Macy's

“ For while Macy's is known as the department-store without a time-clock, there is none which is more punctilious [Pg 91] about keeping an exact record of the comings and goings of its workers, from the lowest to the highest. In the entire permanent organization of more than five thousand folk, there are not more than ten or a dozen who are exempted from this necessity. A man may draw a twenty-thousand-dollar-a-year salary at Macy's and still be compelled to sign his time. ”

“ Macy says she drew the line at cot-pokin' when the cot was all she'd have to sleep on herself, and in the end they poked quilts up, an' pillows an' doughnuts an' cider an' blankets, an' Hiram made a bed on the floor an' they all got to sleep about three o'clock. [Pg 628]
"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, what do you think? What do you think? They was so awful tired that none of 'em woke till Mrs. Sperrit come at eleven next day to take 'em to the weddin'! Mrs. Macy says she hopes she'll be put forward all her back-slidin's if she ever gets such a start again. ”

“ It is entirely possible that the record of the Macy store might not be set down as one of final and overwhelming success, if it had not been for the driving force of a woman, who was brought into the organization not long after the opening of the original store in lower Sixth Avenue. This woman, Margaret Getchell, was also born in Nantucket. She had been a school-teacher upon the island, until the loss of one of her eyes forced her to seek less confining work. She drifted to New York and, taking advantage of a girlhood acquaintance with Mr. Macy, asked him for employment in his store. ”

“ While each has trained himself to be a merchandise specialist of the highest order, there is none that knows the details of Macy's better than his brothers—they share equally in the supreme authority that directs the business. Directly responsible to them, in turn, is its general manager, its merchandise council and its advertising and financial departments. ”

“ Lathrop, tellin' it all to you does n't matter so much, but to hear Mrs. Macy tell it makes you wonder if it's worth while to try an' leave a man as you can't live with. Seems to me it'd be easier to live with him. Mrs. Macy says as she met Mr. Drake several times [Pg 83] herself on his bicycle an' he looked most bloomin'. No one need be sorry for him, an' not many is sorry for Judy. But Mrs. Macy says there's only one person as all Meadville's sorry for, an' that's Busby Bell. ”

“ There is a function of the employment department of the modern business machine that Macy's recognizes as second in importance only to that of engaging its workers. I am referring to that moment when they may leave its employ, either from choice or otherwise. If "otherwise"—in the colloquial phrasing of the store being "laid-off"—there is the greatest of care and discretion used.
"Remember the Golden Rule," says its general manager to his assistants, and says it again and again. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ”

“ Yet even in these same modern, scientifically organized bazaars of today, the system rarely ever can be [Pg 202] better than the men who direct it. Four thousand years of business progress between the two Bagdads have not taken from man his God-given power to make or break the best of systems. And Macy's, with its own business system organized, carefully developed and upbuilded through sixty-three long years, is still dependent to no little degree upon the faith and loyalty and interest of its men and women ”

“ Gately, beginning to bustle round. "I don't take boarders in a general [Pg 218] way, but I have a young girl in the house that works at Macy's. I suppose you've heard of Macy's?"
"No, ma'am."
"Never heard of Macy's? I thought everybody had heard of Macy's, Fo'teenth Street and Sixth Avenue. Luella Dickinson works there, and I give her breakfast in the house as a favor. Let me see, there's a little coffee left—I'll warm it over—and there's bread and butter, and—I can cook you a sausage, and boil a couple of eggs."
"I hope you won't take too much trouble," said Jed. ”

“ The busy day at Macy's was over. Troops of young women passed through the doors, in street costume, and laughing and chatting, made their way up or down Sixth Avenue, or turned into Twenty-third street. Among them was Ruth Canby, and it was to her that her friend Maria Stevenson addressed the above exclamation. ”

