Comments on: Vintage Business Motivational Posters from the 1920s & 1930s

By: Samuel Archer

Samuel Archer — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 01:23:40 +0000

First-time poster here.

I’m just about to start my essay, 2:22am. When up late, one certainly needs some inspiration, especially from a time when men were men and hard workers hard workers. Sometimes I’m lazy; not tonight!

By: cb

cb — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:51:42 +0000

Some of these are rather dated and in my opinion probably don’t apply in today’s society.

Having said that, most of them are fantastic and I wish someone had shown them to me a long, long time ago.

By: Jean

Jean — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 21:37:04 +0000

I disagree with one poster, though I believe it SHOULD be true:
v14, “Who wants a soft job?”

There is a lot of value in taking and taming a hard job, I agree. However, I think most of the “soft” jobs are the ones that are KEPT during bad times, because they are the jobs concerned with “running” the business. Various EVPs, Division heads, HR, etc – people who may actually do work, but are less than essential to the business of the business.
I’m a performance engineer, working on computer systems to improve performance. Prior to that, functiona automation engineer (wrote programs to test software). We were ALWAYS short-staffed. We don’t/didn’t HAVE meetings, for example – always something needed doing, environment maintenance, code maintenance, pursuing test plan changes, getting access to systems, running tests, evaluating results, reporting results… 60 hours a week? TOO EASY, Drill Sergeant!

Then you hear the “over-worked” HR cruds complaining they had to pay the baby-sitter an extra $X for being a half-hour late… Their fifth meeting of the day went over. But their long lunch was good, they went to the new restaurant and the food was just SO FABULOUS….

Wait a minnit, WTF? Are we producing employees, or SOFTWARE?

(and my personal favorite was one noisy woman who claimed we couldn’t ever fire her because whe was black… So she did next to nothing, but was a VP. Her PEERS told me she did nothing, mind. They were the ones picking up the slack… Male, female, white, indian, black. Hmmm…)

Yeah, soft jobs are expendable, but no one seems willing to EXPEND them. Instead the engineers work 60-80 hours a week, and the VPs of those divisions go home after 10 hours and are then “on call” all night.

We’re now being exploited by some of this, “Shut up and be glad you have a job” attitude.

By: WES

WES — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:52:48 +0000

Wonder what would the business posters of TODAY would like today?

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:33:57 +0000

Hey, these posters are great! I’ve heard people are looking for Hi-resolution versions of these posters, and as a art school grad, with a major of Digital Media, I might be able to help! I can spruce these guys up in Adobe Illustrator if anyone wants. Just shoot me a email at: Lightbody.artwork@gmail.com
Tell me which one you want and I’ll do my best in my free time. (I have a job so it might take a bit) but I’ll recreate it to look as the original,but in Hi-res.

By: Di

Di — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 06:58:20 +0000

Some of them are good, others I cannot put in the same sentence with motivation. Also, not all of them can work in different cultures. I am surprised that only one other person mentions the flaws of those posters. I get the feeling that most readers here are too much into idealising Grandpa.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:35:36 +0000

As a Workforce Development Professional working on the front lines to assist folks in gaining employment, I can attest to the value in these traits far outweighing any skill in one specific industry. Thanks for posting them.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Brett, these are great! Thanks so much for posting.

By: Ted Dubin

Ted Dubin — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:22:36 +0000

Wow – what a difference from today: “If it feels good, do it”, “Mistakes were made”, “It’s the 1%’s fault” – our grandfathers would be sickened by some of us today.

We owe so much of what we have to people like those portrayed in the posters and I’m scared we’re blowing our inheritance of civilization.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:18:48 +0000

these are great!
great post.
thanks for sharing!