First-Class

Definition of the Term First-Class Men

By Rom Antony Day, B.A. Industrial and Organizational Psychology with Marketing Minor, 1994, California State University System (CSU’ SFSU), San Francisco, California, U.S.A..

Friday, August 24, 2007

Taylor’s definition of the term “First-Class Men” as he used it is furnished through an illustration, using the great capacity of horses. He used before the Special House Committee” this illustration in which he presented the “types of horses and the use for which they were intended. He explained how if you had 300 to 400 horses in a stable, you will have horses intended specially for hauling coal wagons, horses for hauling grocery wagons; you will have a certain number of trotting horses, a certain number of sattle (pleasure horses) and of ponies in that stable” (Frederick W. Taylor Father of Scientific Management, Vol. II, First edition 1923, reprinted 1969, pp. 76 to 77). Let’s say you ran out of coal hauling horses on a given day and you decide to use grocery wagon hauling horses he continued. The grocery hauling wagon horse would not be a first-class horse for hauling coal wagons. Would it? No, it would not. It would be a second class horse. You may not even have a grocery wagon hauling horse available, in which case, you may decide to use a treating horse; this would not be a first-class horse either. It would be a second class horse, he explained, or maybe even third for they are less fit than the grocery wagon hauling horse and much less than the coal wagon hauling horse to haul such a heavy duty, high weight material as coal. Last resort if you ran out of all the horses, you, at times, may need to use a Pony he said. The least fit of the three to haul coal wagons. However, do not think ponies are not physically fit; I remember my father while training a pony he had bought for me and my brother before our teenage years got thrown off of it and dragged around in circles. While ponies are not fully trained, they can wrestle you to ground fast and using the element of surprise. They seem easy to get them to do whatever you want them to or to be quickly tamable but they are not if you move on too heavily on them or try to tame them with too much force or heavy weight per my own observation. A pony while very welcoming and easy going can easily bring a tamer on his knees and drag him through the mud, hey, green grass and rocks. My dad was just hanging on to the rope. Luckily he did not get hurt when he pushed the pony too much or beyond the pony’s acceptable threshold of pain.

Now, the grocery wagon hauling horse would be a first-class horse to pull grocery wagons just as a trotting horse would be first-class, and not second class, for riding pleasure.

A pony might also be a first-class horse as far as say trotting for children and young adults under age 18 for gee 18 but not for adults over it. They may later on become first-class trotting horses for adults, but not coal-wagon hauling horses.

On a different dimension of objects from the henceforth mentioned, which used an animal kingdom specie, lets say now us that of an inanimate noun such as the coal wagons and grocery wagons. A coal-wagon is first-class wagon obviously for carrying coal, but not to carry groceries because it is not going to be very clean. Similarly with the case of grocery wagons, a grocery wagon is not a first-class wagon to carry coal for it might not stand the heavy weight. However, it would certainly be first-class to carry groceries.

An easy, yet, impractical solution may well be to make the load of coal wagon so light that even a pony could carry it, or a task so easy, at which point you are making a fool out of yourself, that the task can be done by a second class animal when in fact to be effective and efficient it most be made by a first-class animal. And that is an illustration of using, in specie different from the human specie, the term “First-Class” by Taylor in management.

Taylor’s metaphor was not intended to compare or diminish a worker or laborer’s dignity or value to that of an animal, namely, a horse, or of an inanimate noun such as a hauling wagon. It was nothing but a mere way of using a metaphor or parallel thinking to convey his point which took us as a variable out of the equation. He genuinely and savvyly took a scenario outside our own human species in a situation where human beings would decide which subject (i.e. horses and wagons) within their own categories would be best qualified to do or perform or achieve the job that required doing; which inanimate subject would be determined as first-class and on the basis on which the individual is determined to do the job is simply illustrated by the horses example. This utility of term is transferable personnel management and selection when used in determining who might be the best person fit or qualified to get a certain task or job done without regard to creed, skin color, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, political affiliation and gender. It is a nifty term for it allows you the broadest flexibility to view yourself as a “First-Class” at whatever it is you are very well qualified to do. And there can be I would think several first-class individual in any field which is very good.

On the one hand when used well in personnel selection, it is a neat way to find and select the crème of the crop (the high-caliber people) to do whatever job needs to be done. On the other hand, if not used well by making jobs too complicated (lumping three into one) or too simple that anybody can do it, one may end up wasting the knowledge, skills, abilities and experience of person doing a simple task which had it been delegated to a qualified person less experienced in breath and in depth it could have been done just as well or maybe better. You might end up, if the first-class men practice for the job is not used at all, having a poorly qualified person of narrow knowledge and shallow experience doing or overseeing a project or program or job which required wider or broader and more comprehensive (deeper) knowledge, skills, abilities and formal education. Thereby ending with negative or undesired results or no results whatsoever, and maybe even in the red from an accounting view point.

You see he, Taylor, took us humans out of the equation in his metaphor to allow us to see his point more easily. His attempt perhaps to show us the classifying of horses and wagons into first and second class was, in my view, to help us with seeing beyond ourselves, straight ahead and forward so that he could keep our minds open just by giving us an example which did not set up into classifying us, humans, into first and second class. Once he allowed us to see his point in a different world, he then showed us how to apply it in ours. And hopefully we have seen beyond the “salad days” or childish, immature reactions such as “he is comparing us to horses, godsh” or he is anti-union No, no, no, he was not. His point simply was every person just as every horse in the horses example can be First-Class or many of the best to do a certain kind of job based on what the job requires and the person’s knowledge, skills, abilities, education and or experience. And he firmly believe that an employee could not just demand higher wages without decreasing cost of production and increasing productivity thereby benefiting the employer, too. Justly so, he too believed that an employer could not overwork their employees, exploit them and keep blinders on them so as not to find out of company which offered better opportunities. In fact as stated in the book about him, he is referred as having such a Yankee mind that he did not only not put blinder on their employees to find out about potentially better employment opportunities. He told them about it too; and that is what qualified his mind as Yankee mind (page 73, vol 2). He, too, took people back whom returned to him for they deemed Taylor’s practices fairer and more financially rewarding and with better working environments.

Taylor was saying a machine can be first-class at his job like a CEO, Attorney, Surgeon can be at their respective jobs. And there may be second-class members in each profession, surely.

Just like a CEO or doctor is not likely to become first-class in mechanic, where he would be only a second class mechanic, the mechanic would never be a first-class CEO or doctor. He would be second-class doing a CEO’s, doctor’s or attorney’s job.

Nevertheless, this did not mean one cannot become first-class in another profession if one had the fortitude, self-discipline and consistency, and acquired the KSA’s (Knowledge, skills and abilities) and achievement results required to be deemed a First-Class individual in whichever profession, educational endeavor or sports.

Rom Antony Day, B.A. Industrial and Organizational Psychology with Marketing Minor, 1994, San Francisco State University (SFSU), San Francisco, California, U S A

An Individual Citizen of The United States of America (American), Thinker, do-err, and

Founder of PAC BAC *

Inducted Life Member of the National Honor Society in Psychology (PSI CHI).

Life Member of The Golden Key National Honor Society

PAC BAC is A Volunteer Club of Career Minded SFSU Alumni from the Psychology and Business programs

* PAC BAC was renamed to Business and Psychology Alumni Club, thus the acronym B.P.A.C.