ABOUT TEA DRINKING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 24 July 1924, Page 8

ABOUT TEA DRINKING.

THE, HABIT IN OFFICES. DOES IT LEAI> TO EFFICIENCY? (Taranaki Herald Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, July 21: Information that' the directors of a, large city establishment are about to meet to discuss the question of teadrinking by the staff during office hours led to .an inquiry on the subject, and it soon, became apparent that the mere mention of tea- sessions in office hours was liable to make some employers hot under the collar. “Tea,” exclaimed one man; “the tea habit is turning this establishment into a kind of club for women and girls.. It started during one cold winter. It continued during the summer, it was an established right during the next winter, and now it is an institution as sacred as a ‘shearer’s smoko.’ There is no holding business women. When once a concession has started it grows like a snowball, and it is as difficult to stop. The reason is quite obvious. A man eanrt talk to a woman like a ‘Dutch Uncle.’ For instance, if. a tearful little girl wandered redr-eyed through the establishment, most of the men and some of the. girls would think the boss had been a brute, and so. he would be hurt in that way. No, employers of women are under strong discipline as a rule.” “How r much time is wasted?”

“About an hour a day, I should say, if you count the time spent fiddling with hair, in powdering faces and in manicuring finger-nails. I’m no taskmaster, but I find that the easier conditions are made for girl clerks, the slacker they become. If we do not take care they will be establishing a continuous buffet. At least they will have the kettle boiling all the time and, will be inviting their friends to call and have a cup.” “Yes,” said a woman clerk when told that tea-drinking was regarded as an agent of ineffciency in business, “it is the kind of generalisation that lords of creation usually indulge in when faced with a particular case. It is a kind of tirade that-marks the-in-feriority of male mentality.” Her attitude made her rather cold, lofty, gmd distant. Apparently she was well versed in the literature of modern feminism. Coming suddenly to earth, she demanded to be informed if the male portion of the commercial community did not drink tea in office hours. “The men in my office, including the manager, have morning and afternoon tea, and the girls makb it for them,” she said. “Lots of boys, 1 know', go regularly, to ( the tearoom in the forenoon. They make excuses to go out, but everyone knows they have gone for tea. If they went to the hotel their employers would stop it immediately, and the fact that they wink at the excuses for having tea is proof that they believe a little break and rci/reshment is in the Interests of efficiency. Every experienced typist knows that she can get through far more work if she has a break in the forenoon and the afternoon.”

An interesting piece of information gathered in the course of the inquiry "'as that in every hotel tea is brought to barmaids and barmen, both in tbe Jorenoon and in the afternoon. The lady who assures her customers that the prevalence of tea-drinking is evidence of racial decadence, and the barman who maintains that England was built on beer and that Scotland owes its prominence to regular and general consumption of whisky, require tea to sustain them between meals.

A gentleman, who hails from north of Tweed, asserted that if the folk nowadays ate a, substantial breakfast, including a large plate of porridge, they would not feel famished and in need, of nourishment in the ; forenoon. The trouble, to his mind, is that girls and b'oys alike stay in bed to the last minute, having usually been up>too late, and then hurriedly eat a piece of toast and drink a cup of tea. It was suggested, to him that edequate breakfast would not keep one who was engaged in a sedentary occupation warm throughout, the whole of a cold forenoon. He retorted that there were other means of keeping warm, hut as far as he could judge girls in offices did not. use these means, even though New 1 Zealand was a w’ool-growing country.