Part 15
In the limited space of this book, I shall have no opportunity to carry you further into the details of this fascinating department of the modern store. The saleswoman's little black book that we saw but a few minutes ago ought to show it more clearly to your eyes than any elaborate presentments of schedules and curriculums. The result's the thing. And Macy's has the results. It has already achieved them. Not only has it lifted retail selling from the hard and rutty road of cold commercialism but it has lifted the individual seller, himself--which, to my way of thinking, is to be accounted a good deal of a triumph. In such a triumph society at large shares--and shares not a little.
It is house policy--sound policy--to encourage employees to look out not only for the store's interest, but for their own. An ambitious salesman is indeed an asset; and there are ways of keeping him ambitious. There is, for instance, the system of bonuses for punctuality, which takes the final form of extra holidays in the summertime. A week's holiday with pay is given without fail to each and every employee of eight months' standing. But a record of good attendance and punctuality for fifty long weeks brings another week of vacation, also with full pay. Department-stores not so long ago used to penalize their workers for tardiness. The new Macy plan works best, however.
The list of those bonus possibilities is long. There is, of course, chief amongst them, the bonus which takes the concrete form of a sales commission. The salesclerk is set a moderate quota for his or her week's work. On sales that reach above this figure he or she is paid a percentage commission. And, lest you may be tempted to dismiss this statement with a mere shrug of the shoulders, as a perfunctory thing perhaps, permit me to tell you that but last year a retail salesman in the furniture department earned in excess of $6,000 in wages and commissions.
One other thing before we are done with this main chapter on the Macy family and starting up another which shall show the super-household at its play; it is a thing closely associated both with department-store employment and training: this "special squad" which has become so distinctive a feature of the big red-brick selling enterprise in Herald Square. Concretely, it is a group of college graduates--the heads of the firm are themselves college men and have none of the contempt for education that has become so blatant a thing in the minds of so many "self-made business captains" of today--who desire to enter upon this fascinating and comparatively new field of department-store service.
As one of the executives of the department of training himself says, "Many of these young grads come in here with the rattle of their brand-new diplomas so loud in their ears that for quite a while they can't hear anything else."
Yet they are good material--as a rule, uncommonly good material. So Dr. Michael Lucey says, and Dr. Lucey knows. As a supplement to his educational work in the commercial high schools he entered Macy's last summer and spent the two months of his vacation in the special squad, studying the store from a variety of intimate and personal angles. On his first day in it, the distinguished educator sold clothing--men's clothing--and he sold to his first customer, an accomplishment which he notes with no little pride. His pride at the moment was large. But the next moment was destined to take a fall. A floor manager down the aisle espied the new clerk.
"Don't let those trousers sweep the floor," he admonished.
And the educator had his first taste of store discipline.
Sooner or later all these young men out of college get that first taste. It does not harm them. And it is not very long before they begin to observe that, after all, there are still a few things about which they know practically nothing. After which their real education begins.
A department-store is, among other things, a great melting pot. An Englishman who came into Macy's special squad last year inquired just what work might be expected of him. He was told.
"Manual labor," he protested, "I can't think of it. I wear the silver badge."
Which meant that he was one of the King's own--a pensioner of the late war. The store executive who first handled this bit of human raw material possessed a deal of real tact; most of them do. He smiled gently upon the Britisher.
"After all," he suggested, "you know you don't have to tell your King that you had to use your two good hands in hard work."
The Englishman saw the point. He laughed, shook hands and went to work. In six months he was an executive, himself. It's a way that they have at Macy's. And here is part of the way.
Manual labor is demanded invariably of those who enlist in the special squad. It has a regular system through which each of its workers must pass. First he is given the history and development of the store and of its policies. This work is followed by a week on the receiving platform and then a good stiff session in the marking-room. The college boy follows the merchandise along a little further. He proceeds for a while to sell it--then does the work of a section manager. After which there come, in logical sequence, the delivery department, the bureau of investigation, the comptroller's office, the tube system, an intensive study of the departments of employment and of training. These are not only studied but written reports are made upon them. After which he should have a pretty fair idea of the store and the things for which it stands.
