The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-17
DRAWBACKS IN OFFICE
GOVERNMENT JOBS ARE NOT UNMIT-
IGATED DELIGHTS.
Plant Of an Ohio Man, Who Finds the
Society of His Female Associates
in Office IrksOme.
Washington Post.

about enough work to keep me from read
ing the New York daily papers or getting
into any other sort of equally injurious
mental mischief during office hours" said
an Ohio man who clipped the civil-service
fence about half year ago and got sit
in one of the departments at the monthly
stipend of $50. now amplified into 1888. 80.
THE job itself IS all right and have been
rendering congratulatory receptions to my
self and wearing my digits out with per-
sonally conducted, solitary handshaking
seances with myself ever since l got it.
But there's no bliss without an alloy
where does the drawback come in in
your case?' inquired the man who writes
pieces for the paper.
Through the windows. mostly" resumed
the Ohio man, nudging up closer to the
hotel lobby steam heater: through the
wide-open windows of the office l work in.
It's considerable drawback, that-a huge
rebate from a perennial deIirium of joy
It's this way, you understand: OF the nine
teen people who draw government pay for
sitting seven hours a day in the room / sit
in for the same commendable purpose, four
teen of 'em are hypochondriacs, and these
fourteen hypochondriacs are capable of
subassortment this way: Sew fresh-air-
ties and seven anti-fresh-arites. The rest
you can picture for yourself
"Oh, yes, they're equally divided in num-
bers, all right: that's why it looks like such
cinch to you to do a little office politics
and bring the issue to a vote. But, here;
five of the hyponchrodaics who are fresh
airites are elderly ladies, who have worked
and had their official being In that same
room for periods ranging from twenty
years to quarter of a century. Conse-
quently, they own the room. We don't
amount to bag of beans. The chief of the
division is a male pollywog, having only
been chief of the division for ten years or
So and being mild hammered man who
has experienced the tolls and moils of war,
ne now belongs to the peace-at-any- price
party, and the elderly ladies who run the
room Know how to fix him out stiff by the
simple means of concerted glances
CAN'T CLOSE THE WINDOWS
Now, here; I've only been in the room
six months, you understand. When l got
there, it was in the beauteous summer sea-
son, when the birds, and flowers, and all
the word-say. it was hot weather then, of
course, and nobody had any kick COMING
over the open windows. When the leaves
began to swirl in the street though, and
The sky became dun-hued and snowy-look-
ing and all that-why, it kind O. struck me
eft open. Being new and raw around there,
you know, wasn't next, of course. So one
day in November, when it was pretty chilly,
and the cold and wind was gushing into Ia
windows like there was pump somewhere
It the other end of the line, /, sitting at my
1eSk, gave q br-r-r-r-r-r like a cold man
generally gives when he gets out o. bed in
The morning, and then | walked over TO one
)f the windows and was going to pull it
own. l hadn't any more than got my hand
on the casing than | was scared INTO
,onniption. Five voices of five elderly la
lies right behind me snapped out all at
once in perfect unison, as if they had the
hing all rehearsed:
Young man, stop that! You are not to
'Huh? said I, turning around just about
IS much surprised as I'd be if a deputy
ihoulder and told me was under arrest for
selling whisky to Cherokee Indians.
Leave that window alone!' said the
i've elderly ladies. again all at once.
With
are any of the other windows to be low
ered; we require fresh air. said the five ell
ierly ladies' whose toupees were being
blown up like Tam o Shanter hats even a
they spoke. Now. know when I'm licked
md when I'm up against it. So just drew
n, went out and bought hackmans ulster
for $741 and have been swaddled up in it
,ver since during Office hours. Funny thing
too. about those fresh-airites. Not on
Of EN- looks as if he or she had 20 cents
makeup and yet, logged If they don't all
move their desks right up to the windows
% give the winter blasts a better show to
blow on them.
Its great to hear, all day long, the sup
pressed growls of the anti-fresh-airites. You
see. none of 'em dares to talk right out
oud in meeting, on account of the elderly
lady proprietorS of the room but there s
nothing to prevent them from STOPPING over
rs T they were tying their shoes, and growl-
ing at the floors.
1--WE only got one Wiling blinged lung
anyhow, and to have all of those cursed
windows open growls one of 'em.
q I've got sciatca so bad already that I
can't have any fun whaling my kids, and
With all these windows open another one
If EN- gets it off with his head safely
tucked under his desk.
AID I've god such a bloobid, biserable
doosadce of cold i'd by head dow that ]
,ad see straight, with this gee-whillilid
shack colder'd a bardyard,' is the way
other of the sufferers works off his grief
soto voce.
SCRAPS BETWEEN TYPEWRITERS.
But it's not the windows alone you
know. that makes official life in that room
where l sit and draw pay interesting and
exciting. There are two stenographers in
that room-a young man and young-well,
er, kind o. young woman-you know the
kind, pale, gallery hair, as likely to be TWEEN
ty-five as fifty, vice versa Well, the
scraps between these two pot-hook and
y
$ a good man at his business. but he has
got the big head. The-er-young woman
can only make bluff at reading her short
hand notes, and she's whole lot shy of
commas and periods and things like that
n her attacks on the typewriter but she's
been in the room for ten years or so, and
she's got the five proprietary elderly ladies
on her side, and so she's got a bulge on
that young man Stenographer that is simply
massive The chief of the division, desir-
ing to keep out of the way of this mixed
up game between the two typewriter folks
in his room, takes the pile of copying that
ne has ready to dish out, plunks it down on
a table belonging to nobody in the room in
particular. and then runs for his life. The
er-yOung woman typewriter then takes the
pile Of copying, selects all the easy and phat
stuff for herself and hands over the rest
ports damned full of technical terms and
all that sort of thng-to the young man
stenographer. She waltZeS over to his desk
with an arnful of stuff, plunks it on the
youths desk and then the-hem-youn
woman typewriter gives him a glare.
There are half dozen scraps between
the shorthand pair every day. but the girl
comes out on top every time. When the
young man gets an unusually good dab
at her all she has to do is to pun a wad
of handkerchief ard poke at her eyes a
couple of times and then sail into the chiefs
room. Then the chief sends for the young
man. calls him down for outrageously
abusing "a lady. and finishes by jollying him
jack at his line of work. and the chief don't
want him to transfer out Of the division.
WATCHES AND TIME BALL.
"And, then, that never-failing MONDAY
wrangle about the time of day Every
man in the room, young and old. pulls out
his watch about three minutes before the