I sat up slowly. TRY REACHING BACK. Happy people were usually assured, confident people. If, then, you deliberately
reached back and touched happiness, might there not be released little flashes of power, tiny sources of strength?
This second period of the day went more quickly. As the sun began its long slant down the sky, my mind ranged eagerly
through the past, reliving some episodes, uncovering others that had been completely forgotten. For example, when I was
around 13 and my brother 10, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunch there was a phone call: Some urgent
business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say, “No, I won’t be
down. It’ll have to wait.”
When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. “The circus keeps coming back, you know.“
“I know,” said Father. “But childhood doesn’t.”
Across all the years I remembered this and knew from the sudden glow of warmth that no kindness is ever wasted or
ever completely lost.
By three o’clock, the tide was out and the sound of the waves was only a rhythmic whisper, like a giant breathing. I
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stayed in my sandy nest, feeling relaxed and contentand a little complacent. The doctor’s prescriptions, I thought, were easy
to take.
But I was not prepared for the next one. This time, the three words were not a gentle suggestion. They sounded more like
a command. REEXAMINE YOUR MOTIVES.
My first reaction was purely defensive. “There’s nothing wrong with my motives,” I said to myself. “I want to be
successfulwho doesn’t? I want to have a certain amount of recognitionbut so does everybody. I want more security than
I’ve gotand why not?”
“Maybe,” said a small voice somewhere inside my head, “those motives aren’t good enough. Maybe that’s the reason the
wheels have stopped going around.”
I picked up a handful of sand and let it stream between my fingers. In the past, whenever my work went well, there had
always been something spontaneous about it, something uncontrived, something free. Lately, it had been calculated,
competentand dead. Why? Because I had been looking past the job itself to the rewards I hoped it would bring. The work
had ceased to be an end in itself, it had been merely a means to make money, pay bills. The sense of giving something, of
helping people, of making a contribution, had been lost in a frantic clutch at security.
In a flash of certainty, I saw that if one’s motives are wrong, nothing can be right. It makes no difference whether you are
a mailman, a hairdresser, an insurance salesman, a housewifewhatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do
the job well. When you are concerned only with helping yourself, you do it less well. This is a law as inexorable as gravity.
For a long time I sat there. Far out on the bar I heard the murmur of the surf change to a hollow roar as the tide turned.
Behind me the spears of light were almost horizontal. My time at the beach had almost run out, and I felt a grudging
admiration for the doctor and the “prescriptions” he had so casually and cunningly devised. I saw, now, that in them was a
therapeutic progression that might well be of value to anyone facing any difficulty.
LISTEN CAREFULLY: To calm a frantic mind, slow it down, shift the focus from inner problems to outer things.
TRY REACHING BACK: Since the human mind can hold but one idea at a time, you blot out present worry when you
touch the happiness of the past.
REEXAMINE YOUR MOTIVES: This was the hard core of the “treatment,” this challenge to reappraise, to bring one’s
motives into alignment with one’s capabilities and conscience. But the mind must be clear and receptive to do thishence the
six hours of quiet that went before.
The western sky was a blaze of crimson as I took out the last slip of paper. Six words this time. I walked slowly out on
the beach. A few yards below the high water mark, I stopped and read the words again: WRITE YOUR TROUBLES ON THE
SAND.
I let the paper blow away, reached down and picked up a fragment of shell. Kneeling there under the vault of the sky, I
wrote several words on the sand, one above the other. Then I walked away, and I did not look back. I had written my
troubles on the sand. And the tide was coming in.
Source: Gordon, A. (1959). A day at the beach. Reader’s Digest. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
94)
What is effective about these strategies for coping with stress, and why did they work?
95)
Compare and contrast the four major kinds of stressors.
The Case of the Missing Time
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 23, 1959, Chet Craig, manager of the Norris Company’s Central Plant,
swung his car out of the driveway of his suburban home and headed toward the plant located some six miles away, just
inside the Midvale city limits. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining brightly and a cool, fresh breeze was blowing. The
trip to the plant took about 20 minutes and sometimes gave Chet an opportunity to think about plant problems without
interruption.
The Norris Company owned and operated three printing plants. Norris enjoyed a nationwide commercial business,
specializing in quality color work. It was a closely held company with some 350 employees, nearly half of whom were
employed at the Central Plant, the largest of the three Norris production operations. The company’s main offices were also
located in the Central Plant building.
Chet had started with the Norris Company as an expediter in its Eastern Plant in 1948, just after he graduated from Ohio
State. After three years Chet was promoted to production supervisor, and two years later he was made assistant to the
manager of the Eastern Plant. Early in 1957, he was transferred to the Central Plant as assistant to the plant manager and one
month later was promoted to plant manager when the former manager retired (see Figure 7).