“ When the saleswoman—or man, as the case may be—leaves of her own volition the matter becomes, in certain senses, more serious. Why is she dissatisfied? Are the conditions of labor more onerous at Macy's than in the other stores of the city, the remuneration less satisfactory? Macy's does not intend that either of these causes shall obtain beneath its roof. So the retiring employee, before she may leave its pay-roll, is carefully examined as to her reasons for going. The [Pg 210] last impressions of the store must be quite as good as the earliest ones—even upon the minds of its workers. ”

“ Ambition is not curbed in Macy's. On the contrary, it is stimulated to every possible extent. The employee is restricted only by his own limitations, if he has them. It is a firmly-fixed house policy to promote, wherever it is at all possible, from its own ranks. Among its high-salaried men and women are not a few who have worked their way up from the bottom. In fact, among these six or eight of the best paid men in the store, is one who boasts that he first came to New York fifteen years ago, with but a suitcase and eleven dollars in his pocket. ”

“ The training department also gave us pamphlets and notices about how to use the telephones and telling us to do certain things, as well as how our salary and commission were to be figured. Also one leaflet told us about Macy's underselling policy, and what we should do in case a customer reported merchandise as being cheaper somewhere else—and, although I had heard before of this policy of Macy's, I came to believe in it faithfully, after I had read the booklet.
"When you're new in a department the 'higher up' [Pg 215] man can do much to make you feel glad that you are there. ”

“ Macy says it's all most upsettin'. She says she never lived through nothin' like it afore. Judy's cross 'cause she can't go out an' meet Busby without runnin' the risk of meetin' Mr. Drake an' losin' all the time she's put in so far bein' deserted. [Pg 82] An' then there's a many things as a outsider never would know about or even guess at unless they've lived right in the house with a real live divorce. Mrs. Macy says as Martha Hack, as does the washin' for 'em all, is forever forgettin' an' sendin' Judy's wash home with Mr. Drake's just as if they was still completely married. ”

“ Macy's has been no exception to this rule. A man, even when he is in a mood for spending, wants it over with as soon as possible. He is impatient of the slightest delay. On the other hand, his wife or daughter will make of shopping a kind of ritual. And, perhaps, because of that, she is often the more intelligent and discriminating buyer.
Today, however, space on the main floor of the larger stores in New York is proving so valuable for goods that appeal to women shoppers, that some of them are trying to find a new method of appealing to the man-in-a-hurry. ”

“ Macy's niece, Miss Valentine. In appearance and in manner he was the direct antithesis of his partner, Webster. In the language of today he was a "mixer." Affable, direct, approachable, men liked him and came [Pg 42] to him freely. The employees of the store poured their woes into his ears; and never in vain. He stood ready to help them, in every possible way. And they, knowing this, came frequently to him.
Mr. Wheeler left the store and organization in 1887, selling his interest in the enterprise to Messrs. ”

“ Baker. At last, however, he acted, having concluded, as I supposed, that there was little chance of getting Mr. Wallet back. There was some show of letting the men choose, but it amounted to nothing. Macy was made fifth mate, and the other mates moved up a peg, so that Mr. Brown was second mate. That pleased me, and the appointment of Macy pleased Peter, for he said that there was not a better man on the ship. I agreed with him in that. Macy was one of the finest specimens of man I have ever seen. ”

“ Fun or not, the idea 's sort of upset every one. They went down to see where he bought his ticket for, but Johnny says he only took it to the junction, 'n' my own experience is 't a junction may lead to 'most anythin'. Mrs. Macy says 's there's only one way to be sure whether he's gone for good or not, 'n' that is to go up to the house 'n' see whether he took his ear-muffs along, for it stands to reason 't any man who 'd pack his ear-muffs a week like this ain't intendin' to ever return. ”

“ Yet, had it been otherwise, perhaps Ruth would have made me a better wife than some graduate of a fashionable young ladies' seminary with her smattering of French, and superficial knowledge of the various ologies taught in high-class schools. The young woman from Macy's, though she probably knew nothing of political economy, was doubtless skilled in household economy and able to cook a dinner, as in all probability my wife would find it necessary to do. ”

