"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment." That ponderous nugget, attributed to legal/business guru Barry LePatner [among others], recently graced hundreds of pay stubs-- a bit awkwardly, perhaps--in a space between the statement of gross earnings and withholdings.
The motivational maxims are part of a redesign of the school district's pay stubs that left extra room for employee reminders and other messages. Most of the time, that space is filled with basic human resources information, such as open enrollment periods or United Way contributions. But when there's nothing else to put there, payroll staffers turn to books of famous quotations. "I don't like to leave it blank," says accounting director Julie Crespy.
So that is how it came to be that Robert Frost's musings ended up beside Social Security deductions: "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."
Some teachers have welcomed the pontifications, and Crespy says nobody has taken issue with the new practice. The accounting folks had to blush, however, when they printed "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising each time we fall," but misspelled the Chinese philosopher's name "Confucus."
