The Washington herald., 1915-10-07
THE JOBS THAT GO BEGGING.

L
petent girls to meet the demand OF
employers" said a woman who fol
several years has been carrying on
business employment agency.
"Talk about girls being out OF
work! OF course they are, and some
of them always will be, for there are
never enough small jobs to go
around, and there are always more
high-class positions than there are
women to fill them. But that is the
trouble. There are so few competent
workers. l could find work for a
hundred more than / have on my
lists"
What did this woman mean by
competent? We all of US know es-
timable girls, whom we think of as
competent, who are too frequently
"out of job" and always poorly
paid. Yet this woman with years of
experience in the field of business
employment ought to know.
Then she tells us what she means
by competence. First of all it is
personality" which she has decid-
ed is one of the chief assets in sue
cess. And by personality" she does
not mean bluff" and she does not
mean feminine charm. She means
the quality that keeps an Office work
er from being a mere machine. There
are always enough automatons, busi-
ness school graduates who can take
dictation and put it down in type
writing.
But many of these little graduates
do not know that anything more is
expected of them, they do not know
that chewing gum and eating cara
mcls stand against them on the road
to success They do not know that
primping in the dressing-room every
half hour docs not help them toward
advancement, and they cannot see
that their best-beloved should not
make a habit of telephoning during
business hours. The girl who is in
co,1petcnt does not know that the
successful business woman must be
serious without being solemn, that
he must be well-dressed-and this
is a very important consideration
without being "dolled up. She
doesn't know that even after she gets
good Job she must go on studying
harder than she did in school, to make
herself familiar with the details OF
the work that is going on around her
Sho doesn't know lots of things and
in nine cases out OF ten no end OF eN-
pcriencc will teach her these things
From the employees point OF view
ono of the hardest things to hnd
nova days is the mediocre job-there
arc SO many mediocre workers that
these Jobs are all taken. And from
the employers point of view one OF
the hardest things to find is the
woman capable OF filling the job that
is not mediocre.
From the standpoint of the girl
who works there is always the con-
sidcration that mediocrity is good
enough The girl who achieves dis
tinctive success has to sacrifice many
things. She has to forcgo chewing
gum and eating caramels. for one
thing. She has to forego the tele-
phone messages from the best-be-
loved She often has TO break lunch
con appointments and frequently is
called upon to work at night. whether
or not that was club night, or the
night the bcst-beloved had planned
to take her to the theater. She has
10 take her vacation when it suits her
employer, or perhaps not at all. Often
these sacrifices cost her many friends;
they always cost her much in the
way OF good time"
The competent worker becomes
engroSsed in her work-that IS one
of the perquisites of succcss-and the
first thing she knows she has no other /,
interests in life. And of course
every ono knows that the pretty, |
frivolous. inefficient little Office work
er who adores caramcls and primps |
every half hour is more likely to
marry than is her highly efficient CO.
worker.
The fact remains that for the COM
petent girl there will always be work
and to spare. The question is, docs
she want to pay the price?
Even the velvet bridle first cousin |
to Tommy Atkins chin strap. plays a
part among the new designs. Women |