Chapter V: The Other Side—Office Hardships

Sources of information: Incidents in offices and talks with proprietors.

Probably no difference of opinion exists as to the function of the employment office which purports to furnish "servants," but it is equally probable that no two persons agree upon just what such an office should be like; what its methods should be and what its relation to the public is.

Probably nine tenths of the public who patronize them regard them as a "solution of the servant problem," and only the old, experienced, and honest agents know enough not to advertise them as such,— attractive and lucrative as the method is. Here the probabilities end and facts must be faced. No one regards a bank as a solution of a financial crisis; no one looks at a store as a remedy for inequality in supply and demand; and no one thinks of a commercial enterprise, conforming to the laws of trade, as a philanthropy or an object upon which to heap abuse. It is a serious question if the public, both employers and employees, are not to some degree responsible for the conditions described, and if they do not demand too much of them. These offices are just as much a medium of exchange as a bank or store, but the public instead regards them as factories where household workers may be manufactured, and its demands are correspondingly unreasonable. Now an intermediary—a medium of exchange—can never be a solution of any problem whose roots go deep down into social and economic life, and any office which so advertises does not understand its mission. But such an office can start or co-operate in other movements.

The function of an agency is to register the wants of each applicant, to use every honest means to bring employers and employees together, and to adopt reasonable precautions for both. But it cannot make employers more reasonable or increase the competency or the number of employees, and it has no facilities for making them more honest or temperate—at least, it cannot do this unless it becomes an educational centre, exerting a wide influence upon both employers and employees. The preceding chapters have shown many methods from which they can refrain, but creating numerous, competent, and faithful employees, and fair and just employers, is a different matter.

The people who are in charge of many of the intelligence offices are not of the standard to make them educational centres, and this is partly the fault of applicants. The treatment of employment agents by many employers is often such that men and women of refinement, culture, and education cannot retain such positions without much humiliation and loss of self-respect. The treatment accorded clerks in stores is far more civil. Of course, there are many gracious employers, who make the life of the agent a delight, but every office has its full share of the others. At the risk of too much detail the following occurrences are given, illustrating the attitude of many employers. These occurred in the best offices, and the employers represent the best social grades.

The attitudes of two employers of the same social status may be utterly different. To two ladies waiting in an office were brought two colored men. While talking with them the men sat down. The manager of the office said in an undertone, not intended for the employers, "When you are talking with a lady about a place, always stand." One employer thanked the agent afterwards, but the other actually flounced out of the room, saying, "You are a dictator, not an office-keeper." With but this one experience she tried to hurt the reputation of the office by saying it catered only to the wealthy.

Any other business can adopt any system which seems best, but not the intelligence office. For instance, one has been severely criticised for influencing wages, because it states in its advertisements the wages offered. But individual employers who advertise independently state wages as an attraction, and with these the office must compete. In a model office, recently started, both employer and employee must register separately before they can be introduced to each other. To save time, only girls who come somewhere near the requirements are introduced. Employers have indignantly left the office because they could not go into the employees' room and in the presence of some fifty girls question all of them. What pandemonium, if fifty em-ployers were in there at once! Employers sometimes refuse to wait in attractive waiting-rooms, or use private interview rooms, because they want to be in the main room and hear all that is said. The introduction of any innovation, even when it is for the employers' benefit, meets with more criticism than commendation.

Charges of favoritism are frequent. No doubt less reputable offices are guilty, but many of the accusations are undeserved. In one office there were two well-dressed ladies. One had waited an hour, the other had just come in. To the latter was brought a young Danish girl, who spoke almost no English. Through an interpreter she was engaged. She was rather attractive, and when the first lady heard she was taken she gave one enraged scream and rushed to the door. Every one came in to see what was the trouble. She was intercepted downstairs by the manager, and said she never saw such awful partiality. The facts of the case were: The employer who engaged the girl had a Danish cook who could understand her, while the first one had no other servant and could not have said one word to her; the girl refused to go anywhere if she had to do the laundry work, and the first employer would have no one who would not do it; the girl would not go where there were children, and the first employer had two—three impossible points of adjustment, which the manager knew.

