Taskmaster

“ The operator's responsibility is limited to the correct reception, transmission, delivery and repetition of his orders and messages; the despatcher's to the correct conception of the orders and their transmission at the proper time to the right train; but the chief despatcher's responsibilities combine not only these but many more. A despatcher's work is cut out for him, just as the tailor would cut his cloth for a journeyman workman, and when his eight hour trick is done, his work for the day is finished and his time is his own. ”

“ His office hours? He hasn't any. Most of the chiefs are in their offices from early morn until late at night, and there is no harder worked man in the world than the chief despatcher.
Each day is divided into three periods of eight hours each, known as "tricks," and a despatcher assigned to each. The first trick is from eight a. m. until four p. m.; the second from four p. m.115 until twelve midnight; and the third from twelve midnight until eight a. m.
At eight o'clock in the morning, the first trick despatcher comes on duty, and his first work is to verify the train sheet and order book. ”

“ I have assumed that you prefer to work in this way because I have noted the fact that nine watchmakers out of every ten start with, and first finish up, the lower portion of the staff. Where this method of working originated I do not know, but it always has the appearance to me of "placing the cart before the horse." I do not pretend to say that a true staff cannot be made in this way, but it certainly is not the most convenient nor advisable. We all know that the heaviest part of the staff is from the roller seat to the end of the top pivot. ”

“ I know that, except in the way of official routine, such as the control of the engines from the bridge, the officer of the watch has nothing to do with the engineer at all. The chief engineer is responsible to the master, and to him alone. Only the master can punish, and all cases of insubordination, etc., among [Pg 312] the "black gang" must be reported to him. The master is in supreme command, and knows quite well what is due to the engineer. More, he seldom fails to grant him his full due. ”

“ There is also a foreman, or assistant master-armorer, to each principal branch of the work, and under him a foreman over every job. These are severally held accountable for all stock, tools, and parts of work delivered them for their respective departments, and they in their turn severally hold the individual workmen responsible for all stock, tools, or parts of work delivered to them. The assistant master-armorers, or foremen, are inspectors in their several branches, and are responsible for the faithful and correct performance of the work. ”

“ Experience has demonstrated the practicability of the same man being a division master mechanic, for example, and at the same time performing some of the broader duties of an assistant superintendent. Likewise an assistant general manager can act as the head of the mechanical bureau in the general office. When we reach so high as to go beyond the heads of real departments we find our old friend, volume of business, and his bastard brother, unbalanced administration, to demand more balance wheels. The unit has become of too large a size for a single governor. ”

“ Throughout the whole field of management the military type of organization should be abandoned, and what may be called the' "functional type" substituted in its place. "Functional management" consists in so dividing the work of management that each man from the assistant superintendent down shall have as few functions as possible to perform. If practicable the work of each man in the management should be confined to the performance of a single leading function. Under the ordinary or military type, the workmen are divided into groups. ”

“ Yet through all this seeming mass of confusion, everything is in apple pie order, and each one of those strips represents a wire and every plug a connection to some set of instruments. The wire chief and his assistants are in full charge of this work, and it must needs be a man of great ability to successfully fill such a place in a large office.
The chief operator has entire supervision over the whole office, and his duties are hard, constant, and arduous. ”

“ He must constantly look ahead over the whole field of work and see that the parts go to the machines in their proper sequence, and that the right job gets to each machine.
Eighth. He must, at least in a general way, supervise the timekeeping and fix piece work rates. Both the seventh and eighth duties call for a certain amount of clerical work and ability, and this class of work is almost always repugnant to the man suited to active executive work, and difficult for him to do; and the rate-fixing alone requires the whole time and careful study of a man especially suited to its minute detail. ”

“ In military organization, no matter how large the army, the will of its high command quickly [Pg 36] passes from superior to subordinate until in the end it has reached the squad leaders and they have transmitted it to the men in ranks. The whole vast machine may thus move uniformly, accurately responsive to the master mind. So in any large business; department heads, superintendents, foremen and subforemen furnish the line of control from the head to all his men no matter how numerous or how far removed. These subordinates represent his policies, his will, and his spirit. ”

“ When peace came he was the head of a newly-created Ministry of Strikes, controlling a staff of a thousand or twelve hundred men and women, drawing a salary of £2,500 a year. Only a man of immense determination can achieve such results. He had garnered in a knighthood as he advanced. It was the reward of signal service to the State when he held the position of Chief Controller of Information and Statistics.
“Let him not be saying afterwards that he didn’t get a proper warning,” said the engine driver.
He walked towards his engine as he spoke. The guard and the station master followed him. ”

“ In a lucid interval, while I was doing a call of my own, the operator, without giving me any warning, switched me on to the supervisor. This must have been an inspiration from Olympus. However I was equal to the emergency; nay, took advantage of it. Experience has taught me that it is always best to talk to the person you get, whether you want that person or not. So I explained to the supervisor that I was a busy man, although the rumour which ascribed to my shoulders the War Office, the Timber Control and the L.D.C.S. was, at the moment, unfounded. ”

“ MR. WENTWORTH: Based on your qualifications -- I heard you say both manager and controller, so you work as a controller at Guam International in addition to being manager of the facility?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
MR. WENTWORTH: You maintain currency work on a daily basis?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
MR. WENTWORTH: So you're considered a full performance level controller also?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
MR. WENTWORTH: Would you provide for us an overview of your training program and how it's administered? ”

