Office (job)

“ Even the chiefs’ outside associates were tremendous, buyers and diplomatic representatives; big-chested men with watch-chains across their beautiful tight waistcoats. And like envoys extraordinary were the efficiency experts whom Mr. Pemberton occasionally had in to speed up the work a bit more beyond the point of human endurance.... One of these experts, a smiling and pale-haired young man who talked to Mr. Ross about the new poetry, arranged to have office-boys go about with trays of water-glasses at ten, twelve, two, and four. ”

“ Intermingled with this caste were the petty chiefs, the office-managers and bookkeepers, who were velvety to those placed in power over them, but twangily nagging to the girls and young men under them. Failures themselves, they eyed sourly the stenographers who desired two dollars more a week, and assured them that while personally they would be very glad to obtain the advance for them, it would be “unfair to the other girls.” ”

“ The other fifteen or sixteen, you are free to do as you wish—loaf, study, become an athlete.” This illuminative suggestion is usually reinforced by allusions to Lincoln and Edison.
Only—you aren’t a Lincoln or an Edison, for the most part, and you don’t do any of those improving things. You have the office with you, in you, every hour of the twenty-four, unless you sleep dreamlessly and forget—which you don’t. Probably, like Una, you do not take any exercise to drive work-thoughts away. ”

“ The supervision of Bessie Kraker and the office-boy.
Equally fixed were the details of the grubby office itself. Like many men who have pride in the smartest suburban homes available, Mr. Wilkins was content with an office shabby and inconvenient. He regarded beautiful offices as in some way effeminate.... His wasn’t effeminate; it was undecorative as a filled ash-tray, despite Una’s daily following up of the careless scrubwomen with dust-cloth and whisk. She knew every inch of it, as a gardener knows his plot. ”

“ Truax doesn’t, but you do know—that the whole office system makes pale, timid, nervous people out of all the clerks—”
“But, good heavens! child, the employers have just as hard a time. Talk about being nervous! Take it in our game. The salesman does the missionary work, but the employer is the one who has to worry. Take some big deal that seems just about to get across—and then falls through just when you reach for the contract and draw a breath of relief. ”

“ The office politics bred caste. Caste at Pemberton’s was as clearly defined as ranks in an army.
At the top were the big chiefs, the officers of the company, and the heads of departments—Mr. Pemberton and his sons, the treasurer, the general manager, the purchasing-agent, the superintendents of the soda-fountain-syrup factory, of the soap-works, of the drug-laboratories, of the toilet-accessories shops, the sales-manager, and Mr. S. Herbert Ross. The Olympian council were they; divinities to whom the lesser clerks had never dared to speak. ”

“ Your immejit boss—the office-manager—is all right, but the secretary of the company is always pussy-footing around, and if you’re ever having any trouble with your stuff when old plush-ears is in sight, keep on typing fast, no matter what you put down. ”

“ She saw that the comfortable average men of the office sooner or later, if they were but faithful and lived long enough, had opportunities, responsibility, forced upon them. No such force was used upon the comfortable average women! ”

“ Nice, bright woman like you sticking in an office! Office is no place for a woman. Takes a man to stand the racket. Home’s the place for a woman, except maybe some hatchet-faced old battle-ax like the cashier at our shop. Shame to spoil a nice home with her. Why, she tried to hold up my vacation money, because she said I’d overdrawn—”
“Oh, but Mr. Schwirtz, what can a poor girl do, if you high and mighty men don’t want to marry her?” ”

“ I have pledged myself and my colleagues in the cabinet to a continuous encouragement of initiative, responsibility and energy in serving the public interest. Let every public servant know, whether his post is high or low, that a man’s rank and reputation in this Administration will be determined by the size of the job he does, and not by the size of his staff, his office or his budget. Let it be clear that this Administration recognizes the value of dissent and daring—that we greet healthy controversy as the hallmark of healthy change. Let the public service be a proud and lively career. ”

“ She knew every inch of it, as a gardener knows his plot. She could never keep from noticing and running her finger along the pebbled glass of the oak-and-glass partition about Mr. Wilkins’s private office, each of the hundreds of times a day she passed it; and when she lay awake at midnight, her finger-tips would recall precisely the feeling of that rough surface, even to the sharp edges of a tiny flaw in the glass over the bookcase. ”

“ The organization of such a department depends entirely upon the number of applicants and employees with which it must deal and the character of the work to be done. Suppose, for example, we have a factory with two thousand employees, seventy-five per cent of them skilled, fifteen per cent of them unskilled, and ten per cent office employees. The work of such a department could be very well carried on by one employment supervisor, one assistant supervisor, one clerk and record-keeper, and part of the time of one stenographer. The employment supervisor is a staff officer. ”

“ Duties of Office Employes. Each clerk in the office should have his work clearly defined. If specialization is profitable in the shop, it is equally so in the office. Every man who has been responsible for the management of an office will agree with us that in no other branch of business is there a greater tendency to allow work to get behind.
Lack of system is mainly responsible for this state of affairs. While his duties may be more or less clearly defined, the work of the average office clerk does not follow any well defined plan. ”

“ Nowhere excepting at the central office is it possible to sound our work, to know its breadth, its depth, the permanency of its interest among our members, and its growth among the people. Here we can gauge its dimensions. And, perhaps, the first sign, and certainly it is a most significant one, is that which every casual visitor at our business headquarters must observe at once, as he looks in upon the busy workers of the office; the work is too big for its quarters. ”

