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CHAPTER XI

The New Technique Succeeds in Department Stores

The outlook in the department stores was bleak. From department store personnel directors in three widely separated cities, we had bad news. When we wrote about job opportunities for over forty, New York said: "We cannot offer you any en­couragement." Detroit said: "We are reducing our force . . . regret no openings at this time." Nash­ville said: "We only wish that there were."

But department stores are a marvelous field. In the aggregate they employ hundreds of thousands. The atmosphere is agreeable. The personnel is of high type. There are all sorts of opportunities for advancement. Yet all women and many men are familiar with the environment of a department store and think of its possibilities first when they are looking for positions. No—in this hunt for jobs, the department stores could not be over­looked.

As a starter, we decided to try department stores in a number of cities. But first we had to stop con­sidering department stores in general and to con­centrate on only two. When it comes to job getting, the plan always has to be very specific. You don't say to yourself: "I wonder if I could not find some­thing to do in a department store somewhere." You think: "Now exactly how could I be valuable to Lord and Taylor in New York, or to Wana-maker in Philadelphia, or Filene in Boston, or Marshall Field in Chicago, or Hudson in Detroit?"

We selected our two stores and then got busy in that grand preliminary ground-work which we felt ought to precede every job attack.

There was the question first of deciding in which departments we should try to sell our abilities. Our selection was determined by several factors. The type of merchandise, for instance, in which we were interested and about which we had some informa­tion. Here was a chance to apply step three of the job formula and again to use some of those employ­able characteristics that we had unearthed in our original, careful self-search. One of us had listed a special knowledge of books, the other had set down an unusual flair for furniture. What more natural, then, than that we should choose those two depart-

ments for job attacks? But in taking our talents to market, we did not think it would be intelligent to follow the usual channels of registering and apply­ing in the employment department. There was too great a likelihood that we should be told simply that there were no jobs.

In this chapter, the two jobs mentioned were neither obtained in the same city nor at the same time. However, it seemed that a clearer, more workable idea of the job technique as it fitted into department stores might result from presenting the two department store experiences together. They are clean-cut illustrations of devising business-getting suggestions to obtain legitimate entree to the potential employer.

Our first store—and believe it or not, that is ex­actly the way we began to feel about it—was in a seaboard city of nearly a million. It was the big store of the town, and one of the finest of all its de­partments was Books. We were fascinated by the books' layout—substantial volumes of history and science on shelves next to the rare books' section, modern fiction on an aisle table, flanked on the right by biographies and on the left by books on the arts. The children's alcove remote from the rest of the books, and with its own shelves and…

counters. We had racked our brains until we got an idea and now thought we saw a way by which it might be put into operation.

We had decided that the buyer of books was the person to see. If our recommendation had any merit, he might be willing to go to bat for us with the employment section.

The zero hour came—four-thirty on a Thursday afternoon. We had selected the day because it seemed to be one of the duller days of the business week, and the time because there were never many customers that late in the afternoon.

Let the partner who had listed a knowledge of books as one of her employable characteristics and then tried to give it a practical value, take up the story here.

I made a quick survey of the book department, but nothing resembling an executive was in the offing. I took a deep breath and into the icy waters I plunged. "Where," I asked a saleswoman, "can I find the buyer?"

"You mean Mr. McQuaide? He's over there in his office by the elevator."

She had given me his name and his location. But did I glide with lilting feet over to that office by the elevator? I did not. If I had simply been going…

after a job it would have been comparatively easy. But here was my first effort to take an idea of my own and make it originate a job.

I walked to Shelley, I fingered Shakespeare, I gazed at Byron. Yes, this is the place for my shame­faced confession. It was not easy for me to go and see the book buyer. It was, in fact, one of the hard­est tasks I have ever performed in my entire life. I am the original timid soul. I am always the one left after the elevator door clangs shut, or the sub­way train closes. I shove aside easily. I lose all de­bates with dressmakers, milliners and taxi drivers. At the matinee while other indignant patrons turn in their tickets and get better seats or their money refunded, I remain the woman behind the post. For all my life I have suffered the pangs of the doomed at any event that forced me into the public eye. That afternoon I can truthfully count as one of the major victories of my existence.

Wavering outside the great man's office, I gave myself the pep talk to end all pep talks. Holding a leather Keats between my clenched fingers, I sternly said to myself:

Just what are you afraid of? McQuaide is only a man, isn't he? Suppose he refuses to talk to you, what of it? He does not know you. There is nothing personal in any of…

He is just busy. . . . This is a fine time to be thinking about yourself. Well, from now on don't take yourself so hard. Being self-conscious is just another form of vanity. As if your little reactions, your little fears, your little shy­ness were all that counted. You want to prove that people over forty can get jobs. Here is one more chance to do something about it ... and get this clear: you are bring­ing Mr. McQuaide a way to make more money. Suppose the worst happens and he shuts you right up. Suppose he even has you thrown out of his office. Who loses? Not you, certainly. There are plenty of other book buyers, whom you can see. No—the loser is McQuaide. Nobody but Mr. McQuaide.

