This is the list of rules governing a company called Zachary Geiger. The year is 1872. 135 years or so later, things have changed SOOO much, as you will see through these rules.

Look at this as a trip down a very different world back then. And maybe you can exercise your imagination in seeing that world in a different light–not to compare, not to uphold it as better nor to ridicule, but to just accept that world as different. Maybe you can remember the first impulses and thoughts that came to you as you read these.

And then as a mind exercise, maybe you can look at our own rules today and ask ourselves: 135 years from now, when people look back at the rules that governed us–the people of the year 2007–what will they say? How will they feel. How will they react?

1) Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the furniture, shelves, and showcases.

2) Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and turn wicks. Wash the windows once a week.

3) Each clerk will bring in a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s business.

4) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle your nibs to your individual taste.

5) This office will open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 9:00 p.m. daily, except on the Sabbath, on which day it will remain closed. Each employee is expected to spend the Sabbath Day by attending church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord.

6) Men employees will be given an evening off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church.

7) After an employee has spent 13 hours of labor in the office, he should spend the time reading the Bible and other good books while contemplating the glories and building up of the kingdom.

8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings, so that he will not become a burden upon the charity of his betters.

9) The employee who has performed his labors faithfully and without fault for a period of five years in my service, and who had been thrifty and attentive to his religious duties, is looked upon by his fellowmen as a substantial and law-abiding citizen, will be given an increase of five cents per day in his pay, providing a just return in profits from the business permits it.