“ House organs, such as this, are, of course, no novelty in the American business world of today. There probably are not less than fifty department-stores alone which are now printing brisk contemporaries of Sparks. The internal publications of a house, such as Macy's, [Pg 241] have long since come to be recognized as one of its most valuable media for the promotion of morale. It costs money, but it is money well expended. So says modern business. And modern business ought to know. ”

“ As a matter of fact, however, Macy's anticipates the law; goes far ahead of it. It finds its women workers not only willing to work the occasional Thursday night shifts, but, with the practical advantages of a full dinner furnished without cost and overpay to come into the reckoning, for the most part extremely anxious. And it reminds the solicitous legislators up at Albany that it was not a statute that abolished the pernicious habit of keeping the stores open for business evenings and late in the evening, but the progressive thought of the store managers of New York, themselves. ”

“ Connected by an exceedingly direct and much-traveled line with the general offices upon the seventh floor of the store are Mr. W. J. Wells, the store's general manager, and his advisory council. For the G. M., big as he is always, has need of much advice. Upon his broad and efficient shoulders are placed such a tremendous array of responsibilities that one cannot but marvel at the sheer efficiency of the man—to say nothing of his reserves of physical and mental strength—who can hold down such a job. Yet, at Macy's, the man himself disclaims any superhuman powers. ”

“ It does beat all, Mrs. Lathrop, how a woman [Pg 154] of Mrs. Macy's sense, with a income that's only a little too small to get along on, can want to marry any man again. But she seems kind of crazy on the idea, an' if it ain't Mr. Dill, it's goin' to be Dr. Carter, or bu'st, with her. She says she went to his office just to let him know she was in Meadville, an' then she see him on the street, an' then she went to his office again to ask him his real opinion of Mrs. Kitts, an' then just before she left she went to his office again to let him know as she was goin' to come back here. ”

“ On Wednesday night there are fantastic pick-ups on 35th Street in back of Macy's. Move quickly though, the guards get pissed off easily; the truckers couldn't careless. This street method can furnish your whole pad. Beds, desks, bureaus, lamps, bookcases, chairs, and tables. It's all a matter of transportation. If you don't have access to a car or truck it is almost worth it to rent a station wagon on a weekday and make pick-ups. Alexander's Rent-a-Car is about the cheapest for in-city use. $5.95 and 10c a mile for a regular car. ”

“ And this despite the fact that in selling such things as groceries and automobile sundries—to take two specific instances out of several—it has gone considerably beyond the merchandise scope of some of the very largest of its New York competitors.
"Hundreds of thousands of regular patrons?" you interrupt and repeat. "A hundred thousand people is a whole lot. Until very recently, at least, the population of what would be considered a pretty good-sized American city."
Not long ago, I asked how many people came into Macy's in the passing of an average business day. ”

“ Macy says they don't ask to get out of 'em any more; all they ask is to get into 'em, an' goodness knows when that is ever goin' to happen. She says Mrs. Lupey says what with Judy's divorce an' Mrs. Kitts livin' right along she's going to get moths into her things for the first time in her life, she just knows she is. It's a pretty hard case any one can see, an' of course seein' Mrs. Kitts live like that may get Busby Bell all out of the notion of marryin' Judy, for of course no man ain't goin' to like to look forward to Mrs. ”

“ After which, who may now dare say that genius may not blossom in a department-store? And even were it not for the gaining glory of Carlin, the pages of any current issue of Sparks would show that there is more than a deal of artistic merit in the widespread ranks of the Macy family. The desire for self-expression is never stunted. ”

“ The insurance men is running all over, like winged ants hatching out, sealing up more doors and more windows every minute and getting more signatures as it was a tornado before they'll unstick them. Nothing can't be really settled till Mrs. Macy comes back. Mrs. Macy is the key to the whole situation."
"But why—?" asked Mrs. Lathrop. ”