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CHAPTER IV

Little Business and Little Towns

Job hunting was now our job and we worked at it fifteen hours a day! At night when agencies and employers could not be contacted we would comb the papers avidly for any bit of news that might give us a lead or have bearing on our job hunt. And one evening, almost at the very beginning of the campaign, we came across a surprising para­graph in a weekly paper. A writer said that little business took care of at least three fifths of the volume of all American industry; and constituted ninety per cent of all manufacturing enterprise.

From all accounts, big business, hedged in as it is by necessitous rules and regulations, was quite a hurdle for the older person to take. Little busi­ness on the other hand might be more flexible, and therefore more responsive, to the job hunter. This clipping came just at the right time and turned…

our attention hopefully toward little business and the little town.

It so happened that we were fortunately located. Within a half day's journey there were at least eight cities with a population that varied between twenty-five and sixty thousand.

To get a picture of any employment chances they might offer we bought copies of the local news­papers of several of the nearest towns. Soon our search bore fruit. In one of them we found a very interesting advertisement for a hotel job.

We answered that ad then and there, and agreed that, reply or no reply, we would make that town the first in our visits to smaller cities. But good news! They answered our letter; we were invited to come for an interview.

On a clear, cool morning we headed our aging little roadster toward this New Jersey city. The hotel job was by no means the only one we were going to look for. Deciding what kinds of jobs ought to be available in a city of fifty thousand, we had finally listed several other fields that we were going to try. Such cities could be counted on for gas and electric companies, credit organiza­tions, opportunities for indoor selling and demon- strating and, of course, a local telephone office.

These fields had not been selected hit-or-miss. For some days past, as a matter of fact, we had been making extensive preparations to help us in land­ing jobs in those very lines.

In the case of the local gas and electric company we had taken special pains to check and make sure that a certain home lighting information service which employed women was being offered in that community.

The small hotel referred to in the ad was lo­cated on the outskirts of the city, beyond traffic and city smoke, right in the center of a pleasant grove. There was a sense of quiet and peace about the comfortable, homey-looking building of brick and white clapboard.

A first glance told us that the upstairs accom­modations probably ran to fifteen or twenty sleep­ing rooms. A second glance, through wide, enclosed porches on which we could see a number of tables set up, gave us the impression that more people came to eat than to sleep. We were not at all sur­prised at this, for our very job concerned the dining-room end of the business.

The one who was to tackle the hotel job ad­vanced to the fray. The story must now be hers.

Until I sat down on that famous evening, delv-…

...ing into my employable characteristics, the idea of applying for a hotel position would have been far­thest from my mind. And here's the reason why. Actually, I had never in my life made a penny in the hotel business, yet it was all so close to me that I had not even been able to see it. Thinking back now, I wonder how on earth I could have hitherto overlooked that valuable field.

Three quarters of my life had been spent in be­coming an unconscious expert in the hotel busi­ness. My father owned hotels, he had been identi­fied with them from boyhood, he had become an authority on practically every phase of hotel man­agement. He lived hotels, he talked them, he breathed them; they were almost his entire exist­ence. As a child I ran through hotel corridors, played hide and seek in the linen room, and stole into the kitchen to beg a bone for my puppy. As I grew older, I began to take a part in the table con­versation which was eternally and always about the problems of the hotel. Actually, it was impossible to live in this atmosphere without acquiring very definite notions about what made for success or failure in a hotel.

It was my father's conviction, for instance, that most of the money lost in a hotel leaked out through...

poor management in the food departments. How well I remembered his oft repeated: "Of course, I like to be out front and greet my guests. But I must know what is going on back in the kitchen." Naturally, then, I had at my tongue's tip the lan­guage of the hotel. I had something more: I had the firm belief that I could translate my knowledge into valuable work.

The advertisement that we had answered, had read:

WOMAN, cultured, capable of taking full charge of res­taurant end of small, high type hotel. Write V-107.

