The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™, Vol. 5: David H. Keller by David H. Keller

Author:David H. Keller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, horror, weird tales, science fiction, pulp
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2015-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

STENOGRAPHER’S HANDS

Originally published in Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fall 1928.

“They make too many errors!” cried the great man in intense irritation, as he turned restlessly in his chair. “We keep a chart of the errors—we keep a chart of everything we do—and the number of errors a day per stenographer is constantly increasing. These errors are annoying, and they are costly. No matter how hard our office force try, they do not correct all of them. We were awarded a bid last month—one of the typists put a period in the wrong place and it cost our firm over a quarter of a million. In another instance the omission of a comma caused us to lose a law suit.

“Constant inefficiency—causing continual irritation and a lessened production of business! Our experts tell us that if the stenographic force were one hundred percent perfect we could nearly double our business. I doubt that, but we could do much more than we are doing. I want you to devise some plan to stop the errors!”

Dr. Billings, eminent biologist and sociologist, looked curiously at the speaker. He had worked for Jerome Smith, President of Universal Utilities, for several years and had always found him an interesting personality and his problems vitally important. After a moment’s pause he asked:

“How many stenographers do you employ, Mr. Smith?”

“Ten thousand in our New York offices. As you know, we decided to centralize all of our offices some years ago. We need ten thousand—but usually we have only about nine thousand and have to replace them constantly. We handle millions of letters, a year, personal, individual letters—our business life depends upon the character of these letters—and we cannot secure the right kind of stenographers.”

“Why not raise their pay?”

“That has been tried. The more pay, the more pleasure; the more pleasure, the more fatigue and the greater number of errors.”

“Then educate them!”

“They refuse. We have free night schools—one fifteenth of one percent attend. They won’t even go when we pay them. Claim they want relaxation at night. Do you know what the average stenographer does with her twenty-four hours?”

Dr. Billings laughingly confessed his ignorance of their special habits.

“We studied a thousand of them and made a composite picture of their daily life,” said Jerome Smith, answering his own question. “They are High School and Business College graduates, about twenty years old. They stay in bed as long as possible, dress as fast as they can, bolt an insufficient breakfast and spend about one hour in the subway, or elevated, going to the office. From 9 A. M. to noon their work is fairly correct. During the noon hour they window-shop and eat a poor lunch. They would rather spend their money on silk stockings than beefsteak. From 1 to 5 their work becomes more careless as they become more fatigued. It takes them an hour to return to their home where they eat the only hot meal of the day. At 8 their boy friends come and take them to a movie or dance hall.

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