Chet was in fine spirits as he relaxed behind the wheel. As his car picked up speed, the hum of the tires on the newly
paved highway faded into the background. Various thoughts occurred to him, and he said to himself, “This is going to be the
day to really get things done.”
He began to run through the day’s work, first one project, then another, trying to establish priorities. After a few minutes,
he decided that the open–end unit scheduling was probably the most important, certainly the most urgent. He frowned for a
moment as he recalled that on Friday the vice president and general manager had casually asked him if he had given the
project any further thought. Chet realized that he had not been giving it much thought lately. He had been meaning to get to
work on this idea for over three months, but something else always seemed to crop up. “I haven’t had much time to sit down
and really work it out,” he said to himself. “I’d better get going and hit this one today for sure.” With that, he began to break
down the objectives, procedures, and installation steps of the project. He grinned as he reviewed the principles involved and
calculated roughly the anticipated savings. “It’s about time,” he told himself. “This idea should have been followed up long
ago.” Chet remembered that he had first conceived of the open–end unit scheduling idea nearly a year and a half ago, just
prior to his leaving Norris’s Eastern Plant. He had spoken to his boss, Jim Quince, manager of the Eastern Plant, about it then,
and both agreed that it was worth looking into. The idea was temporarily shelved when he was transferred to the Central
Plant a month later.
A blast from a passing horn startled him, but his thoughts quickly returned to other plant projects he was determined to
get underway. He started to think through a procedure for simpler transport of dies to and from the Eastern Plant.
Visualizing the notes on his desk, he thought about the inventory analysis he needed to identify and eliminate some of the
slow–moving stock items, the packing controls that needed revision, and the need to design a new special–order form. He
also decided that this was the day to settle on a job printer to do the simple outside printing of office forms. There were a few
other projects he couldn’t recall offhand, but he could tend to them after lunch, if not before. “Yes, sir,” he said to himself,
“this is the day to really get rolling.”
Chet’s thoughts were interrupted as he pulled into the company parking lot. When he entered the plant Chet knew
something was wrong as he met Al Noren, the stockroom foreman, who appeared troubled. “A great morning, Al,” Chet
greeted him cheerfully.
“Not so good, Chet; my new man isn’t in this morning,” Noren growled.
“Have you heard from him?” asked Chet.
“No, I haven’t,” replied Al.
Chet frowned as he commented, “These stock handlers assume you take it for granted that if they‘re not here, they’re not
here, and they don’t have to call in and verify it. Better ask Personnel to call him.“
Al hesitated for a moment before replying, “Okay, Chet, but can you find me a man? I have two cars to unload today.”
As Chet turned to leave, he said, “I’ll call you in half an hour, Al, and let you know.“
Making a mental note of the situation, Chet headed for his office. He greeted the group of workers huddled around
Marilyn, the office manager, who was discussing the day’s work schedule with them. As the meeting broke up, Marilyn
picked up a few samples from the clasper, showed them to Chet, and asked if they should be shipped that way or if it would
be necessary to inspect them. Before he could answer, Marilyn went on to ask if he could suggest another clerical operator for
the sealing machine to replace the regular operator, who was home ill. She also told him that Gene, the industrial engineer,
had called and was waiting to hear from Chet.
After telling Marilyn to go ahead and ship the samples, he made a note of the need for a sealer operator for the office and
then called Gene. He agreed to stop by Gene’s office before lunch and started on his routine morning tour of the plant. He
46
asked each foreman the types and volumes of orders they were running, the number of people present, how the schedules
were coming along, and the orders to be run next; helped the folding–room foreman find temporary storage space for
consolidating a carload shipment; discussed quality control with a pressman who had been running poor work; arranged to
transfer four people temporarily to different departments, including two for Al in the stockroom; and talked to the shipping
foreman about pickups and special orders to be delivered that day. As he continued through the plant, he saw to it that
reserve stock was moved out of the forward stock area, talked to another pressman about his requested change of vacation
schedule, had a “heart–to–heart” talk with a press helper who seemed to need frequent reassurance, and approved two type
and one color–order okays for different pressmen.
Returning to his office, Chet reviewed the production reports on the larger orders against his initial productions and
found that the plant was running behind schedule. He called in the folding–room foreman and together they went over the
lineup of machines and made several necessary changes.
During this discussion, the composing–room foreman stopped in to cover several type changes, and the routing foreman
telephoned for approval of a revised printing schedule. The stockroom foreman called twice, first to inform him that two
standard, fast–moving stock items were dangerously low, later to advise him that the paper stock for the urgent Dillion job
had finally arrived. Chet made the necessary subsequent calls to inform those concerned.
