Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1906-05-19
GIRLS EXPECT TOO MUCH?
Office Etiquette Not Like Drawing Room
Manners.


Manners.
4 Boston girl, who shall be namtless
because she has so many copies. com
planned bitterly the other day because
the men in her office, or rather the Of
fee where she worked, did not remove
their hats when they talked to her
With one exception, and that one was
the bookkeeper, who was indoors all the
time, her male co-workers all came with
their hats on and stood around her desk
for a friendly chat. Worse still. when
she bad occasion to go into the private
office of one of the men one day and he
sat with his hat on, his feet on the desk
and a big cigar i'll his mouth, he did not
remove his hat, feet or cigar from
their respective and several roosting
places.
As it happened though the girl did
not know it, at that particular moment
the man was so busily engaged in think
ing how he might induce the boss To
raise her salary that he was unaware
where his feet hat and cigar were. and
even that he had any such appendages.
Indeed, he was so abstracted that it was
with difficulty he even took cogniZance
of what the girl wanted, SAYS a clever
woman known to many Detroit people
simply as Deborah"
But the girl didn't know anything
about that. All she knew was that she
had been grossly insuted, or thought
she had. Size was sure that the man
had been intentionally rude to her. and
the next time the innocent party spoke
to her she was scarcely civil to him.
III is Il two-slded question, that of
whether girl is to expect the same
pollteness in a business office that she
does in drawing room. Unfortunately.
too many girls DO, and their feelings are
drcadfully hurt when they don't get il.
for truth c0mpels me to say they don't.
But when you get right down to BUSH
ness, have girls any right to expect il?
In the hrSt place, they are taking the
place Of men and insist OH being treated
as men in the business world. They
want to do the same sort of work. do do
II in fact, and clam0r Tor the same sal
aries, which they don't get, | might add.
Why. then, should they insist on rails
ing the sex question along other lines?
In the second place, the men haven't
the time to be polite | know some one
will say they should be. that it doesn't
take any more time to be polite than il
does to be rude, and it wouldn't if we
were inherently polite. But we aren't
not many of us. and we usually have TO
stop and think in order to be so.
Besides, is it an act of rudeness for
"a man TO leave his hat on when he
speaks to a girl in a business office?
OF course, it would be awfully nice for
him to remember 10 take it off. but if
he does forget is he necessarily boor:
Far from it,. He is simply immersed in
the whirlpool of business and actually
doesn't know half the time whether his
hat is on his head or on a peg in the
cloak room
More than all that. underneath his
hat he may he revolving some scheme
tOsmake life "A little pIeasantcr for the
very girl who feels herself injured by
his want of manners. For, take them
all in all. the men in business offices
usually take time to think of the essen
tails Of kindness. if they don't think
Of all the little niceties of the drawing
room And the working girl who takes
them ms they are. for better. for
worse" usually finds herself none the
worse. If she isn't always carping
about the little things and trying to
make the men over. she finds that in
big things the most of them remember
her sex and hold out the helping hand
when she needs it.-RoSton Traveller