“ These are the exceedingly versatile and mobile assistants of the associate power directors. Trillions upon trillions of them are commissioned in Ensa, your minor sector. These beings are called mechanical controllers because they are so completely dominated by their superiors, so fully subservient to the will of the associate power directors. Nevertheless they are, themselves, very intelligent, and their work, though mechanical and matter-of-fact in nature, is skillfully performed. ”

“ The company commander should not attempt to do all the work—to look after all the details in person—he should not try to command directly every squad and every platoon. The successful company commander is the one who distributes work among his subordinates and organizes the help they are supposed to give him. By War Department orders, Army Regulations and customs of the service, the lieutenants and noncommissioned officers are charged with certain duties and responsibilities. Let every one of them carry the full load of their responsibility. ”

“ The first of the four leading principles in management calls for a clearly defined and circumscribed task. Evidently the foreman's duties are in no way clearly circumscribed. It is left each day entirely to his judgment what small part of the mass of duties before him it is most important for him to attend to, and he staggers along under this fraction of the work for which he is responsible, leaving the balance to be done in many cases as the gang bosses and workmen see fit. The second principle calls for such conditions that the daily task can always be accomplished. ”

“ Any service embracing a considerable number of persons in its execution, must be closely supervised if anything approaching efficiency is attained and maintained. An old German saying reads thus: “The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands.” If value is secured either in public or in private service, the people paid for delivering it must be kept under close supervision—must be kept under “the eye of the master.” ”

“ Each officer, at the end of his watch, not merely enters on the log-slate, which usually lies on the cabin table, or in some convenient place, the courses, distances, wind and weather during his watch, and anything worthy of note that may have occurred, but it is the duty of the chief mate once in twenty-four hours to copy from the slate the entries into the log-book, and to vouch for their accuracy, although the master usually examines it, making any corrections or observations he may consider necessary. ”

“ If the three men upon the high seventh floor of the institution are its steersmen, this man, who has his office at the rear of its broad mezzanine balcony, is at least its chief engineer. And to assist him he has five assistant engineers—assistant general managers, in reality. The habit of simile leads one into odd designations of title. Each of these five assistant general managers—we shall stand by the nomenclature of the store—in turn has a large number of departments reporting to him. ”

“ SNOW ON THE HEADLIGHT
CHAPTER FIRST
Good managers are made from messenger boys, brakemen, wipers and telegraphers; just as brave admirals are produced in due time by planting a cadet in a naval school. From two branches of the service come the best equipped men in the railroad world—from the motive-power department and from the train service. This one came from the mechanical department, and he spent his official life trying to conceal the fact—striving to be just to all his employees and to show no partiality towards the department from whence he sprang—but always failing. ”

“ The unit system of organization requires that an official, whether the head of the unit or an assistant, shall, when absent on the line, be represented at headquarters by the senior or chief assistant of the unit. Such senior or chief assistant is in effect, though not in name, the chief of staff. Normally, this senior is number one on the list of assistants, but whoever is so acting becomes, as above explained, the senior for the time being, and when relieved reverts to his permanent place on the list. ”

“ When differences of opinion developed among the interested assistant general managers as to the relative ultimate economy of different mechanical or structural devices, the general manager would be invoked to give a decision that really would be worth something, because made after considering different viewpoints. Under the old order of things, the superintendent of motive power or the chief engineer is tempted to seek the ear of the general manager on the latter's best natured day to put over a requisition for some pet device. ”

“ They have the health, energy and assertiveness necessary to keep climbing. They accept their assignments and carry them out with modest success. They are the lesser executives who work themselves out by the time they are fifty and find some sinecure or safe position near the top of the social pyramid.
Below the high command posts there is a wide range of handymen and specialists who fill particular positions and place their time, energy, experience and expertise at the disposal of the high command. Among them are scientists, engineers, technicians. ”

“ The copy operator is generally the man next for promotion to a despatcher's trick, and his relations with his chief must be entirely harmonious.
The working force in a well regulated despatcher's office consists of the chief despatcher, three trick despatchers, and two copy operators, with the various call boys and messengers. The chief despatcher is next to the division superintendent, and has full charge of the office. He has the supervision of the yard and train reports, and the ordering out of the trains and crews. ”

“ Under them, the master is required to exercise the same degree of care for his servant that he should for his own safety, and he is bound to furnish a reasonably safe place in which his servant [Pg 133] is to work, supply reasonably safe implements and machinery, select fellow-servants reasonably competent and prudent, and, where the nature of the business requires an overseer or superintendent, appoint one who is reasonably competent and prudent. ”

“ The workman was not watched and timed at every little operation, and he knew that as the job had been one day so it would be the next. Now, however, every day brings fresh troubles from some quarter or other. The supervisory staff has been doubled or trebled, and they must do something to justify their existence. Before the workman can recover from one shock he is visited with another; he is kept in a state of continual agitation and suspense which, in time, operate on his mind and temper and transform his whole character. ”

“ AID IN MANAGEMENT AND DISCIPLINE
11. Owing to his peculiar knowledge of human nature, it is often possible for the employment supervisor or his assistant to aid executives in discipline in their several departments. It has been our experience that an efficient employment department is not in existence very long before many executives begin to come in for consultation and to ask the employment supervisor or his assistant what course to pursue in reference to some particular man or some particular set of circumstances. ”