Chapter 8 CHAPTER VII CORRECTING BOAT

When I was a junior in college in 1936, the U.S. government released a national income ranking list, and my father's name was at the top of the list.His annual income of $365,000 is even higher than that of Will Rogers.The newspapers dubbed his father the "Sunday Daughter," and he was viciously compared to "Captain Kidd of industry" and "the last robber baron."These words upset my father, who felt that his income reflected the value he created for IBM shareholders; in fact, the company was doing so well that every few years he felt it necessary to let the Reduce your own profit and dividend ratio to prevent your salary from being too eye-catching.Having a father who is "everyday rich" doesn't bother me.I was still trying to get Isabel back, but after my father's wealth was published in the newspapers, many girls suddenly showed more interest in me than before.

Neither President Roosevelt nor the Great Depression seemed remote to me.Apart from repeatedly mentioning that Roosevelt was a great man, my father rarely discussed politics with me.But his liberal ideas gradually influenced me, and I began to realize the importance of social justice.The more I pondered the federal relief bill, the more I was struck by it.By 1936, I had had a bitter disagreement with the fraternity buddies who supported Alf Landon's presidential bid.Then, shortly after Roosevelt's reelection, I went to Cuba for spring break with some fraternity buddies.We had a great time on a cruise from New York.Havana at the time was famous for all kinds of sex services, and if you wanted to have fun, it was the place to be.But when I got home, I started thinking: How bad it is for Cubans that their country is becoming a place for rich Americans to hang out.

The meaning of the New Deal wasn't the only thing I learned from my father.That elderly gentleman somehow touched my heart by his preaching, by his actions, and by his great tolerance for my misbehavior.Sometime around my sophomore year, I started learning how to self-discipline. My roommate that year was a funny guy from Pittsburgh named David Ignatius Bartholomew Mclahill III, also rich kid.I call him "weird".We had an apartment on Wortman Street, it was a half basement room, so we could stay as late as we wanted off-campus, drinking and romping with girls we knew in town. "Weird coffee" really has no scruples and does whatever they want.Maybe his father didn't mind if he got fired.No matter how you look at it, Stranger is about as crazy as he can get: He has a Great Dane and doesn't want to bother feeding it, so he buys a meal coupon from the cheap cafeteria down the block and attaches it to the dog's collar.Any time the dog was hungry, he would run all the way to the restaurant to scratch the door.The restaurant guy would feed the dog a beef patty and punch two holes in that meal ticket.This matter caused a lot of discussion in the neighborhood.Some people said that the meal ticket should be taken off the dog's neck and given to some poor student.

Towards the end of the first semester of my sophomore year, I was asked to meet with Proctor Arnold again.He said to me, "You're really going to be expelled this time. I liked your father and I liked you a lot, so I'm really sorry to see you have to leave school." "I'm not a good student," I said, "but I don't want to be kicked out of school." He replied, "Then you'd better start working hard." I ran to David and told him, "I can't live here anymore, I have to stay on campus." He understood what I meant.But he still went his own way, so he was expelled from the school in January of the following year.

I found a single room in the dormitory building and began to study hard.But with final exams looming, I knew it was really over this time.Coincidentally, at this moment I found myself suffering from abdominal pain on the right side, which was diagnosed as appendicitis.The admission operation gave me a chance to buffer—the exam was postponed for six weeks.I studied hard and finally passed the exam. During this same period, I also struggled with alcohol.Drinking was a reprehensible thing in my house, and it had been from the first time Mom and Dad met—when neither of them touched a glass.During Prohibition, my father never kept alcohol in the house, and his attitude made drinking seem like a sin in my house.He avoided alcohol as much as he avoided airplanes.Once his mother wanted him to take castor oil.To make it less disgusting to drink, my mother mixed it with soda water, lemon juice and whiskey.My father raised the glass to his lips and immediately put it down, emptying the glass and saying to my mother, "I'd rather not, Janet." Sesame oil, drank it in one gulp.

Drinking alcohol was prohibited at IBM, even after Prohibition was lifted in December 1933.The company expressly stipulates that company employees are not allowed to drink alcohol during working hours; alcoholic beverages are not allowed at company parties or within the company's jurisdiction.Add to this the unwritten rule that excessive drinking, even in your spare time, can affect your career at the company.In Endicott, the town where IBM built its factory, rumor has it that a cautious IBM employee would draw the curtains before having a cocktail with his wife.My father has done nothing to clear up this rumor, although it seems to me that he never had the intention of knowingly interfering in anyone's private life.He just doesn't want IBM to cause trouble.But his people thought he was against all entertainment, and sometimes they couldn't help forcing it on their employees.

So it’s not surprising that when I was in college, I would do the following: I didn’t like to go home during holidays.I would go home on Christmas Day and spend the rest of the holidays visiting my fraternity buddies and staying in their homes. One night before New Years in 1935, a group of us were drinking beers at a country club in Scranton, Pennsylvania.I was 20 years old at the time.I drank glass after glass, and I seemed to have improved my dance skills under the influence of alcohol, so I had a good night. The next day I was tortured by conscience.On the way back to New York, I began to chafe at my own pleasure-seeking and my father's attitude toward drinking.I felt so guilty that I decided to confess to my father.Later that day, I made my way into the study with some difficulty, where my father was sitting. "Dad," I said, "I want to tell you something." I gave a general description of what happened last night, and it was really just a few beers and a little fun.

