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Bob Cratchit didn't need rhetoric, or soft skills, just the ability to keep Scrooge's records in poor working conditions, and say yes sir. Same for a bookkeeper

Bob Cratchit didn't need rhetoric, or soft skills, just the ability to keep Scrooge's records in poor working conditions, and say yes sir. Same for a bookkeeper, rail engineer or mill worker. Nor in the army or navy, unless commissioned (which was bought before about 1860, so you could be as dysfunctional as you like if you could afford it). Some of the most well known Victorians and Edwardians were pretty eccentric. To a degree that we'd probably find them dysfunctional today. Now we seem to expect a little of everything in everyone.

watwut 8y ago
Bob Cratchit was made up, underpaid and abused. How is that argument for anything good? Bookkeeper needed ability to communicate with employer in about the same measure then accounting needs now. Ditto rail engineer. Lack of ability to fit in in army means a lot of bullying that you will have to endure. Nevertheless, it is not like you needed rhetorics to be marine now. We have well known eccentric people now. Neither implies all that much about average person life. Nor that the average person would get away with the same. House hold servant would not be tolerated eccentricity.