The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-10-13
Mixing Social
Dunes With
Business
BY BETH MILyArNE

NV hal sWoui0A you 40 II your DoS9
w Of only two days proposed lit
tie trip into the country over
the weekend?
What would you answer il a man
ycu had met just in a business way
asked you to dinner and theater?
If you had gone to lunch once or
twice with young clerk in your Of
flee and then decided You had better
cut short the social acquaintance, how
would you do. it!
When man whose business you
wish to hold makes familiar remarks
to you in the privacy Of his, own office,
how would you snub him and yet keep
him friendly with your firmr
Life In the business world for the
girl is just one such question after an
other. Very few girls escape them. Even
the girl whom the boys of her own set
can a good sport, but seldom ask to
dances. or. the movies, Is thrown into
such intimate contact with the men in,
her business office that she. too, must
make her decisions sooner of later.
Business, primarily, Is made up of
human relationships, and for that rea-
son Is more complex than the most
bewildering Chinese puzzle. Out of any
situation which involves fningiing of
the sexes, even more perplexing prob
lens are bound to arise. People are
likely to forget that sex attraction is
az unacceptable rs It is inexplicable,
and that modernsbusiness came into ex-
istence many ages after Adam and Eye
had their first love affair.
The woman in business, has been 50
recent an Innovation that neither the
woman nor the astonisiied male has
had time to readjust himself or her
self to the new conditions. They have
been laundering GIong like d ship with
out a compass, bowling here before the
conventions. struggling SIindly there
against their own desires. In a way
both sexes have been like pirates, each
man for himself ard the devil take the
hindermast
Human beings. have always felt a
need for code of ethics to guide their
social lives. The fundamental conveI-
lions have this arisen and with them,
more superficial code Of etiquette
which finishes off with rules for mans
outward behavior But this applies
only to his social relations with his
fellow men. and q very artificial stiltcd
social relationship at that. To those
close, informal hours hetweep . and B
no particular thought has been given.
OF late the devil has been having
D pretty busy time Of it, If you can
Judge by what you hear and see.
Isn't it about time that common sense
and good Judgment were put to work
on some of these problems hitherto
left to solve themselves. right or
wrong? Business life for the girl has
been too unstable, tee capriciouk and
enthusiastically. In it she runs up
against new conditions and new free
doms concerning which she has no
standArds TO judge By.
Take Clara, whp. had been, brought
mp in an exceilsnk family. During
her first year in college her father
failed In the wholesale hardware bust.
ness, ana instead Of taking Latin and
zoology, she found herself deep. in the
mysteries of Shorthand.
"A family friend found her a posi-.
tion as stenograHher with q firm of
exporters, kindhearted men in their
way, but rough land uncouth Clara
was exceedingly pretty and always
Ohad q train Of admirers a mile long
whom she kept in abiect obedience BY
the flash of her exaspeFatihgly pretty
eyes. ~
1T came natural, therefore, for her
/, 70 regard all men az playmates, even
Though her common sense told her
somehow she was now on a different
footing with her employers than with
Dick and George, her fayorite dance
One week in the Office indelibly i'm
pressed her with the idea that all her
social training-and she had plenty
counted. as much as. an umbrella in a
cyclone. 1t was simply brushed aside
ana laughed at. At the mems clumsy
advances-in response, it must be adj
United, to her cordial manner and
pert repartee--she tried hauteur, theh
disdain, them anger. Only laughter
and rough advances. to come down off
her high horse and be human.
The last straw came when the man
ager, n square-built man Of forty-odd
and married, took her inside hate one
afternoon into the shipping room and
asked her to have dinner with him up
town. The office was closing for the
day, and Clara felt that the rigor Of
recently self-fmposed discipline might
be slackened.s She shook her head.
and refused the unwelcome invitation
as apparently regretfuliy as she would
Dicks. -
He misunderstood her. unexpected
warmth and seized her arm TO pro-
test. She jerked il away, but he,
aroused By opposition, caught her IN
his arms. IL was scream or be hate
fully kissed. She screamed. BY the
time the timekeepef arrived She had
torn herself away and was speeding
down the hall dragging on her wraps
as she rand
Her father Indignantly telephoned
her resignation the next day. The
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