The course is only varied in slight detail for the woman college graduate. Macy's has naught but the highest regard for the gentler sex--not alone as its patrons but as members of its staff--yesterday, today and tomorrow. A woman may not be able to handle heavy cases upon the receiving platform. But there are other sorts of cases that she may handle--and frequently with a tact and diplomacy not often shown by the more oppressed sex. I might cite a hundred instances from within the store where she has shown both--and initiative as well. But I shall give only one--where initiative played the largest part. Some few months ago a young woman who has climbed high in the store organization, to the important post of buyer of a most important line of muslin wearing apparel, found herself in France, but a few hours before the steamer upon which she was booked to sail to the United States was to depart from Southampton. To take a steamer across the Channel and then catch her boat was quite out of the question. She did the next best thing. She hopped on an aëroplane and flew from Paris to London; seemingly in almost less time than it here takes to tell it. She caught her boat. Her instructions were to catch the boat. And long since she had acquired the Macy habit of obeying orders.
Upon this, again, a whole volume might be written--upon the thoroughness of an organization which really organizes, a training department that really trains, a system which really systematizes. And all under the title of a family group--in which affection and tact and understanding come into play quite as often as discipline and energy and initiative.
VII. The Family at Play
In the business machine of yesterday there were no adjustments for play. It prided itself upon its efficiency. And in the next breath it proclaimed that such efficiency left no room whatsoever for such foolishness as recreation. Today we know much better. We know that play--healthy, uniform play in a decent amount--is one of the very finest of tonics for the human frame. And so count it as one of the very highest factors in our modern schemes of efficiency.
Macy's plays and makes no secret of the fact. On the contrary, it is intensely proud of its provisions for the welfare of its workers. Industrial recreation is no mere idle phrase to it. In hard fact no small portion of the remarkable esprit de corps of the store is due to its well organized recreational and social service work. In a large measure this part of the operation of the store corresponds to what the War and Navy Departments did through their Commissions on Training Camp Activities during the great war. Bearing in mind our likening Macy's to an army in an earlier chapter, the parallel now becomes a close one indeed. Organized recreation promoted better team work in the war; it now promotes better team work in business. Ergo, it is for the welfare of Macy's that it shall promote organized recreation beneath its own roof.
And yet that very phrase, "welfare work," is not often used underneath that roof. It has the flavor of patronage which is so wholly lacking in this family of thousands, and so it is thrust forever into the discard. "The bunch" gets together--you see, you may call the family by almost any name that pleases you best--various groups are forever assembling at the Men's Club or the Community Club and making plans for their numerous activities. And these last cover a surprisingly large range.
Any male employee of the store may join the Macy Men's Club. It is a wholly self-governing body and, aside from making up the inevitable deficits that accrue, the store has no paternalistic or direct attitude whatsoever toward it. The club itself is situated at 156 West Thirty-fifth Street, just west of the store, but entirely separated from it. It occupies two floors of an extremely comfortable building. In its externals it differs very little from any other sort of men's club. There are a reading room and a smoking room where, toward the close of the day and well into the evening, its members may relax. And there is a restaurant serving extremely good meals.
It is only as one pokes beneath the surface that he begins to find out how very real this small institution, that is an offshoot of the larger one, really is. Its restaurant serves meals at considerably less than cost. And the fact that this club is regarded as something more than a mere combination of eating-place and rest-room is shown by its organization activities in other directions. For example, its members interest themselves in general athletics to the extent that, in the proper seasons, they have very creditable teams of baseball, basketball, football and the like, while occasional outings with suitable field events are arranged. Each Thursday evening there is organized athletic work in a large private gymnasium that is especially hired for the purpose.
In fact it is at this last point that the Men's Club comes in contact with the Community Club, which is the nucleus organization covering other recreational activities among the women, the girls and the younger men of the store family. For, by careful planning, both of these clubs manage to use the big gymnasium of a single evening, while, after the athletic work is over, the floor is cleared and there is dancing until going-home time.
These comforts are not given without some cost to the Macy folk. That would be very bad business indeed. It has been so decided long since. And so, while it may be human nature to be ever on the lookout for "something for nothing," it is quite as human to derive very much additional enjoyment from the things for which one pays. Even the suggestion of charity is not pleasant. And with this in view these clubs charge nominal sums for their privileges. In so doing they earn the respect of those who share in them.
Dues for the Men's Club are placed at three dollars a year--that surely is a nominal figure. These go toward the development of club activities outside of its actual running expenses (rent, the restaurant, etc.). The gymnasium fee is another three dollars, which is much less than one would pay for a similar facility elsewhere in New York.