In another instance a man came in, and said he had registered three weeks ago and both his neighbors had secured employees, and he would expose the office as a fraud. Investigation showed that he had seven children, and wanted one employee for general housework for $3.50 per week. The manager, with a policeman and a club, could not have sent girls there, when they know how much they are in demand.

Another office, at our suggestion, fitted up a clean, comfortable, wholesome waiting-room for employees, separating the men and the women. One employer refused to patronize it because she said it was "trying to put ladies and servants on an equality by giving them such waiting-rooms." The same employer, however, wanted a servant who was "neat, clean, temperate, and moral." Another objected to the courteous treatment shown employees, and said, "Treat them like cattle— that 's my kind of an office."

One of the great difficulties is to maintain uniform fees, for both employers and employees offer additional fees for favors. We have heard employers offer from two to ten dollars for especially desirable girls, and employees smaller sums for positions in well-known households. Wealthy and aristocratic families are especially desirable, and offices can always command a good fee or a gift for these. Many offices would never demand these bribes were they not flaunted before them.

In addition to the unfair attitude of employers the office has many other grievances. This is due both to thoughtlessness and dishonesty. The telephone, while often a great convenience, is also such a nuisance that some have discarded it. An employer will call up half a dozen offices and ask each one to send up several girls. This brings a good number to choose from, but it costs every girl a fee and carfare, whether she gets the position or not. Since only one or two are wanted, the others must be turned away. We wanted some "pointers" on what good employers did when engaging employees. Selecting one, we followed her to several offices. In each, she ordered two girls sent up, and always ended in a most appealing tone, "I have been sent here by a friend, and I do hope I can rely on you. I will make it all right, if you will do the best you can, and do send me some one." If the offices responded to these pleas, several girls were disappointed that day.

Employers ask to have girls kept for them, and then engage others and do not notify the office. Employers feel little responsibility for such an order or a contract, but seem rather to congratulate themselves on the trouble they make. A few offices discriminate against girls who break engagements, but they do not apply this to employers. Sometimes out-of-town employers pay a fee and order girls. Then they telegraph that they do not want them, and demand the fee, but not until they think the girls have had time to leave the city. They take them when they arrive, but represent to the office that the girls never came. The office is thus "done" out of the fee, if it refunds it, and the transportation, which it often advances. A lady in New York ordered two maids. They were sent up, and later she telephoned, asking to have her fee refunded, saying they did not suit. The clerk went up to see if others could not be sent, and one of the maids, opened the door for her!

Employers secure help under false pretences, by misrepresenting the work and conditions in their homes. They ask for a "thoroughly respectable" or "nice girl" assuring her of a "good home," and then the only sleeping quarters provided are such as an ironing-board placed over the bath-tub; a bed made up for two on the dining-room table; a closet between two sleeping-rooms, without ventilation of any kind unless the doors into these rooms are left open; a mattress on wash-tubs in the basement; rooms heated only from the hall, or so crowded that a girl has no privacy, and cannot control her few small belongings. One woman planned her new three-story house with the attic windows so high no one could see out of them. When the architect remonstrated, she said, "Oh, those are for the maids; I don't expect them to spend their time looking out." These conditions are not in tenements or "cheap flats," but in fashionable boarding-houses, apartments, and residences.