In giving my answer, I used my regular job hunt­ing name of Elinor Stacy, but the background was the one I knew as a daughter in my father's house, and the letter I wrote carried a sponsorship that had so richly been mine.

V—107 Gentlemen:

Ten years of training in all phases of hotel management by Louis Lukes, well known for his success in the hotel field, make me believe that I might be able to qualify for the position advertised in the Courier today.

My hotel and catering experience with Mr. Lukes was gained mainly in the Brunswick Hotel, Lancaster, Penn­sylvania, and in the Hotel Walton, Philadelphia. Mr. Lukes, as you may know, has passed on, but I can refer you to many of his associates in the hotel fraternity.

I am thoroughly familiar with the heart of the hotel, the kitchen. And I have mastered the all important fact that no matter how delicious a dinner is or how much the guest enjoys and praises it, it does not become a mat­ter of satisfaction to the proprietor until every meal shows a profit.

I then gave a brief personal description, and asked the courtesy of an interview.

My letter evidently had paved the way for a cordial welcome, for as soon as I identified myself as Elinor Stacy, the proprietor led me at once to his wife, a brisk, efficient looking woman. She and her husband had developed a thriving town-and-tourist business out of an enterprise that dated back to the early days of the tourist home vogue. This intelligence came to me in the first few mo­ments of our conversation. Also various facts on the kind of trade that the house drew, the busiest seasons, the amount of upstairs and kitchen help that was required.

Then we got down to brass tacks. The woman had advertised because the work was getting out of hand. She had always had full and direct charge of both the dining room and upstairs. Now she felt that they could afford to pay someone to take the whole dining room and kitchen off her shoulders.

"What we simply must have," she explained,…

"is someone who knows how to merchandise meals. I liked the way you put it in your letter."

"My training has all been along that line," I said. "Merchandising in a hotel seems to me exactly the same as merchandising in a store. Only, in the hotel, it is a question of buying food at the best possible price, and figuring out just how much it costs to serve each meal."

Mrs. Grier agreed. "You are perfectly right," she said. "My experience has always been that it is better to sell a greater volume of meals at moderate profit than a fewer number at a greater profit. It's the only way to popularize your place and get the people coming in."

Then the conversation swung to some of the practical aspects of the hotel business. I got several interesting pointers from Mrs. Grier, and, from her reaction, she must have gotten a couple from me.

Finally she stood up. "Why don't you come out with me and let me show you the place? Then you will have a better idea of our setup. We can start at the kitchen. You know, I have a refrigeration plant that will compare favorably with any of the big hotels. And I want you just to take a look at our pastry ovens!"

We stopped at the spotless kitchen where a white-capped chef was busy at his range. We looked into the vegetable bins, the storeroom, the jelly cupboards. We discussed such vital problems as luncheon menus, Thursday night special dinners, Sunday platters, the feasibility of after-movie snacks and special bridge club luncheons. All the way through I tried to do a good job of selling myself. I made every effort to show her how my hotel knowledge could be of real value to her business.

When we ended our tour and went back to the little office, Mrs. Grier gave me the encourage­ment I had been hoping for. She said: "It seems to me you would be a very good person for this job. The only question is the salary." She hesitated a moment. "Would you come for twenty-five a week and your living here?"

I instantly reassured her on the salary question. Already my partner and I had come to realize that time and again job opportunities were being lost by the mature because employers felt they ought to pay them more than they could afford to pay. Our feeling was that you ought to go at almost any price, just to be given a chance to show what you could do. So we had decided that the question of salary could seldom be used as a reason for grace-..

...fully withdrawing from an offered job. In this case twenty-five was all right for that hotel job, and I said so.

When she became more specific, I was obliged to explain that I had been offered an opportunity to consider another hotel position and I wanted to look into it before I gave her my answer. To Mrs. Grier that was a perfectly sensible and valid reason for withholding my decision.

