The Washington herald., 1913-06-07
INTERESTING PAGE FOR WOMAN AND THE HOME -
A TOO FOND REGARD
FOR SAVING TIME
The New Efficiency in the Home Tends
TO Make Women Human
M.ehines
By FRANCES sHAFFER.

Everybody who Is wise at all regard
ing work as il runs in the average home
knows quite well that efficiency, stan
dardizing, motion-study, and the like are
not reckoned with as much as perhaps
they ought to be-
And everybody is convinced that sys-
TEN makes mighty difference in the
time it takes to perform a certain task
But
Maybe il is a shameless confession
and a very unprogressive way of view
ing things. but there are few folk in
the world who cannot listen with any
degree of complacency to too much OF
that kind of talk.
Because they very much fear that
when the "speeding-up" ambition and
the craze for saving time once intrude
their strenuous. exacting selves in easy
going, comfortable. very human homes,
something will be lost that never will be
found again-space for a bit of song
while the work is going on.
You see, it is this way:
Writers and others who are calling
attention to inefficient methods in house.
work are saying-we do not dispute its
truth-that in the various shifts" OF
work there is a deplorable waste of time.
The inefficient Way.
In cleaning. for instance. they declare
that the old-time housekeeper is more
likely than not to take a single room,
sweeping. busting, hopping, and turning
about from one thing to another until
the last bit of dust has been whisked
away and the last piece of furniture re-
stored TO its place, then passing on to the
the next room, where the whole per-
Torrance is repeated. And so on until
the entire house is in orderly array for
another week.
That's the inefficient way.
Now. the new method bids her take
her broom in hand and sweep. sweep,
sweep until the uttermost corner of the
very last room has been reached and
vsnquished by the housewifely weapon.
And the advantage is that she starts
with her one broom-tool at the begin
ming and keeps 1t in her hand right
straight through. to be deposited in its
proper place when the onslaught is over,
without a single lost motion. And she
uses Just one set of muscles in the big
swing of sweeping.
Then. the new housekeeper is ready to
go back TO the beginning and adjust her
self and her muscles to the next shift |
of busting. And. Of course, she picks up
her modern buster for the first room
and does not lay it down again until she
has passed from room to room and is
saving of time is quite obvious, even TO
the uninitiated.
Efficient Way.
And in this. specialization, without
changing shift until it is time to
change. without dropping broom for
duster and buster for broom, dozens of
futile times. we have the efficient way. |
But somehow or other there's a saving |
remnant of old-fashioned folk who per-
sistently refuse TO recognize the advan-
tage-perhaps they may when they really |
wake up. But just now they are con-
tent TO sweep a little while, then put in
use another set of muscles by the quick
est kind of shift satisfied. too, to lose
a little precious time in the changing of
tools. And as for watching clock to |
learn how many minutes are required |
for a special task. then speeding up to |
reach the very limit-they would rather |
stand the charge OF inefhciency.
Because they remember that human |
energy and human spirits have a way Of
varying from day to day and from indi- |
want to ''standardize" and adjust their
tasks so we'll that they will feel like |
well-ordered machines.
II the individual housekeeper likes the /
new method better. If she is satisfied to |
work for a long stretch of time on a |
single shift. for the doubtful sake OF /
few minutes saved. and if she is will
ing to speed up for the sake of main
tanning a working standard, it is all very |
well and one has nothing TO say.
Questions Method.
But when it comes to applying the
new method to paid assistants in the
HONEYWELL, it may turn out well, but /
one very much doubts it. Because speed
for one is sloth for another, ease for one
hardship for another, and, with a GER
tain standard ever in sight. some nervous
workers soon drop out of efficient har-
ness.
Whatever men may be willing to do in
their shops. their factories, and their
busy working places, there are some folk
who count it real pity for women to
subscribe too conscientiously to the new
way of speeding efficiency.
1t is right enough and sane enough to
make the most and the best of human
energy but il is mighty easy to step
over the line and transform a human
being into an effective machine-effective
for a little while.
Housework soon drifts into drudgery
by inefficient methods, but better a bit of
drudgery than the kind of lifeless work
that sometimes follows in the wake of
too fond regard for the saving of time.