“THE FIRING CLERK.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19697, 26 January 1926, Page 3

“THE FIRING CLERK.”

DISMISSED EVERY DAT. A HINT FOB MERCHANTS. Many and varied are the ways by which man oarns his daily bread, and many are the curious and little-known trades which are outside the ken of the man in the street. I have heard of a cordwainer, of a hedgev, of a molecatchor, and of a goldbeater, although I have never actually seen one of them. I have seen "the only original human terrier" who, to turn an honest penny, used to worry rats with his teeth in a cellar in Hull. 1 have seen the man who would lift your watch and sell it to you again the following day. 1 have seen one who for a bet of a shilling would eat a glass tumbler. The methods of earning ai livelihood employed by these men are, to say the least of them, singular and original, but I am convinced that I have discovered the most bizarre of them all, and furthermore it is essentially a trade which is the offspring of modern industry. Hojw many people have heard of the "Firing Clerk?" I hazard the guess that not one in 100,000, in this country at all. events, has done so, and yet not only he v.. I seen one but have chatted with him—and hi D-unedin, too. He was leaning over the railing at the corner of the Cross and Rattray street wharves gazing reflectively at a trawler which had just arrived laden with fish. "Queen job iishin' " he remarked and expectorated accurately on to the back of a dog lying on the lower platform. "Wouldn't do mo though," he continued "although I've tackled 'most every job a man "could tackle. Why,"— this in a sudden burst of confidence, "I've even been a firing clerk." This was a new expression to me and I promptly inquired what a firing clerk might be. "I don't suppose you've heard of 'em out here," he explained, "but in the States they're common enough, and every big department store's got one." Thoroughly intrigued, I pressed him for further particulars, and the following, as far as I could gather, describes the daily routine of the firing clerk. I cannot of course, vouch for the absolute truth of my informant's statements, but the story as he told it rang well enough, and seemed worth the light refreshment which we consumed during the narration of it. As everyone knows the manager of every large department store is inundated daily by complaints from customers with grievances real or imaginary. To retain the goodwill of the complainant, who in most cases demands his or her pound of flesh, notice must of necessity be taken of what he says, and the employee responsible for the contributory mistake must be duly dealt with. It stands to reason that were every employee guilty of a trivial mistake to be reprimanded, the even flow of business would at times suffer accordingly, hence, it seems, the innovation of that very excellent institution, the firing clerk. Suppose, for instance, that Mrs John Doe discovers that she has been sent No. 42 instead of No. 51 cotton, or that someone in the store has made the egregious blunder of despatching pale blue silk instead of the purple that she had ordered. Suppose again that the vases that she had meant as a wedding present has arrived at their destination too late, worse still, that they were broken. Somebody is to blame, and the good lady forthwith demands that somebody's head on a salver. Bursting with indignation, she enters the emporium and demands to see the manager. He listens gravely to hei complaint and rings the bell. His stenographer enters. "Er-ah, Miss Smith, kindly find out irho served—let me see—yes; —number 40275 on August 16. It was August 16, was it not madame?" he turns to Mrs Doe. . The aggrieved lady assents. The stenographer disappears, to return and inform the manager that it was Mr Jones. "Send him to me" thunders the great one. Whereupon there enters the firingclerk, who is forthwith slated mercilessly for his shortcomings. Such carelessness cannot for a moment be tolerated, a customer has been inconvenienced through his negligence, and the only penalty is instant dismissal. It is generally at this point that the customer intervenes on behalf of the hapless defaulter, but the manager is adamant. "No, madam," he insists with virtuous indignation, "such mistakes cannot be pardoned. One such lapse impairs the efficiency of the whole establishment and" —he adds with bland hypoericy—"the interests of our clients must be studied before anything else. Make out Mr Jones's cheque, Miss Smith." The good lady, highly gratified, but at the same time feeling a little sorry for the unfortunate assistant departs. When she is well out of sight, the firing-clerk also departs—to another part of the building —there to 'wait until such time as another customer shall arrive with a grievance, and' be pacified by his instant dismissal. This, then, was the story of the firingclerk- as told me by my philosophic friend. For its truth I cannot vouch, but I can commend it to the heads of some of the large retail establishments for their mature consideration.