It was with a feeling of real regret, not unmixed with a twinge of conscience, that I walked down the steps of Fairview Inn. I was genuinely sorry not to be able to work with Mrs. Grier, who had shown me such courteous consideration. But in the back of my mind was the redeeming realization that once again the formula had worked and over-forty had scored.

After lunch the second partner made for the telephone company. It is her story now.

The telephone company is at once big business and little business. In large cities it is a tremen­dous industry with huge central offices, personnel bureaus and ramifications that extend into every artery of metropolitan life. In little cities it is just as efficient, but it is a friendly, close-knit, home­town product. We wondered if there might be a…

chance for a mature applicant in the small town telephone office. Or if not there, maybe the tele­phone company could suggest a place at a private switchboard. As a matter of fact I knew a little something about operating a switchboard.

I am not going to detail this interview too much, because, frankly, I did not get a job in that office. But I got something just as good—leads in other fields that presently ended in two jobs. And this, I believe, is one proof of the friendliness of the smaller town. Here is what happened:

As soon as I gave my name, Mrs. Matthews, I was conducted without question to the employ­ment manager. As I met her pleasant smile and her invitation to have a chair, I had a feeling of reassurance and confidence. Maybe my spirit of willingness showed in my face, for even after I had told her that my only knowledge of the telephone business came from handling a small board as lunch relief operator in the office of a commercial photographer, she still showed an interest in me and said: "Why don't you go out and get a little more experience, Mrs. Matthews, and then come back? Anyway, leave your telephone number and home address so if anything comes up I can get in touch with you. Of course, I would not be able to…

place you actually in the telephone company be­cause we have to take younger women in to train. But it is very likely that I might hear of something at a small switchboard."

Would you have appreciated such considera­tion? Certainly you would, and so did I. But I ex­plained that I had to find something right away. The thought stopped her for a moment, and then she said: "Isn't there some other work you could do?"

Now here was a place at which the interview could have died a natural death. Unless I had had something to suggest, the employment manager's very real offer of help could have been utterly wasted. But, thanks to our preparation, I was able to say: "I know something about home lighting visitor in electric companies. Also, I could do credit investigating."

"Good!" she answered. "There is a splendid credit office not three blocks away. It's managed by a good friend of mine named McDonough, and he is right on his toes. Why, he is known all over the state for the success he has had in his line. And he does take on people from time to time. I happen to know that." She interrupted herself to answer a phone call, and then continued: "Now about…

this home lighting business, let me think! The per­son to see is Mr. Winslow. He's head of the light­ing department at the electric company, and he hires all those girls himself. He's a friend of mine, but that would not mean anything. You talk to him just the way you have been talking to me and I know you'll get a good hearing."

Does this sound overdrawn? Well, it is not only not overdrawn, it is underdrawn, if anything. If I had been a close friend or relative, I could not have received more consideration from the tele­phone employment manager than I did. Trying to analyze it, I believe that her interest in me came because she thought I might be a useful person to someone. Certainly it was not because she was sorry that I was out of work. In fact, we discussed my need of work on a plane of equality, two persons together trying to solve a problem that particu­larly concerned one. On my part, although I told her I needed work, there was none of the nervous urgency that shows itself in strained posture and too rapid talk that get a whole situation so out of focus. Even if that urgency does exist, for the job's sake it must be scrapped—especially during the interview.

Anyway, as I walked out of the door of that tele-…

...phone company I had two job possibilities in hand. As I was leaving, the manager said: "Good luck! Let me know how you make out. And remember, if nothing turns up, we still might be able to do some­thing about a switchboard."

Ordinarily I should have turned the next inter­view over to my partner, but as I had made the special credit preparation, it was up to me. So while she was hustling up for us a location for the night, I went to the credit office.

Some years before, while working in a depart­ment store, I had become very much interested in credit. I wondered what went on in that big office on the sixth floor that made it possible to know how to handle people and their accounts. How could one man buy a thousand dollar ring for his wife and take it with him without any trouble, while another had to wait twenty minutes to learn that he better send his dollar ninety-five shirt C. O. D.? What did it require to open a charge account, and when opened, who decided just what the maximum amount of charging could be for any one month?

