Gelett Burgess

“ Why will no department store never make this easier? I've recommended it till I'm black in the face, and that's all the good it does.
In the same way I've hammered at the ventilation of our store. Nowadays, when there's such a fad for hygiene, when even handkerchiefs come in antiseptic packages, you'd think that a big firm would see to it that a place crowded with people all day would have an ample supply of fresh air. They advertise all sorts of sanitary devices and preparations, and yet the atmosphere their customers and employees have to breathe is abominable sometimes. ”

“ I don't want to make trouble for any one. So I take down "The Princess and the Goblins" like a little girl, and I wander with George Macdonald into the Land of Fairy. The troubles of the Princess were all so delightfully beautiful and mysterious. She never knew what a bargain was in all her life! If the manager of Department G should drop in, he'd find me, for once in his life, absolutely contented and satisfied! ”

“ But often, when the roar and bustle has died out of my ears, and my eyes are rested from the confusion of myriads of fussy, selfish, passers-by, I settle myself in my kimono and don't care whether Spindelheim has better ones or not. I pull down my hair and forget that shop-girls should not wear rats bigger than a life-preserver. ”

“ They are in no mood for funeral dirges that make them weep! There they sit, with their babes and their parcels, bored to death and made unnecessarily sad by so-called classical works, when they might be refreshed, amused, cheered, and comforted so that they would rise, rested and happy, to go downstairs and continue their shopping! ”

“ Naturally, every one in the store is crazy to find out just who the critic is, and all sorts of rumors are afloat. They suspect every one they've seen before. Now, you can't walk through a store several times a day for two years without the clerks recognizing you at last, and, although they never can be positive, they come pretty near it. ”

“ The only persons I'm absolutely sure don't know who I am are the store detectives. Nobody expects them to know anything—only to stand about in groups of three or four and talk. If they've ever suspected me, it's only of being a shop-lifter. ”

“ My experience has taught me something of the commercial psychology of criticism. In order to effect a change, it is almost imperative that I should appeal to the purse-strings of the firm. They object to spending any more money than is necessary, naturally: but if I can prove in my report that any reform tends to encourage trade and increase revenue thereby, I have made an important point. It does no good to make a purely altruistic appeal, whether founded on sanitary, moral, or social lines. ”

“ There's one part of a modern department store that's pretty hard to criticize, and that's the advertising department. Usually the head is a high-priced expert and knows his business thoroughly. It's a modern science; they have plenty of money to spend, because they can show results. ”

“ But, sooner or later, he'll have to go: he's out of place in a down-to-date department store. Another man, an aisle man, whom I have caught repeatedly flirting with his prettiest sales-girls, evidently has his suspicions. Whenever I draw near nowadays he slips round a corner and is always writing desperately in a little book. You'd perhaps think that they try to placate me if they suspect that I'm the store critic, but no! ”

“ I wrote next day. "that our customers can't walk down Fifth Street without being insulted by men wearing the Smith & Co. uniform. It hardly tends toward inspiring ladies with a wish to enter the store and make purchases, so much as it does toward inducing them to comment upon the discipline of the establishment." The day after that I thought I would try it again: but when I walked down Fifth Street, all the drivers and clerks were too busy to notice me. ”

“ One thing I'd like to recommend is that deserving clerks be patted on the back occasionally. Managers don't seem to know how much more efficiency their employees can give under approval. Why, I have proved that myself, for if I see the owner in the store any day I'm so inspired that I can find twice the fault that I can ordinarily! ”

“ No matter what the attraction is, or how great the bargain, however, it does not pay to keep the same thing at the same counter more than three days in succession. . . .
I have never come across any one dirtier than a young man in Department 32. . . . Hair like a football player, face, neck, and hands simply black. Collar and tie not fit to be worn by a day laborer. ”

“ It's up to them to answer my criticisms, though, and defend themselves or plead guilty, as they see fit. Often they deny point blank things that I know to be facts. Often they seem grateful for suggestions, and—once in a blue moon—they prove that I am mistaken. ”

“ When I was appointed to my position, the head of the firm gave me these simple instructions: "Go down and raise Cain," he said, "and don't let anything get by you!" Well, I do my best. I began by sending in five typewritten pages of criticism every day, and now, ordinarily, I turn in at least nine. The ordinary customer always has a few complaints, but not even the most fault-finding could discover as many things wrong as I find on one day's trip. I believe I'm the most discontented woman in Chicago. I have to be, or lose my job. ”

“ Often I explain my actions by saying I'm a reporter, getting new ideas for the Woman's Page of some daily paper. But you can't quite obliterate a woman's shopping instinct—it's the feminine form of the hunting instinct in men, I fancy, and it goes with the love of dress and adornment. ”

“ The managers of departments are still more keen to know who it is that's lambasting them and knocking them every day. They try all sorts of ways of surprising a confession out of me. Often I am accompanied by a friend, and she comes in equally for suspicion. ”

“ My idea of a shop-girl is a good deal like my idea of any other woman, or lady, for that matter. She should wear her hair tidily, have clean hands and nails, and wear a costume that is appropriate to what she's doing. ”

“ HERE'S what it's like, abbreviated to the very kernels of my complaints. For every paragraph here, I have sent in a page or so, enlarging upon the facts, and pointing my morals. I take specimen kicks from my files merely to show my nerve:
Since the buyer of the shirt-waists has been clever enough to mix in some new $3.75 and $4.18 net and silk waists with the old ones, business at this counter has been noticeably increasing to-day. ”

“ But the main part of my business is to escape recognition by clerks and managers, porters, call boys, and stock girls as long as possible. So far, I'm safe, but there's no knowing how long I'll preserve my incognito. ”

“ The girls wore too many rats in their hair, there was grease on the elevator doors, expensive hats were dumped one on another, the ventilation was bad, the boxes on the shelves showed from the street through the show windows, and about a thousand other things. Then Spindelheim sold tea-pots just like our eighteen-cent ones for fourteen cents, and for a concern like Smith & Co. to be undersold is fatal. There's really nothing that so enrages Mr. ”