He then began to put delivery dates on important and difficult inquiries received from customers and salesmen. (The
routine inquiries were handled by Marilyn.) While he was doing this he was interrupted twice, once by a sales correspondent
calling from the West Coast to ask for a better delivery date than originally scheduled, once by the personnel vice president
asking him to set a time when he could hold an initial training and induction interview with a new employee.
After dating the customer and salesmen inquiries, Chet headed for his morning conference in the executive offices. At
this meeting, he answered the sales vice president’s questions in connection with “hot” orders, complaints, and the status of
large–volume orders and potential new orders. He then met with the general manager to discuss a few ticklish policy matters
and to answer “the old man’s” questions on several specific production and personnel problems. Before leaving the executive
offices, he stopped at the office of the secretary–treasurer to inquire about delivery of cartons, paper, and boxes and to place a
new order for paper.
On the way back to his own office, Chet conferred with Gene about two current engineering projects concerning which
he had called earlier. When he reached his desk, he looked at his watch. It was 10 minutes before lunch, just time enough to
make a few notes of the details he needed to check in order to answer the knotty questions raised by the sales manager that
morning.
After lunch, Chet started again. He began by checking the previous day’s production reports, did some rescheduling to
get out urgent orders, placed appropriate delivery dates on new orders and inquiries received that morning, and consulted
with a foreman on a personal problem. He spent some 20 minutes at the TWX going over mutual problems with the Eastern
Plant.
By midafternoon, Chet had made another tour of the plant, after which he met with the personnel director to review with
him a touchy personal problem raised by one of the clerical employees, the vacation schedules submitted by his foremen, and
the pending job–evaluation program. Following this conference, Chet hurried back to his office to complete the special
statistical report for Universal Waxing Corporation, one of Norris’s best customers. As he finished the report, he discovered
that it was 10 minutes after six and he was the only one left in the office. Chet was tired. He put on his coat and headed
through the plant toward the parking lot; on the way, he was stopped by both the night supervisor and night layout foremen
for approval of type and layout changes.
With both eyes on the traffic, Chet reviewed the day he had just completed. “Busy?” he asked himself. “Too much sobut
did I accomplish anything?” His mind raced over the day’s activities. “Yes and no” seemed to be the answer. “There was the
usual routine, the same as any other day. The plant kept going and I think it must have been a good production day. Any
creative or special–project work done?” Chet grimaced as he reluctantly answered, “No.”
With a feeling of guilt, he probed further. “Am I an executive? I’m paid like one, respected like one, and have a
responsible assignment with the necessary authority to carry it out. Yet one of the greatest values a company derives from an
executive is his creative thinking and accomplishments. What have I done about it? An executive needs some time for
thinking. Today was a typical day, just like most other days, and I did little, if any, creative work. The projects that I so
enthusiastically planned to work on this morning are exactly as they were yesterday. What’s more, I have no guarantee that
tomorrow night or the next night will bring me any closer to their completion. This is the real problem and there must be an
answer.“
Chet continued, “Night work? Yes, occasionally. This is understood. But I’ve been doing too much of this lately. I owe my
wife and family some of my time. When you come down to it, they are the people for whom I’m really working. If I am
forced to spend much more time away from them, I’m not meeting my own personal objectives. What about church work?
47
Should I eliminate that? I spend a lot of time on this, but I feel I owe God some time, too. Besides, I believe I’m making a
worthwhile contribution in this work. Perhaps I can squeeze a little time from my fraternal activities. But where does
recreation fit in?”
Chet groped for the solution. “Maybe I’m just rationalizing because I schedule my own work poorly. But I don’t think so.
I’ve studied my work habits carefully and I think I plan intelligently and delegate authority. Do I need an assistant? Possibly,
but that’s a long–term project and I don’t believe I could justify the additional overhead expenditure. Anyway, I doubt
whether it would solve the problem.”
By this time, Chet had turned off the highway onto the side street leading to his homethe problem still uppermost in his
mind. “I guess I really don’t know the answer,” he told himself as he pulled into his driveway. “This morning everything
seemed so simple, but now …” His thoughts were interrupted as he saw his son running toward the car calling out, “Mommy,
Daddy’s home.”
Source: McNichols, T. J. (1973). The case of the missing time. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Kellogg School of
Business.
96)
How could Chet build a stronger sense of community to manage his stress?
97)
Describe the difference(s) between managing time effectively as opposed to efficiently. Describe the key aspects
related to managing time using an effectiveness approach.
Answer Key
Testname: C2
Answer Key
Testname: C2
55)
D
56)
57)
58)
59)
60)
61)
62)
63)
64)
65)
66)
67)
68)
69)
70)
71)
72)
73)
74)
75)
76)
77)
78)
79)
50
51)
D
52)
C
53)
C
54)
D
Answer Key
Testname: C2
51
Answer Key
Testname: C2
52
Answer Key
Testname: C2
53