Page 157 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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Chapter 10

TO EMPLOYERS

mong many employers nowadays, we think of
Aone member who has spent much of his life in
the world of big business. He has hired and fired hun­
dreds of men. He knows the alcoholic as the employer
sees him. His present views ought to prove exception­
ally useful to business men everywhere.
But let him tell you:

I was at one time assistant manager of a corporation
department employing sixty-six hundred men. One
day my secretary came in saying that Mr. B— insisted
on speaking with me. I told her to say that I was not
interested. I had warned him several times that he
had but one more chance. Not long afterward he had
called me from Hartford on two successive days, so
drunk he could hardly speak. I told him he was
through—finally and forever.
My secretary returned to say that it was not Mr.
B— on the phone; it was Mr. B—’s brother, and he
wished to give me a message. I still expected a plea
for clemency, but these words came through the re­
ceiver: “I just wanted to tell you Paul jumped from a
hotel window in Hartford last Saturday. He left us a
note saying you were the best boss he ever had, and
that you were not to blame in any way.”
Another time, as I opened a letter which lay on my
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