The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-27
DEPARTMENT STORE SYSTEM
IS COMPLICA TED MA CHINER1
Method of Operating These Big Shops Has Been Reduced
Exact and Interesting Science

The machinery of a big department store
is a complicated piece of mechanism. The
people who view from the outside the work
ings of big shop of the kind where one
may find anything from a Paris pattern
robe TO pork chops; who find stocks of all
varieties always displayed for their exami-
nation. clerks alert and ready to attend to
their wants. wrappers and cash boys or
girls at the beck of the clerks pencils;
fioor-walkers to solve their puzzlements as
to the location of departments. and all the
other wealth of attendance that the we'll
regulated department shop affords, are
likely to accept the whole thing as a mat
ter of course and give the workings of the
machinery no more thought than if, like
Topsy, it ''just growed.'
But it doesn't just grow. The depart
ment store is the result of unflagging dis
cipline and labor on the part of the few
in authority, and it is only a strict atten-
ton to details that insures an attentive
clerk, with the ever-ready question, Some
thing?" when you would a-shopping go.
And to the few people who try to penetrate
beyond the surface of clerkly courtesy
and prompt delivery service there is a fas-
cination in discovering how the wheels that
move so many people go round.
One of the department stores here has
always pay roll of over 600 employees and
during the present holiday season it en-
ploys over 700. To keep this army of sales
people in working order the utmost nicely
OF detail is demanded, and so in the store,
as in all well-reguls ted households there is
a place for everything and everybody, and
everything and everybody must be in that
particular place or somebody-either the
heads of departments or the general man
ager-will have to know why.
The work of this store begins at o'clock
an hour before the public is permitted even
to peep within the doors. AT that time the
superintendent of the house arrives and the
store is turned over to him. The process
may lack something of the ceremony at
tendant upon the turning over of the free
dom of the city to a distinguished guest, but
it carries with * more responsibility and
duty. The night force, consisting of a
Waterman and several janitors, abdicates
upon the arrival of the superintendent, and
he is left to set in motion the work of the
porters ana elevator boys. 1t is also his
duty to look after the general aspect of
the store, to see that every department
has on its shining morning face. and that
the thermometers in the various parts of
Ine DuuulnB are up 10 the proper degree.
The porters, who come on at 1880, are set
to cleaning the windows, taking down shut
tiers and carrying freight up and down,
while the elevator boys, who are next in
line, and arrive a quarter of an hour later,
look after their elevators and get them in
readiness for the expected crush of shop
pers hour later.
The Salespeople in the meantime are ar
irving, some leisurely, some breathlessly,
according to the distance of the minute
hand from the figure 8, and each one, as
he arrives registers his number and time
of arrival on one of the time clocks-in-
genious pieces of machinery, each of which
keeps watch and ward over 200 employees.
At five minutes before the hour the time
clerk rings the first bell, and at that sound
each one of the employees of the store is
supposed to be in his place ready to begin
work. When the second bell rings, at pre-
cisely o'clock, the big doors are opened
and the store is ready to swing into the
days work.
THE TOO-EARLY SHOPPER.
Woe betide you if you early morn
ing shopper desiring, for some urgent rea-
son such as an early train, to do bit of
necessary shopping in rush in which even
two minutes are precious, for you can no
more pass those before the appointed
hour than you could pass through the nee
dies eye were you the camel. No amount
of pleading, coaxing, or threatening avails
with the Man Behind the Door to admit
you one second before the hour, and if you
try II you will get a taste of the discipline
which usually goes unheeded in your con-
tact with the shops
The general manager of the store is very
busy about the opening hour arranging the
policy of the store in various departments
His forces of window trimmers report to
him TO receive instruction as to changes in
window decoration to be made before noon;
fresh stocks opened and new displays
made in the interior of the store under the
supervision of the department managers:
the advertisements for that days selling
are pasted up at various places on each
floor so that the clerks may be aware of
bargains specially offered for that day;
and the work of the morning in the man.
ayers office gets well under way.
Each hour has its own particular system
of numbering its clerks and of registering