Suddenly I became all keyed up. Having faced the most serious thing that could happen, my spirits bounded ridiculously. I was for the moment virtually impossible to insult. I did not even have to look into my pocketbook where my side of the interview lay all neatly written out on a card. The first sentences sailed clearly into my mind as I knocked with high heart at the book buyer's door.

"I'm Elinor Stacy," I said in the assured tone of a good customer.

People usually take us at our own valuation. I believe I have always known that fact. But I never properly appreciated it before. Feeling self-reliant and assured of myself, Mr. McQuaide accepted me on my own basis. He gave me a courteous welcome and invited me to sit down. I complied and quickly…

began the little opening speech which I had re­peated so many times in my dress rehearsals.

"Mr. McQuaide," I said. "I have some very ex­citing thoughts about this book department."

Mr. McQuaide looked a little startled. "You have?"

"Yes. I have an idea about books and I am in­clined to believe that it is a good one. I think that any book department that used it would sell more books. But for your department—the best book de­partment in the city—to my mind it is a natural."

"Yes?" His eyes had taken on that glazed fish look which identifies the citizen who fears he is about to be sold a bill of goods.

"It will only take a moment to tell you about it," I continued. "My own experience gave me the idea. Time and time again when I have planned to give a book to a friend who was making a trip, I have procrastinated until the last minute. Then I have dashed in to buy. And in spite of the fact that my hobby is books and that I read incessantly on all sorts of subjects and probably know books better than the majority of people, I have been stumped on what to send. If this is true in my case, how much more it would apply to persons who are less interested in books."

Then I launched into my plan. I proposed a Bon Voyage Shop for the book department. It would not require much space—little more than a booth, in fact. But in it would be displayed in an original fashion all manner of books for travelers. There would be a book specialist in charge (myself) to give instant and expert advice to the shoppers.

"It is an attractive idea," the buyer admitted thoughtfully. "But you see, our saleswomen give all that information."

"I know that they are very well informed," I agreed. "But do you know this, Mr. McQuaide? I would wager that I have sent a couple of hundred books in my time to friends going off on trips. And I do not believe more than two salespersons have ever asked me: 'Where is your friend going?' so that we could put our heads together and pick out something—well, to match the travel or the trav­eler. They don't have time to go into it the way I mean! That's the reason so many people wake up at sea with six copies of the latest best seller."

The buyer laughed. We had struck a kindred note.

I told him that this idea went much further than "Does your friend like detective stories?" To my knowledge, what I had in mind had never been…

done before. It was not just a question of best sellers and new books. I proposed to assemble books of all types that had any relation to travel. Sea stories, Robert Burns' poems, books about Cuba, South America, poems about the English Lake Country.

"I remember” I told him, "one time when I was going away on a trip, someone sent me a little book entitled The Magic Carpet. It had selections about different countries written by famous poets. Of all the books I have ever received—"

"We have it some place around here."

"But I wonder, Mr. McQuaide, if salespeople often bring it out as a Bon Voyage book?" Then I continued: "Think of all the books that might be moved off the shelves if they were just featured in this manner! 

The buyer leaned back in his chair, the better to think of all those books. I did not interrupt him, but it was a tense moment for me 

Finally, he reached for the telephone and said to me: "I am going to take this further. I want you to see Mr. Mallis."

Then he was saying into the receiver: "Mr. Mallis, I have a young lady now sitting in my office who has come here with quite an original idea. I'd…

like to get your slant on it. Could we come up or would you come down a minute?"

He turned to me. "He's coming down."

So I told the story again, giving further embel­lishments. At certain seasons of the year we might add to the book stock other Bon Voyage sugges­tions, such as scarfs, map cases, brightly colored handkerchiefs, small leather steamer pillows, gold and silver pencils, cameras and films, compact shaving kits, jewelry boxes, cosmetic units. We would rotate displays according to cruise and gen­eral travel peaks.

Mr. Mallis nodded to the buyer. "You know, Mac, I believe this girl has got something. Why don't you give her a couple of months' shot at it?" he said. He turned to me. "How did you plan to get this thing going?"

Both gentlemen looked at me. "I think that the first thing to do would be to make a survey of all our books," I answered. "We would want to see exactly what books were on the shelves that might offer Bon Voyage possibilities. I have also a couple of ideas about the booth arrangement."

Mr. Mallis interrupted. "Suppose, Miss Stacy, you and Mr. McQuaide arrange those details later.

You will have many points to go over. You do not need me around."

He got up to go. Mr. McQuaide excused himself for a moment and followed him outside. When he returned he told me that they could pay me sixteen dollars a week. I was to put down on paper any thoughts I had about the arrangement of the booth, books to be featured, and so on. I was then to report the following Monday morning at his office, and he would have someone take me around and show me the ropes about registering, getting a number, lockers, store training, coming in and out of the employees' entrance and identifying myself at the time desk.