The scale of charges for the Community Club is quite different. The dues here are but twenty-five cents a year--its membership is made up mainly of lower-salaried folk--with small extra charges for special activities. For instance, the Spanish class, which is taught by one of the Spanish interpreters in the store and which has a constant attendance of about forty, costs its pupils the very inconsiderable sum of five cents a lesson. The gymnasium charge is kept in a like ratio. There are a few others in addition. The aggregate cost, however, of as many activities as an average employee can take up is of little moment or burden to him or to her--nothing as compared with the sense of independence that goes with the small act of payment.
The Choral Club, under the direction of a competent leader, meets Wednesday evenings in the big recreation room on the third floor of the store, with a usual attendance of about two hundred men and women who are trained in part singing and in chorus work of various sorts. This is not only enjoyable and popular for its own sake but it has an added value in leading toward the organizing of the store's talent for concerts and for musical plays.
And it has such talent. Do not forget that--not even for a passing moment. It would be odd, indeed, if a family of five thousand folk did not develop upon demand much real histrionic and artistic ability of every sort. And when such potentialities are fostered and encouraged, the results--well, they are such as to warn Florenz Ziegfeld and the rest of the Forty-second Street theatrical producers to keep a sharp eye, indeed, upon Macy's.
On Monday evenings, the entire winter long and well into the spring, the Dramatic Club meets and here every budding Maxine Elliott or Ina Claire has her full opportunity. On Tuesday there is a get-together evening--one begins to think with all these evenings so neatly filled of the calendar of a real social enterprise--and then one sees the store family at its fullest relaxation. Here was a recent Tuesday night. It was just before Christmas and the store was approaching the annual peak load of its year's traffic. Yet it had no intention whatsoever of relaxing a single one of its social endeavors.
On this particular Tuesday evening our salesgirl--the one whom we saw but a moment ago being inducted into the selling organism of the store--made her first personal acquaintance with the Community Club. Let her tell her own story, and in her own way:
"Up in the recreation room a few hundred of us gathered for a regular party. Some few of us had gone home after store hours for our dinner; the others had had it right in the store's own lunchroom. It surely is great the way that you _can_ get a meal there in Macy's at any time you are staying late--either on duty or on pleasure.
"At about six-thirty the evening's program got under way--so that the many friendly, chattering groups of girls in the big room finally had to simmer down to something approaching silence. Then the Choral Club began singing for us--some good, old-time Christmas carols first, and then some other songs. All of us joined finally in the chorus, leaving the club to carry the difficult parts. They could do that all right, too. Mr. Janpolski, their leader, finally gave us a solo and after that there was a grand march led by our own beloved Marjorie Sidney. Everybody joined in--not only in body, but in spirit. It was like Washington's Birthday in the big gym up at Northampton. Messenger girls, college graduates, salesfolk, deliverymen, managers--everyone was just the same in that blessèd hour. Distinctions of the store were gone. We were boys and girls--some of us a bit grown up and grayed to be sure, but all with Peter Pannish hearts--having a real party once again.
"The grand march ended in dancing for every one--with a jolly negro at the piano doing his level best to uphold the reputation of his race for really spontaneous music. Finally, after many encore dances, everybody withdrew from the floor and out came Mr. Salek, the director of the Men's Club, and Miss Knowles, doing an almost professional dance. The Castles had very little on this couple--the way Salek lifted his partner and then let her down--slowly, slowly, still more slowly--reminded me of Maurice and Walton. Their performance brought down the house. Of course they had to respond to encores; again and again and again.
"Following this--for Macy's believes that variety is the spice of all life--a Junior recited the unforgetable ''Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.' She really was a darling. And how Christmassy she looked, with her big butterfly sash and her hairbow of scarlet tulle.... Next on the program came dancing--for everybody. First, however, there was another march, so that each couple received a number--while every little while certain numbers (the couples that held them) were eliminated from the floor. The nicest part about this elimination dance, as they called it, was that instead of only the last couple getting the prize, as is generally done--every couple, as soon as its number was called and it left the floor, went over to a big chimney-top, with a proverbially jolly 'Santa' peering out of it. There Santa gave to each one a little gift, such as a whistle, a stick of candy, or a jolly little rattle. Then, after more dancing, refreshments were served by gaily garbed Junior waitresses. After which the dancing continued until the merry Community Club Christmas dance was entirely over."