Well, the inquiring mind stood me in good stead, and before long I had many of the answers. I knew that there were organizations which kept…

records of people's business lives—the salaries they made, the property they owned, the charge accounts they ran, how big they were, how soon they paid them. I had learned the meaning of certain words—skips, for instance. Skips were the citizens who moved frequently in order to dodge not only their bills but the bill collectors who came after them. I knew that there were persons who investi­gated people to see if they were good credit risks. That when people tried to pass bad checks, or were very slow in paying, or were general trouble makers wherever they had charge accounts, this informa­tion would come to the credit organization and be passed along to all the firms that belonged to that credit group, so they could be protected.

But even with this much of a credit background, I was by no means ready to try for a credit job. My facts were not up to date. Part of my preparations before we left home was to go to the public library and read all the articles that had recently been written on the subject. I also looked over and read the last four months of credit magazines. Some of these were to be had in the library; others were in a credit office into which I had walked and asked for permission to sit down and read those articles. I had learned about certain new problems that…

were troubling the credit world.

When it came time to try for the job with the credit organization, primed to the hilt with credit facts I proceeded to the office of Mr. McDonough. And while I was as innocent as a babe of actual credit experience, Mr. McDonough was going to see that I at least knew what I was talking about. And that's what it takes. To my mind it would have been almost an affront to march into a man's office and ask him to let me support myself at the expense of his business without trying to acquaint myself as much as a layman could with that busi­ness.

I opened the outside door and found myself in a large room of crackling typewriters and busy tele­phones. At least twenty young men were sitting in rows in back of as many desks, talking into tele­phones. Perhaps half a dozen young women were similarly engaged, and another half dozen were moving flying fingers over black and white keys. My entry caused a moment's cessation in all that activity while everyone took a good, long look. I asked a young man near the door if Mr. Mc­Donough was in. "Will you please tell him Mrs. Matthews is here to see him?"

In a few minutes he was escorting me to the…

office of the manager. Mr. McDonough stood up as entered, and said: "How do you do, Mrs. Mat­thews. I don't believe that I know you, do I?"

He was the clean-cut, direct sort, who would not want to be kept in doubt about your business, whether it was collecting for charity, or arranging golf tournament, or looking for a job. So I answered: "No, Mr. McDonough, you do not know me. But for two weeks I have been getting ready for this interview with you."

He looked surprised.  "With  me!  . . . Why, what do you mean?"

I cleared that point up and told him exactly what I had done in credit preparation. I mentioned by name certain articles that had impressed me. Once he said: "Yes, I know the man who wrote It. You know, he had a bad time of it up in Jersey." Another time: "But we do not use that system here. In fact, I have developed a system of my own." And he took time to tell me about it.

When I had finished the tale of my preparation, said: "You know best what your requirements are, Mr. McDonough. But if you can use an all-around investigator who never knows when to give up, and who would work at this business as if it were her own—well . . ."

is one of the big advantages often encountered in the smaller business or the smaller town.

I introduced myself and lost no time in coming lo the point. "Mr. Winslow, I am going to be very honest with you," I said. "I came up here to see if there might be an opportunity for me to be one of your home lighting visitors."

He shook his head. "We are all filled up at present, Miss Stacy."

"That doesn't surprise me, Mr. Winslow," I said cheerfully. "Because it is certainly interesting work. But I wonder if you could consider me for later on. If I understand it rightly, I believe you form classes in the late summer for fall positions."

"How did you happen to know this?" he asked.

That gave me my chance. I told him how I had watched the work of a home lighting visitor while at a friend's house, and had been so impressed that afterwards I had gone to the public library, and read everything I could find in the trade journals concerning this work the electric companies are do­ing. That had led to an orgy of study about poor lighting and eyestrain. I felt now I could convince any woman of the irreparable damage she could do to her children's eyes with improper or insufficient lighting. At this point I took my courage in hand…