“ Sometimes, when Mrs. Lawrence was petulant or the office had been unusually exhausting, she fancied that she missed him. But instead of sitting and brooding over folded hands, in woman’s ancient fashion, she took a man’s unfair advantage—she went up to the gymnasium of the Home Club and worked with the chest-weights and flying-rings—a solemn, happy, busy little figure. She laughed more deeply, and she felt the enormous rhythm of the city, not as a menacing roar, but as a hymn of triumph.
She could never be intimate with Mamie Magen as she was with the frankly disillusioned Mrs. Lawrence ”

“ Considers all factors entering into office organization and management, with special emphasis on the human element. Chapters are devoted to office lay-out, selection and training of employees, rules and regulations, discipline, promotions, encouragement of savings, pension systems, discipline, welfare work, mechanical equipment of offices, records, mailing department, etc. ”

“ No one can be a thoroughly competent stenographer until she has been a year at work in an office. The school teaches her how to handle her working tools. But the real problems of office work are solved only in the office. There are endless details to be mastered. Every office has its own rules and customs and its own methods. ”

“ Office relations are pleasant as well as profitable. The demands are exacting; labor at the typewriter, the proof-sheets, or the bookkeeper's desk is tiresome, but the society of the office is congenial, working conditions are healthful and cheerful in most cases, and there are many opportunities for increasing efficiency and promotion. ”

“ Promotion by seniority.In the meantime his salary is gradually advancing till he reaches, by seniority, the top of his class, and on the occurrence of a vacancy in the class above him he is promoted to fill it, as a matter of course, and without any regard to his previous services or his qualifications. Thus, while no pains have been taken in the first instance to secure a good man for the office, nothing has been done after the clerk’s appointment to turn his abilities, whatever they may be, to the best account. ”

“ Officials are to be appointed by a complex plan of competitive examination; and they are to be invited to send in tenders for doing the work at diminished salary. When once in office, every care is taken for their continual inspection by the public and the verification of their accounts. They are never for an instant to forget that they are servants, not the masters, of the public. ”

“ Flood every object and apartment with gaslight, and you have the scene at night—through all the night, for couriers and dispatches never cease to arrive—and the journal issues with the dawn—and the workmen are relieved by constant and continuous relays. Such an office gives employment to hundreds and bread to thousands. ”

“ His little office was very cosy, too; and the work of auditing the accounts of the most important customers of the house required accuracy but no amount of labor. It was an ideal occupation for a man of his years and limited training. ”

“ Judged by the aggregate amount of work done, the last year has been the greatest in the history of the office. I believe that the organization of the office is efficient and that the work has been done with fidelity. ”

“ That is all, except that to-morrow notices will be posted in every department stating that my office door is open to any man who works for me—any man may come to me with complaint or with suggestion at any time. The notices will state that I want suggestions, and that any man who can bring me an idea that will improve his work or the work in his department or in the plant will be paid for it according to its value. In short, I want the co-operation of every man who draws wages from this concern.... ”

“ From the nature of their employment, special agents are constantly brought in contact with the most intelligent and prominent men in the community, who justly expect to find the post-office department represented by men of gentlemanly bearing, fair education, correct deportment, and sound discretion. ”

“ Under present conditions we, staff and special service officers, have to turn our hand to every kind of job as occasion demands, and one man has to do the ordinary work of half a dozen different offices. ”

“ A member of the Working Group may designate, to perform the Working Group functions of the member, an employee of the member's department, agency, or office who is either an officer of the United States appointed by the President, or a full-time employee serving in a position with pay equal to or greater than the minimum rate payable for GS-15 of the General Schedule. The Working Group shall be led by the Secretaries of Education and the Interior, or their designees under this section, who shall serve as Co-Chairs. ”

“ The most usual source of office-holding is the humble work of the clerk, handyman or messenger, responsible for carrying out the nagging routine of government. Beyond this common labor of public service are public servants skilled in their several professions. Beyond and above them are department heads and still higher are the appointed or elected officials responsible for the success or failure of a given public policy. ”

“ It does not mean the boys in the back room or other agencies of invisible government, whether in politics or in the trade-union movement. A definition of officer as 'any person occupying a position identified as an office in the constitution of the labor organization' accords with this lay understanding. ”

“ If you wanted to learn it you had to go not only to the Paymaster General's office and make an inquiry there, but you had to go from one office to another in order to pick up your information by little items. ”

“ The New York Times publishes a statement that in New York city at least a quarter of a million men are idle. Arthur Ruhl says he answered an ad which called for a man to address envelopes at $1 per day. And Ruhl found three hundred men at the office clamoring and elbowing for the job. ”

“ In 1864 they were coolly informed that there were plenty of people outside ready to step inside at the same salary. The post-office would present a strange appearance if this system was adopted, for the duties of the office are not learned in a day. Under former administrations it was the chief object of men in power to pay their employees living wages and reward honesty, sobriety, and attention to business by preferment. ”

“ It was there said that 'an office is a public station or employment conferred by the appointment of government. The term embraces the ideas of tenure, duration, emolument, and duties. . . . A government office is different from a government contract. ”

“ A vacancy occurring in the lowest grade of any group of offices shall be filled, after due public notice, from all applicants who shall present themselves, and who shall have furnished the evidence and satisfied the preliminary examination already mentioned, and who shall have passed a public competitive examination to test knowledge, ability, and special qualifications for the performance of the duties of the office. ”