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Agatha Christie once took issue with the old saw, "Necessity is the
mother of invention." She said the real mother is
laziness.
True. People invent machines to do the work they don't want to do or can't get other
people to do properly.
Josephine Cochrane, a well-to-do home-maker in Shelbyville, Illinois, got fed up with the
dirty and broken dishes her careless kitchen help left behind. So
she invented the dishwasher. And it won first prize in its category at the 1893 Chicago
World's Fair.
When other well-to-do people began ordering Cochrane's dishwasher, she patented it, and
eventually teamed up with an Ohio manufacturer. They improved the design and began to
market the Kitchenaid. But the product was not an immediate success. The average woman in
those days, believe it or not, would rather do the dishes by hand.
The mothers of invention in this case were not lazy housewives. They wanted the work and
did it well. The dishwasher was mothered by the people who had the job, but no real
motivation to do it.
Your greatest job security, then, is to love what you're doing. Or find an employer who
will pay you to do what you love. The perennial best-seller What Color Is Your
Parachute? tells you how to spot one. "bad employers"
it says, "will not care whether you enjoy" your job, only "if you know how
to do it... good employers will care greatly."
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