Shop assistant

“ In the same way the orders in industrial establishments go from the manager through superintendents, foremen of shops, assistant foremen and gang bosses to the men. In an establishment of this kind the duties of the foremen, gang bosses, etc., are so varied, and call for an amount of special information coupled with such a variety of natural ability, that only men of unusual qualities to start with, and who have had years of special training, can perform them in a satisfactory manner. ”

“ If the works is a large one, the man in charge of introducing the system should appoint a special assistant in charge of each of the above functions just as an engineer designing a new plant would start a number of draftsmen to work upon the various elements of construction. ”

“ The person responsible for the observance of the acts is the “employer” of the “young persons” (i.e. persons under the age of eighteen years) , whose hours are limited, and of the “female assistants” for whom seats must be provided. Neither the term “employer” nor “shop assistant” (used in the title of the act of 1899) is defined; but other terms have the meaning assigned to them in the Factory and Workshop Act 1878. ”

“ After the planning room with functional foremanship has accomplished its most difficult task, of teaching the men how to do a full day's work themselves, and also how to get it out of their machines steadily, then, if desired, the number of non-producers can be diminished, preferably, by giving each type of functional foreman more to do in his specialty; or in the case of a very small shop, by combining two different functions in the same man. ”

“ Then one of the company cheapens something or other, making many words with the shopkeeper about the price, thereby giving an opportunity to some of his companions to hand things of value from one to another till they were insensibly vanished, the honest shopkeeper being left to deplore the misfortune of having such light-fingered customers find the way to his shop. ”

“ In the writer's experience, almost all shops are under-officered. Invariably the number of leading men employed is not sufficient to do the work economically. Under the military type of organization, the foreman is held responsible for the successful running of the entire shop, and when we measure his duties by the standard of the four leading principles of management above referred to, it becomes apparent that in his case these conditions are as far as possible from being fulfilled. ”

“ The only reason why I go into a tradesman's shop is because I don't know what I want exactly, am in doubt about the name or the size, or the price, or the fashion, and want a specialist to help me. The only reason for having shopmen instead of automatic machines is that one requires help in buying things. When I want gloves, the shopman ought to understand his business sufficiently well to know better than I do what particular kind of gloves I ought to be wearing, and what is a fair price for them. ”

“ In the modern methods of shop management, all these things are changed. The specialization of workmanship, the division of duties, the limiting of responsibilities—each restricted within narrow limits by sharply defined regulations—have reduced the variety of operations of the workman, and of responsibilities and duties of the men who direct manufacturing work.
We find the purchasing of material and supplies in charge of a Purchasing Agent. We find these purchases checked by a Receiving Clerk, turned over to a Storekeeper, and subject to examination by a regular Inspector. ”

“ As soon as the task is finished they should be allowed to go home; and, on the other hand, they should be made to stay at work until their task is done, even if it lasts into the night, no deduction being made for shorter hours nor extra pay allowed for overtime. It is both inhuman and unwise to ask a man, working on task work, to stay in the shop after his task is finished "to maintain the discipline of the shop," as is frequently done. It only tends to make men eye servants. ”

“ After the route clerk in the planning department has laid out the exact route which each piece of work is to travel through the shop from machine to machine in order that it may be finished at the time it is needed for assembling, and the work done in the most economical way, the order of work clerk daily writes lists instructing the workmen and also all of the executive shop bosses as to the exact order in which the work is to be done by each class of machines or men, and these lists constitute the chief means for directing the workmen in this particular function. ”

“ It was a slow, broken procession, a promenade before the counters; in the mercery and the haberdashery departments some women of the commoner class were pushing about, but there was hardly a customer in the linen or in the woollen departments. The shop messengers, in their green coats, the buttons of which shone brilliantly, were waiting for customers, their hands dangling about. ”

“ Yet it is an interesting fact that in several of the largest and most important classes of industries in this country shop practice is still twenty to thirty years behind what might be called modern management. Not only is no attempt made by them to do tonnage or piece work, but the oldest of old-fashioned day work is still in vogue under which one overworked foreman manages the men. The workmen in these shops are still herded in classes, all of those in a class being paid the same wages, regardless of their respective efficiency. ”

“ Their duties should be to see that the operations planned and directed from the planning room are promptly carried out in the shop. Their time should be spent with the men, teaching them to think ahead, and leading and instructing them in their work. ”

“ In doing their various duties, its members must exchange information frequently, and since they send their orders to and receive their returns from the men in the shop, principally in writing, simplicity calls for the use, when possible, of a single piece of paper for each job for conveying the instructions of the different members of the planning room to the men and another similar paper for receiving the returns from the men to the department. ”

“ We come now face to face with the training department—another individual organization strong enough and important enough to demand as its head an officer of the rank and title of assistant general manager. But before we come to consider it in some of the many aspects of its workings—before we come to see how in these recent years education has come to be the hand-maiden of merchandising, let us consider the actual experience of a young woman who recently entered the employment of the store. ”

“ Or, in a small factory which turns out a uniform product and in uniform quantities day after day, supplying raw materials to certain parts of the factory and removing finished product from others may be coupled with other definite duties to form a task. The task should call for a large day's work, and the man should be paid more than the usual day's pay so that the position will be sought for by first-class, ambitious men. Clerical work can very properly be done by the task in this way, although when there is enough of it, piece work at so much per entry is to be preferred. ”

