Extracts From a Secretary's Diary

Showing the Narrowness and Bias of a Working Woman's Judgment

L. L. JONES

MONDAY. I wonder why he doesn't telephone about his golf-clubs and his missing trunk, and all those other things, before beginning the letter, or after it is done, instead of jumping up four times and each time making me read the whole letter back to him from my notes. Dictating a letter on Monday always reminds him of a succession of missing articles that he has managed to lose over the week-end, so much so that he always forgets every word of his letter the minute he has dictated it. Last week I took two hours writing that Barton-Wells letter piecemeal, and must have read back each of the pieces five times to him. There wasn't a sentence in it that didn't remind him to telephone somewhere about his valise, or automobile tires, or something. How can he forget the same sentence so many times? I should think it would be so much simpler for him just to sit right down and make a list of all those missing things of his—if he's afraid he'll forget to telephone about them. Why doesn't he simply write on a pad "Missing Things"—and then get done with the letter! What's the use of making me read it to him over and over?

TUESDAY. I suppose he doesn't realize that words look just the same after they have been typewritten, whether he roars them out or not. He must think that in nearly deafening me he is being emphatic to the man he writes to. In what he calls a "strong" letter, he always makes an awful din and yet I can never see that it comes out any stronger than the others. I should think he'd be surprised by the calmness of his words after all that racket. I don't mind the gestures so much, though it does seem rather absurd to gesticulate fiercely at me, when he is angry with some one in Buffalo, but I do dislike the roaring. And I do wish he would let those things on his desk alone. Why does he make the inkwell hop over the paper-cutter and the papercutter hop over the ink-well, like that, over and over again, and write those long strings of noughts on his desk pad and join their tops and shade every one of their edges? He would dictate better if somebody tied his hands, so that he would have to stop his fumbling with the papers on his desk. Three times this morning I had to hand him that cashier's memorandum which he woidd secrete in a different place whenever he began to dictate. After dictating he seems not to have the slightest recollection of what he has been doing with his hands. I don't see why they speak so highly of our active business men. I should think everybody would want them to be less active. It would save such a lot of time.

WEDNESDAY. This has been a very busy day. That cashier's memorandum got lost again. It must have happened when he was giving me the letter about the Essex people's contract, which is a subject that always gets him frightfully excited. After a lot of queer epileptic grabbings at the things on his desk he plunged around the room tearing up circulars .and dictating to me through the back of his head. He seemed quite upset about the loss of the memorandum, for he hadn't read it, though he ordered it in a great hurry three days before. He started to read it once yesterday, but it reminded him to telephone to the printer about the new letter-heads, and when he picked it up again the Chicago manager came in and they talked about war-bread till closing time. He kept saying he was sure he had seen me with it last and asking me where it was. There were six of us looking for it, but we didn't find it till after the cashier had made out another. During his search, he found a letter out of place in the file and said I must really be more careful and have a regular time for filing. He told me to be systematic. Systematic l He loves that word.

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He next took up the matter of the $7,000 Walton-Gibbs bid and said it was robbery and asked me to write and tell them that they were thieves, and that I would know how to put it. Then he said "No," he guessed he would write it himself, but, as soon as he began, he got to wondering if there wasn't too much type on the new letter-heads and if he hadn't better change the quality of paper, and then he called in the advertising-manager and the chief clerk and all three wondered till some one suggested that the cashier should figure out what the difference in paper stocks would come to. It came to $2.73, and he said it was well worth saving, in war times. Then he telegraphed the WaltonGibbs people that he would accept their offer. Then the Vice-President came in and said he must be terribly busy, and he said he was—up to his neck every minute—and asked the Vice-President what he thought about Russia, and they talked about that for half an hour, and each decided he didn't know what to think about Russia. I know he must have great executive ability. Everybody says so. But, somehow, executive work seems so aimless. And oh, the talk!

What a time to choose for going up on the roof with the janitor to look at the sky-light—half past three o'clock! I should think somebody else might have seen to the sky-light. He says he always works best under pressure and maybe that's why he puts things off and squeezes them all in between four and five o'clock. I can't see how he benefits from the pressure. It seems to get him all mixed up and he makes me write a lot of it over, every time, because it isn't clear. He's never really lucid after four. I should think he'd get himself pressed more evenly during the day and retain all of his faculties to the end.

I often wonder if the busy day isn't simply the day in which everything is taken up in the order of its unimportance. I don't believe it is the day's fault.

THURSDAY. Of course, I realize that I am an audience, and when I take his funny letters I try to look amused. I can tell that they are funny because he laughs at them himself. He never' really treats me like a machine. I wish he would. He doesn't like it if I seem as stolid as I feel. When he is funny I have to be a hypocrite. I hate to take down one of his after-dinner speeches. It makes me feel like an accomplice. That Princeton friend came in again to-day and they kept. reminding each other of the funny things that Old Pod Willis (whoever he is) used to do, and then they would watch me sidewise— unconsciously, of course, — but every time they laughed I'd feel their eyes on me. That Old Pod Willis must have been one of the most uninteresting persons that ever lived.

Whenever he talks with a man in this office each of them looks at me every time he says something that he seems to think is impressive or funny. I don't see why they are not satisfied with the impression they make on each other. Of course, they don't say anything to me, or want me to say anything to them. But they always drag me into the thing by the eye.

FRIDAY. I know as well as he does that New Orleans isn't in Alabama, but how can I get things straight when he grabs in the air for a letter the minute I start it on the machine ? He doesn't get the letter any sooner by sticking his hand out like that at me every second, and closing his fingers on nothing. It only makes me nervous. And what's the use of reaching for the envelope as if he were going to snatch it off the machine? It has to be addressed before I can give it to him, hasn't it?

He had a long and paternal talk just now with Edward, the office boy. I wonder if he would be so fatherly to Edward if he knew that, just as soon as his back was turned, Edward told me that he was a nut and that if he didn't look out the squirrels in the park would put the skids under him? I know he must be shrewd, in a business way, but, somehow he doesn't seem to see through Edward so very well.

What did the head book-keeper mean by talking to me about his grasp of detail? From the side of him that I see I should say that the details have their grasp on him. He often seems just to jump about with a lot of them sticking into him and he doesn't seem to know which to pull out first.

SATURDAY. He's sorry he closed' with the Walton-Gibbs concern. He says if he'd ljnown then what he knows now he wouldn't have done it, and after all he needn't have rushed it at all. However, it can't be helped. There's been a lot of talk about the sort of business ability required in the new man to take the sales manager's place. I don't believe I shall ever understand business ability. Take him, for instance. Of course, there are a lot of big, complicated things which he has to deal with that 1 can't grasp. But when he does things I can grasp, he generally manages to mess them all up. Now, what I want to know is: "Can a man be silly in easy things and get sensible as things become more complicated?" Perhaps they just trust to luck, in the difficult things, and manage to stay at the head of a large business by accident; when anybody else could do it just as well. But, dear me! isn't this socialism?

Now he's lost both of the cashier's memorandums!