OFFICE TRAINING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 13

OFFICE TRAINING.

I would like first to compliment Mr. Cuthbertson on his frank admission that we business men are largely responsible for the unfortunate position in which our boys find themselves to-day, and for the further fact that it is most difficult to fill senior positions; more than one of our leading banks, insurance companies and other big business enterprises have had occasion to send overseas to obtain men suitable to fill executive positions. The junior of to-day is not to blame. The men who had the training of the juniors are at least 00 per cent responsible. Mr. Render says, "Give m>> a girl for shorthand and typewriting.'' Certainly, lie can have a girl, but lie is cheating some boy, not one boy but a succession, of close personal contact with a business man that nothing else can make up for. X do not altogether agree with Mr. J. l'earce Luke. I have had much experience here, in the Dominion, Australia, Canada, and England, with boys and girls an shorthand typists. Many, very many women are mostefficient shorthand typists, quick and reliable, but I always thought "What a waste. Here 1 am day after day dictating letters an<] documents that are the real spirit of business, what may be termed the 'heart and soul' of the business. My personality wasted, passed along to a gill who can never become the leading spirit when I am gone, who will probably get married, leave us, and the name thing will happen all over again." With reference to the Queen Street business man's opinion, I am afraid lie has failed to trace the girls and boys through their careers, or at least lie has a very different way of doing it from mine. On entering business I did odd jobs, ran messages, swept the floor, posted the mail. I learned shorthand and typewriting, then my real business education started. I was fortunate in getting into a firm in which the principal demanded that every boy who entered the business must be able to tako down his and his executive officers' letters in shorthand, transcribe and type them. Result, I had for eighteen months, a daily contact with the "head" that ran the business. I was then passed out to one of the departments and another lad had the chance. Believe me, we were all keen to learn that business, and the "head" know us as wo knew him. The Queen Street business man's statement that there are so few jobs in the office that leads to a career is beyond my comprehension. I say there is no job in the office that does not give a better foundation to a career than a year to two years' office training does. Take for example, dissection of dockets the best training a boy can ha\ e before going into any department. Invoice work—■ the best training a boy can have on the price and class of goods sold. Who suggested they should be permanent jobs for boys? The suggestion is to use them as a training ground for future salesmen, departmental men, etc. When a boy goes to work to-day ho licks stamps, mixes with the juniors, runs messages; his first contact with business gives him a wrong impression. Take a junior correspondence girl. She joins a business, has the privilege of daily contact with "heads," gets a very different idea of business, the personality of the business, what it is all about, what it means is dictated to her daily. It is equal to eight hours' personal tuition daily. It is the fact that the boy grows up and stays in the business that makes nio «o keen an advocate of boy stenographers. I could name hundreds of leading business men in England. Canada and America, who spent their first twelve or eighteen months in business as stenographers to the chief oi one of the "heads." GRATEFUL OLD BOY.