The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-05-18
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN, Director.
Washington, ID. G.
CONSIDER THE OFFICE WORKER.

poor office workers are just as poor
as they were before. They have to
buy new spring clothes, after all, be-
cause SO many employers have object
ed to having their offices resemble
headquarters of the building trades.
Rent, too, has taken another leap up
ward, and the spring has brought no.
reduction in the price of food Ac-
cording to a soda mixer in the Wall
street district, most of the office work
ers patronizing his counter have now
cut their lunches down to a mere milk
shake in order to have money for the
coming vacation.
But no one ever seems to get ex-
cited over the trials and difficulties of
the office workers. They have no spe-
cial representatives in congress to
plead their case; no presidential can
didate espouses it; and no one writes
book about them. y
Labor no longer has any trouble in
attracting the respect and attention of
the world. Capital can cause a sensa-
ton whenever 1t wants to. The mere
face that Mr.. Baruch retires from
Wall street or that John Wanamaker
eats an apple every day is published
all over the country. But the office
workers and the salary-slaves in gen.
eral toll on in hopeless obscurity.
A FeudaI Figure.
The smaH-saiaried worker is the
chief survivor of the feudal system,
which was supposed to have died out
centuries ago. His work has no stand
ardized value. He is still the hench-
man of his employer, receiving what
worth, which often depends upon how
much the employer likes him or her.
Here in New York. it is a well known
fact that office employees doing the
same kind of work are often paid
widely different salaries. Often,
moreover it is the newer, less expert
enced employe who makes the most.
Said a young stenographer to US
recently: Il happened to see the pay
check of Miss B. the other day. She
does the same kind of work as 1 do,
only 1 am willing to admit she does
it better, because she has been with
the firm five years and knows all the
technical terms they use. But 1 am
making ten dollars a week more than
she is
It's largely a matter of demanding
what you want" she continued. You
notice that most of the ads in the
want-ad columns ask you to state
salary desired. Well. / always state
the largest possible salary. Then, if I
have to come down a few dollars. it
isn't quite so bad. The firm is apt to
feel that it is getting a bargain"
Every office has a mystery all its own
these days-the pay check. And it is
| a mystery which no one is supposed to
penetrate. The clerk who exhibits any
curiosity as to what the other clerks in
the office are making is sternly re-
bulSed, or sometimes even fired. When
New York magazine recently EN-
ployed an efficiency expert at thirty
thousand year, one Of the first things
he did was to tack up the following
notice: There has been too much
gossiping about salaries. Any COM
parison OF pay envelopes will be pun
| NJ iT1G nf
The Interesting Ghost.
Nevertheless, a great deal of gossip
concerning salaries goes on among the
employers. Each is extremely anxious
to learn what the other pays his office
workers, so that if you happen into a
! downtown lunch room during the noon
hour and have to listen to the CONVEX
sation at the surrounding tables, you
can come away convinced that bust
ness men are authorities on only one
| subject-their pay rolls. For in
stance, here is a sample:
! Insurance office manager: Gee,
you ought to see the way my new
! could break that 430 word a minute
| record. Clever youngster, too, and I
pay her only forty dollars a week"
Successful lawyer: You're lucky.
1 have to pay my mine fortyfive, but
| then your work is not as difficult as
ours-even the office boy in our office
| has to be an expert in his line"
| Banker: Hmm. think you're both
couple Of nuts I pay my stenog-
rapher only twenty-five a week. She's
no genius. but she gets the work
done"
Editor of Highbrow Magazine: 81
pay my secretary only eighteen
Thus. you can see that there is very
little unanimity of opinion as to what
employees doing the same sort of work
should get. Stenographers are paid
anywhere from fifteen dollars a weeb
| to fifty; bookkeepers all the way from
twenty dollars to sixty-five; clerks
may make anything at all below
twenty dollars a week, and very few
of these employees, however grea1
| their merit, ever get as much as the
men who come in to clean the office
windows, or the janitor
Pride Versus Money.
One of the factors causing this lack
of standardization is snobbishness;
sometimes it is called pride. You may
have noticed in the conversation re
ported above that it was the banker.
and the editors employees who made
less money. The amazing truth is thai
an office worker would much rather
do the humblest. worst-paid work il
the office ofya dignified or cultured
institution than take an easy job, pay.
MS TIL &c tunes as AiuCi III d factory
We know a milliner who works in g
large hat factory which pays her $10(
a week and we know an assistant tc
exclusive Madison Avenue interior dec
orator who is making only fifteen
Yet when the two girls meet at the
Y. w. C. A gymnasium, it is tbs
young assistant who is fearfull1
naughty and patronizing to the MILL
ner.
There is one thing. however, which
all employers will admit. and upoI
which all employees are agreed, and
that is the fact that the office workers
are bearing the brunt of the high cos
of living.
What is the remedy? Organization
has been suggested.
The only successful attempt along
that line has been made by the A. F
of L. itself. 1t is stretching out
| rather careless arm to include clerica