My father must have been relieved that I had the courage to admit my mistakes.He took my hand and said, "Thank you for telling me, son. Can you sit down and talk to me for a while?" Then he said, "I drank when I was young, and drinking brings a lot of things you don't expect. The consequences, as far as I'm concerned, were never a good one." Then I heard a story that, as far as I know, he never told anyone, not even my mother.I heard it from an old friend of his.When my father was 19 years old, he went to Buffalo to seek a career. His first job was the same as he had done in Painted Post: driving a horse and cart selling sewing machines. This time, the dealer who hired him was Wheeler- Wilcox.One day my father made a deal and went to a roadside bar to celebrate.He drank too much, and when the bar closed, he found his entire fortune: horses, carriages, samples—all stolen.Wheeler-Wilcox fired him and came after him for damages.Naturally, word got around, and my father didn't find another decent job for over a year.It's a pity that this anecdote never made it into IBM's history, because it would explain to tens of thousands of IBMers why he made such a rule.At that moment he must have felt that his life was over.I don't know if my father was a heavy drinker before then, but after the loss of the wagon and the goods he never took a drink for the rest of his life.

My father's influence began to show on me more and more, as religion does on people.I'd go out and dance and drink with pretty girls night after night, but after a week of that, I'd start to feel like he was watching me.He may be 4,000 miles away, but I feel his gaze is like a beacon piercing the smog, trying to guide my lost boat back on track.While that never caused me to immediately rush back to my room and start digging, it did start to make me rethink the meaning of life. My poor performance in school made it difficult for me to see my way forward.But gradually, I figured out the direction: if I do the things that I am good at, maybe I will be fine in the future.It was mostly a human connection thing.I know how to say no to a drink, how to make a good impression, and how to show respect to elders.In a way, I'm just emulating my father.He wasn't well educated, but he taught himself enough of the world that his lack of formal education was never a handicap.So I started trying to make friends.I learned how to focus on the other person in the conversation, and kept asking myself, "Am I saying this against what he meant? Am I doing the right thing? Am I offending him in some way?" I was in school The friends I made still maintain a deep friendship with me today.

As the days of my senior year passed, I became more and more obsessed with the idea of ​​dropping out of school and spending all my time on airplanes.I started a small aerial photography business with a friend, but I was still too intimidated to support myself, so I said to myself, "I've been here for three years—maybe I'll make it to graduation." I chose I took all the simple courses I could find, and worked hard to graduate.Still, I owe it to Dean Arnold to get my diploma in the end.He must have thought: "This kid has made a lot of progress. It's better to give him a diploma and let him do it for himself." 20 years later, I donated money to set up multiple scholarships at Brown University in the name of Superintendent Arnold.

In my final year of university, I also began to think very carefully about my life after graduation.I still had no idea what career I was going to do, but I knew I needed work experience.So there seems to be only one possible solution.I picked up the phone and called my father, "Is it convenient for you to find a job at IBM?" Undoubtedly, my father must be very happy to hear this, although at the same time he may also be muttering in his heart: I recruit him into the company, how will he behave in the future? He quickly made arrangements, and in October of that year, I started working as a trainee in the sales department.Encouraged by my prospects of working at IBM, my father started writing me more letters.But I changed the habit of throwing away his letters at a glance, and kept those letters until now.One of them, which I hold dear, was written by my father in December 1936 and was five pages long.My father always had the word "morality" in mind, and never once did he give a long lecture when writing a letter.He wrote that letter to motivate me to complete the rest of the course and graduate: …Always remember that life is not as complicated as many people would have you think it is.The older you get, the more you realize that there are only a few factors that determine success and happiness.Below I describe the important code of conduct in life in business terms as follows. I used to be disgusted by these things, but now I see how profound they are. There are also some letters related to my summer vacation arrangements. The summer of 1937 was a momentous time for the Watson family.My father has been named president of the International Chamber of Commerce and will travel to Europe to receive the honor, along with my mother and sisters.He was also invited to drop by to see the King of England.Dick is graduating from boarding school, and good news awaits me.I got my first unsolicited job offer from a journalist friend of my dad's.His name was Herbert Houston, and he was an expert on Japan who had been commissioned by the organizing committee for the 1939 World's Fair to sell booths in East Asia.He wrote and asked me if I would be his secretary for the summer.I was both elated by the job offer and flattered that someone thought I'd be qualified for a job that was, in Houston's words, "distanced and demanding."I readily canceled plans for a sea trip with my frat buddies and said yes to Houston.I will join him in Berlin, where the International Chamber of Commerce will hold its Congress at the end of June.We will be there to see my father being elected president, and from there we will travel to the Far East via Moscow via the Trans-Siberian Railway. One consequence of this arrangement was that my parents could not attend Dick's and I's graduations because they had to leave for England.We, the Watsons, take ritual very seriously, and all of us, and I think my father especially, regretted the outcome.But there is no way.So on the day of my graduation, I received my diploma alone, with only the chubby Dean Arnold smiling at me.I posed for photos with some friends and their families at the end of the ceremony before driving to Hotchkiss for Dick's graduation.I'd be happy to perform my elder brother duties once, lest Dick feel like an orphan during the ceremony.