Already I have touched upon the annual vacation of the Macy worker--one week with pay after eight months continuous employment, two weeks after two years, three weeks after five years, and a month after twenty-five years of service. A charming retreat among the hills of Sullivan County, eighty-seven miles from New York and, through the foresight of the management of the store, purchased long ago, provides an ideal vacation spot for the Macy girls who wish to spend their holidays among truly rural surroundings. For this purpose a large farm house and a hundred acres of surrounding land were acquired by Macy's and more than fifty thousand dollars spent in enlarging the house, beautifying the grounds and otherwise making them suitable for their summertime uses. In addition to the big and immaculately white farm house there are three cottages upon the property. As many as sixty-five girls can be accommodated at a single time upon it.
Three jumps or so from the main house and stretched out in front of it is a lake; a regular lake, if you please, big enough for boating and for bathing, although not so large that one of the keen-eyed chaperones may keep her weather eye on those of her charges whose tastes run toward water sports. In this Adamless Eden bloomers and middy blouses are _de rigueur_, and as the few restraints imposed are only those inspired by ordinary good sense, the girls experience the real joys of living.
All of these activities and interests--and many, many more besides--are faithfully chronicled in the Macy house organ, _Sparks_. Here is a monthly magazine--of some sixteen pages, each measuring seven by ten inches--that in appearance alone would grace any newsstand, while its contents almost invariably bear out the attractiveness of its cover designs. Practically the entire publication is prepared by its staff, which, in turn, is composed of members of the Macy family.
House organs, such as this, are, of course, no novelty in the American business world of today. There probably are not less than fifty department-stores alone which are now printing brisk contemporaries of _Sparks_. The internal publications of a house, such as Macy's, have long since come to be recognized as one of its most valuable media for the promotion of morale. It costs money, but it is money well expended. So says modern business. And modern business ought to know. For it has tested the results. And the house organ long since became one of the really valuable aides.
Here, then, in _Sparks_ is not only a medium in which the Macy folks may come the better to know about one another, a bulletin board upon which the heads of the house may from time to time carry very direct and sincere messages to their big family, but a mouthpiece in which the embryo literary genius may become articulate. And, lest you be tempted to believe that I have permitted simile to carry me quite away from fact, let me show you a single instance--there are a number of others beside--in which a real literary genius has come to bloom underneath the great roof that looks down upon Herald Square:
His pen name is Francis Carlin--but his real name, the one under which he entered Macy's, is James Francis Carlin MacDonnell. Of him _Current Opinion_ but a year or two ago said: "The writer (Carlin) ... was until a few weeks ago a floorwalker in one of the big department-stores of New York City (Macy's) and was discovered by Padraic Colum. He had his book obscurely printed and it has been unobtainable at bookstores until recently.... It has the true Celtic quality. The dedication alone is worth the price of admission: 'It is here that the book begins and it is here, that a prayer is asked for the soul of the scribe who wrote it for the glory of God, the honor of Erin and the pleasure of the woman who came from both--his mother.'"
Mr. MacDonnell has written two books: this first, _My Ireland_, and more recently the _Cairn of Stones_. That he has great talent is again attested by _The Boston Transcript_ which said recently: "Mr. Carlin's Celtic poems, ballads and lyrics are nearer the fine perfection of the native poets belonging to the Celtic renaissance than those produced by any poet of Irish blood born in America."
After which, who may now dare say that genius may not blossom in a department-store? And even were it not for the gaining glory of Carlin, the pages of any current issue of _Sparks_ would show that there is more than a deal of artistic merit in the widespread ranks of the Macy family. The desire for self-expression is never stunted. And the pages of its avenue of expression are read by none more closely than the members of the family who hold the ownership of Macy's.
And yet these men--the heads of the great merchandising house--are not only accessible to their business family through the printed word. They are not standoffish. On the contrary, they are most widely known throughout the store; most reachable, both within their offices and without. Take the single matter of grievances, for a most important instance: A Macy worker may feel that justice on some point or other is being denied him by a superior. In such a case he has immediate recourse to any one of three expedients: he may take his case to the department of training, to the general manager of the store, or to one of the officers of the corporation. As a rule, however, the difficulty can be straightened out in the first of these avenues of appeal, which is an automatic clearing-house for all matters of personnel. The heads of this department have been chosen as much as anything for the sympathy which enables them to review any employee's case intelligently and fairly and for the influence that makes it possible for them to see at all times that full justice is being done. While the fact that the worker, himself, may take the matter to the general manager or even to one of the three members of the firm, is a practical guarantee against persecution of any sort.
Just off the corner of the recreation room on the third floor is the private office of the assistant superintendent of training. Her title sounds rather formidable and does justice neither to her job nor to her personality: for in reality she combines the qualities of a charming hostess, an efficient manager and a mother confessor.