Hours, number in the family, conditions, privileges, and number of children are most often misrepresented, for the plan seems to be to resort to any means to get an employee and trust to other devices to keep her. One girl was engaged as a general houseworker for a family of ten and reported two or three days later that there were fourteen. Although they had misrepresented, this family held the office responsible for the girl's departure. This is really so serious an abuse that one or two offices insist upon a signed contract, so that neither party can say she said or meant something else. When a wage rate is agreed upon, the employer sometimes tries to keep the girl for less. Others hire girls, keep them as long as possible, and then refuse to pay them, going to another office for new girls. The complaints are so common about treatment and conditions in some employers' homes that some offices keep a list, and simply say that they have no girls, for they know the girls will not stay, and then the employer will say the "office is no good." In one such a case a green girl came back to the office, saying her mistress had struck her and she had had nothing to eat. Another girl sent to the same place had the door slammed in her face, and when she asked for her carfare, was told "The best girl is n't worth more than $14." When no girl will stay with her, this employer comes down to the office, shouts at the top of her voice, calls the agents criminals, and abuses every one within sight. Some represent that there are no children, and keep them out of sight until the girl is fairly settled. Unreasonable requirements are often not exposed until later. One employer refused to keep a cook because she did not smoke cigarettes, and she had to have some one to "lay the smoke to." Nothing had been said about this requirement at the office, but the agent was blamed. When employers so deceive the office, a very high showing of morality cannot be expected of employees or agents, though employers are often accustomed to demand higher standards than those to which they aspire.

It is necessary that agents should know something of the places to which they send girls. But whenever an agent asks an unknown employer any questions, he runs the risk of losing her patronage, for many consider them, no matter how delicately asked, as an affront to their dignity, and refuse to accept explanations.

The unfair attitude of many employers toward each other works much hardship to the office. The agent satisfactorily places a girl, another employer discovers her through one of her own employees and gets her away, and the agent must furnish another girl free. In the business world it would be considered dishonorable and unprofessional, but in the search for household workers any methods seem honest.

In one, a girl had been engaged at $4 per week. An employer sitting near heard the terms, and when the first employer went to pay her fee, she offered the girl a dollar per week more. The girl said she would take it, but the employment agent objected. The girl said, "Don't you want a poor girl to earn her living?" "Yes," was the reply, "but a dollar a week extra is not worth breaking your word for." The girl went with her first employer and is now receiving $7.

The inequality of wages makes it difficult for agents to place girls in many families. Recently a man in much need of a general worker offered $10 per week. The agent replied, "You will pay her $10 per week for the summer, then she will refuse to work for a lower figure, and will say she got it at this office, and we will be floated with high-priced employees, and held responsible for wages." This agent ran the risk of being called "an interferer," but the man was a reasonable one in this instance. But if the offer had been made directly to the employee, what would she have thought of this interference?

There are many ways in which employers are dishonest. The most common way is to refuse to pay fees. Some employers go into offices, stay a short time, and engage a girl, and both tell the office they "are not suited," and so save a fee. Others never go into an office, but stand out in the hall, and intercept girls who are coming in or going away. A common practice among the "respectable middle class" when engaging immigrant girls is to arrange with the office-keeper as to the amount of wages which shall be paid. Then they take the girl and have the house cleaned, floors scrubbed, blankets washed, all the rough work of which they can think, done, and pay $5 or $6, instead of the $12 that they promised to give, and discharge the girl, getting a new one when the work has again accumulated.

The petty jealousies which exist among employers, the false references they give, their neglect to answer reference-blanks, thereby keeping employees and other employers waiting for days, are all serious problems, which have been discussed, and which prevent an agent's doing honest and effective work, even when he is so disposed.

There is one serious grievance which is common to both employers and employees. A woman's privilege of changing her mind makes no end of trouble. Girls who the office thinks safely placed come back in a day or two with no other excuse than this. Offices spend half a day getting girls there to keep an appointment, then no employer appears, and when car-and telephone-fares are paid to learn the reason it is found that she has changed her mind. Some employers go to employment agencies as they go shopping,—not in need of a girl but to see if there is any one there better than they have, or for the excitement of "something to do," and they order girls as they do goods, on approval, but with no idea of keeping them.