When he had finished telling me about these ar­rangements, with mutual expressions of esteem we passed out of each others' lives. The next morning I telephoned Mr. McQuaide and explained to him that a personal matter had come up suddenly which would prevent my undertaking the Bon Voyage Shop at this time. However, I hoped that he would go ahead with it, if he felt there was any merit in the idea.

The second department store experience oc­curred in a large Kentucky city, and concerns the

other member of the partnership, who had often been a visitor there. From here the story is hers.

The store I had chosen was in a metropolis where people's hearts may be pure but it is very difficult to keep the hands clean. A big city, with all the hustle, bustle and impatience of a big city. 

Furniture was my choice, and an especially for­tunate one because the time happened to be close to one of the frequent but special promotions that occurred in that department throughout the year. I prowled around the section until I had told every salesman on the floor: "No, thank you, nothing today. I am just looking." Indeed once when I was making a quick pencil layout of the floor space and furniture arrangement, I felt that the salesmen were about to gang up on me, and beat a hasty re­treat. I wanted to get to the presence of Mr. Smaltz (the buyer) under my own power, and only after I felt that I was fully prepared.

Came the day, and brimming with success thoughts I hastened toward the office of the furni­ture buyer. But I paused just short of my destina­tion. I could hear within that room people talking, chairs shuffling, and the unmistakable indications of a conference. So I sat down to wait outside on a wide backless bench.

When the meeting adjourned a few minutes later half a dozen men and women marched out, each one giving me a good sharp look. When I made sure that they had all gone, I opened the office door. A girl sitting at a typewriter stopped me, and I told her that I wanted to see Mr. Smaltz.

"Who do you represent?" she asked.

"Myself," I said.

"Wait outside," she told me. "I'll tell Mr. Smaltz."

Pretty soon he came out himself. But I continued to sit on my bench. For to any eye he was one of those busy executives who do great deeds at a gal­lop. My idea was such that if I had only half an ear for half a minute, I might as well have nothing.

He looked down at me and I did not make the mistake of smiling. Instead I said instantly: "It will only take a second of your time, Mr. Smaltz. Do you mind sitting here just a moment while I tell you?"

"Well," he said grudgingly. "What can I do for you?"

Then I shot my bolt quickly. "I have an idea about furniture," I explained. "But I may have come at the wrong season. Even a successful furni­ture buyer like yourself may be so restricted in his…

budget at times like these that his hands are prac­tically tied. I mean, even if there was a selling idea and it was a good one and you thought it was worth a trial, you are probably so fixed that noth­ing could be done about it. Am I right?"

"Not exactly," he answered slowly. "I would not say that."

I continued: "Put it like this, then. Would you be in a position to take a good selling idea if it en­tailed adding someone to the force?"

"I'd want to see that good idea first!" he an­swered in such ringing tones that the girl poked her head out of the little doorway.

Then I told him what I had in mind. I spoke of his interesting layout (and it was indeed excellent), of several offerings that seemed to be extraordinar­ily good and of other outstanding features that anyone who had walked about and studied that department as I had, could not possibly miss. But there was this point, too. No matter how shrewdly, how carefully, how brilliantly a buyer made his purchases, there were bound to be a few rubies among them—little gems that would have stayed put inventory after inventory if they were not moved by the dynamite of pricing them so low that it was almost giving them away.

"During any sale your regular salesmen cer­tainly will have no trouble with most of the furni­ture you expect to sell. I never in my life saw such an interesting collection of periods and styles of furniture. But my thought concerns those few slow movers. Why not assemble them in one spot and let me do some special promotion on them my­self?"

"Such as what?" he inquired.

"I cannot tell until I have seen them," I an­swered, and glanced hastily around me. Near at hand there was a small huddle of sad looking coffee tables—rubies if ever I saw them. So I said: "Well, take those nice little tables. Suppose they were a drug on your market and you planned to sell them at almost any price you could get. This is just a snap idea, of course, but it will serve to illustrate. You might put a child's chair at each table and call the unit The Little Hostess. That would place the tables in a little different category, and the name might even draw some trade. Or you might line up a number of items—two of each kind—in some unusual arrangement and call that space The Twins' Corner. Such a title would not keep fam­ilies without twins away from it, and it would defi­nitely call twins to it, who in themselves are an…

attraction. There are so many things that can be done with clever groupings, forming new and in­teresting sales units at pulling prices, giving them odd names that tell a story of their own. If furni­ture fascinates a person as it always has fascinated me, a little imagination might step up considerably the price on these articles, and sell them, too. But I could show you so much better what I have in mind if I had the actual furniture before me."

"Certainly you could," he answered. "But you make your thought perfectly clear." Then he asked me a number of questions about my general re­action to his department. Such as: "How do you like the arrangement of display in the antique sec­tion?" "Which room in The Bride's Home seems to have the most interesting effect and why?" "How does my series of breakfast rooms appeal to you?"

My replies, which showed at least a surface fa­miliarity with his section, might have helped to induce the next remark.

"I have a feeling that you might really be able to sell quite a number of those pieces that need a little extra pushing," he said. "What is stopping me now is this. I could use you all right during our furniture promotions. But that would only be at…