“ The shopkeeper sits on the floor of his shop, surrounded by his various goods. He never rises to customers, for everything is within reach of his hand. [402] Women never meddle with trade, which is solely in the hands of the men. ”

“ On the other hand, the lowest type of shopkeeper, the chandler, the dealer in old iron, the tripe shop, the milk retailer, the keeper of a cook shop or a green cellar belong to the class of unskilled and casual labor. ”

“ The old counter, shelves, and other fixtures of the little shop remained just as he had left them. It used to be affirmed, that the dead shop-keeper, in a white wig, a faded velvet coat, an apron at his waist, and his ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists, might be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any night of the year, ransacking his till, or poring over the dingy pages of his day-book. ”

“ It was observed that upon entering a shop here the customer invariably removes his hat out of respect to the store-keeper, whether man or woman, and remains thus uncovered while perfecting his purchase. ”

“ The adoption of standard tools, appliances, and methods throughout the shop, the planning done in the planning room and the detailed instructions sent them from this department, added to the direct help received from the four executive bosses, permit the use of comparatively cheap men even on complicated work. Of the men in the machine shop of the Bethlehem Steel Company engaged in running the roughing machines, and who were working under the bonus system when the writer left them, about 95 per cent. were handy men trained up from laborers. ”

“ The market for workers—like pretty nearly every other sort of market—is, as we have just seen, subject to fluctuations; there are seasons when the employment manager—ranking as the store's fourth assistant general manager—must look sharply about him for the maintenance of its ranks, other seasons when long files of would-be workers present themselves each morning at his department doors. ”

“ The active, original-minded tradesman, seeing that, with an ordinary share of the entire business of his department, he can scarcely make bread and butter, bethinks him of setting up a leviathan shop, in which he may serve the whole town with mercery at a comparatively small profit to himself, looking to large and frequent returns for his remuneration. ”

“ The shopkeeper generally sits upon the mastab′ah, unless he be obliged to retire a little way within his shop to make room for two or more customers, who mount up on the seat, taking off their shoes before they draw up their feet upon the mat or carpet. ”

“ The selection of the men who are employed to fill vacancies or new positions should receive the most careful thought and attention and should be under the supervision of a competent man who will inquire into the experience and especial fitness and character of applicants and keep constantly revised lists of men suitable for the various positions in the shop. ”

“ When our local committee determined, in the words of the minutes book, to open a shop and offices in the local main street, "for the dissemination of suffrage literature," we made up our minds that we would not be amateur shopkeepers. The success of our venture, we argued solemnly, depended on convincing the neighbourhood that we meant to be taken as seriously as any other tradesman in the street. Unfortunately, in saying this, we reckoned without our customer; for, if you attempt to be taken seriously as a shopkeeper, the one error to be avoided is that of taking the customer seriously. ”

“ In between—that happy medium which I mentioned to you—stand the Harriman Lines with division stores under the division superintendent, who in turn as to supply matters is under the general storekeeper or other chief supply official, the latter already having in some cases the title and status of an assistant general manager. The man in direct charge of the one general store which is allowed each general jurisdiction is called a storekeeper. ”

“ The full possibilities of functional foremanship, however, will not have been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop are run by men who are of smaller calibre and attainments, and who are therefore cheaper than those required under the old system. ”

“ When functional foremanship is introduced in a large shop, it is desirable that all of the bosses who are performing the same function should have their own foreman over them; for instance, the speed bosses should have a speed foreman over them, the gang bosses, a head gang boss ”

“ In starting to organize even a comparatively small shop, containing say from 75 to 100 men, it is best to begin by training in the full number of functional foremen, one for each function, since it must be remembered that about two out of three of those who are taught this work either leave of their own accord or prove unsatisfactory; and in addition, while both the workmen and bosses are adjusting themselves to their new duties, there are needed fully twice the number of bosses as are required to carry on the work after it is fully systematized. ”

“ The child is sometimes sent to the shop three times a-day, to obtain the supplies for each meal as it is wanted. Of course, the shopkeeper cannot give so much time, paper, and string without being paid for them. ”

“ The shop, and indeed the whole works, should be managed, not by the manager, superintendent, or foreman, but by the planning department. The daily routine of running the entire works should be carried on by the various functional elements of this department, so that, in theory at least, the works could run smoothly even if the manager, superintendent and their assistants outside the planning room were all to be away for a month at a time. ”

“ Their management was about as good as the average of similar work, although it was bad; all of the men being paid the ruling wages of laborers in this section of the country, namely, $1.15 per day, the only means of encouraging or disciplining them being either talking to them or discharging them; occasionally, however, a man was selected from among these men and given a better class of work with slightly higher wages in some of the companies' shops, and this had the effect of slightly stimulating them. From four to six hundred men were employed on this class of work throughout the year. ”

“ The store-keeper (which we call shop-keeper) receives the produce in exchange for his goods, and exchanges that produce for more goods; and thus the concerns of the community go on, every one living in abundance, and the sound of misery never heard. ”

“ There are comparatively few machine shops, or even manufacturing establishments, in which the work is so uniform in its nature as to employ enough men on the same grade of work and in sufficiently close contact to one another to render piece work preferable to the other systems. ”