But this is not all. The employment agent has the employees to deal with. They misrepresent their characters and capacities; they secure addresses from the office, and answer them without its approval; they visit places, return, and say they are filled or "are undesirable," when they have taken the position or recommended it to a friend. They not only leave places for trivial reasons, but accept them when they do not expect to stay. One negro, a very good worker, was seeing the world in this way. She became acquainted with car porters, and "worked" them for transportation, staying in various homes while she saw the city. She had thus visited twenty-five cities in three years, and of course the offices did not know her scheme. Employees' demands are frequently so unreasonable that offices cannot get them positions. One girl engaged for the summer and then found the family were going to the seashore instead of the mountains. She objected, and when the employer remarked sarcastically, "I will ask my wife and we may change," she was delighted and said she would wait until the next day if he would let her know at once. Offices are powerless to change these unreasonable demands. When they make suggestions or hint at impossibilities, the girls think they are interfering with their rights. An agent may raise the wage rate, but when he attempts to lower it, the girl flounces out into some other office.

The office cannot go back of the employer's reference, and if it is not answered by the employer the girl must be sent without a reference or turned away. Sometimes an employer will insist upon taking a girl without a reference, but if she is not satisfactory the office is blamed. It is a difficult thing for an agent to know what to do when a girl is reported dishonest. It is a serious thing to refuse her a place, and it is equally serious to get her one if she is really dishonest. One office had furnished a household with employees, ten in number. The employer returned from abroad and, in the course of unpacking, a valuable lace flounce was lost. Every maid was discharged, no references given, and the office forbidden to place them. Two of these girls went astray, and afterwards the flounce was found in an empty box in the basement, among the folds of paper, where it had been overlooked. This is only one of many such problems which come before the agent. Out of spite, employers refuse references and give bad characters, and out of spite girls make it impossible for reputable employers to get girls. One girl, discharged because of her familiarity with the coachman, sat in a well-known office and told such falsehoods about a reputable and desirable place that fourteen cooks refused to go. Finally the cause was discovered, and the employee was ordered out, never to return. The fifteenth accepted the position offered.

The office has a constant struggle with incom-petents. The intemperate and untrustworthy come to it, not to secure positions, but to use it as a hang-out or meeting-place. They induce waiting employees to go to other offices. There are petty jealousies among employees, and unless they are given many privileges about an office they keep other girls away or tell falsehoods about it. New offices have to contend with many who come only out of curiosity to see "what it 's like."

In all lines of business there is unfair competition, and the intelligence office does not escape it. Offices send their agents in disguise into offices to get away the girls who may be waiting there. We know instances of where offices have actually engaged disreputable and undesirable girls to go to other offices and take positions from them. Then the girl would do something to get dismissed and would give the office the reputation of handling undesirable employees, or she would tell untrue stories. Assaults by runners on each other are common in their struggle for patronage.

In the course of many investigations we have found no other extensive business where the demands of patrons are so unreasonable, the attitude of both employers and employees so discourteous, everybody so ready to charge bad faith and fraud, and the appreciation of services so meagre. This is, of course, partly due to the people who own the offices, but any one will have a pioneer task in changing these conditions, which depend so much upon the attitude of patrons. It is inevitable, however, and the first steps must come through the recognition that the agency is a medium of exchange, not a "servant" factory, with unlimited means for increasing the supply, which depends, as we have shown, upon immigration, which is an international problem; upon conditions of work, which vary in every home in the country; upon economic conditions, which are rooted in the competition of other kinds of work; upon social laws, which are fundamental and broad enough to include all organized social life in America. Any one of these problems will swamp any intelligence office which attempts to deal with it. Every office should be held strictly accountable for the best economic and moral methods, and should not violate one of the principles of a good business institution without answering to the law and to the home; but employers and employees must realize that the problem of the household worker begins back with the first "master and servant." The office has a great function as an exchange, but it does not deserve to be hampered by criticisms because it cannot "solve the servant problem." Only the employer and employee can do that, and the agency does its best work as a disinterested agent and as an educational centre for both.