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Show WORKING CONDITIONS. Several things are more exhausting than work. To sit on a chair in the same position posi-tion for eight hours is more tiring than to dig in a garden for the same length of time. Particularly if you know at the beginning of the first hour what you have ahead of you. Factory foremen and superintendents superintend-ents have been realizing this. It was known fairly generally some time ago but the knowledge was not applied. Then came conditions during the last year and a half which gave us a few-eye-openers. They taught us that when we know what is wrong we will escape trouble by putting it right. A short while ago a crew of girls were kept working on gearing systems sys-tems in speedometers for ordnance department trucks. The wheels were not much larger than those used in watchmaking and each girl threaded two of them on a small shaft, gave them a tap with a hammer and put them into a box. Then she took two more gears and repeated. She did this all day sitting on a chair at a work-bench, taking the usual interval inter-val at noon. Then one of the girls said she wanted to stand part of the time and work at a higher bench. The foreman fore-man kicked, but yielded to a threat of a walkout, and in future the whole crew stood or sat according to inclination. in-clination. The output nearly doubled. doubl-ed. Then the girl responsible for the reform asked to be part time on dif ferent work. The foreman tried the suggestion and found that the variety acted as a stimulus also that when one branch of production fell behind he could get level by switching gangs. And the crew turned out each day two thirds of the work they had done under the former conditions plus two thirds of its equivalent in the new line. The girls were pieceworkers and the factory had been far behind on its contracts; so every one was better off. The obviousness of the inference is a satiro on our complacency at the progress of the world. Every fool in every age has had the knowledge that many factory superintendents are only just beginning to use. Adam had it when he first began to dig. . If you don't feel fine and dandy when you work do something about it. Change the conditions, change your boss, quit smoking, start something some-thing else do whatever is necessary but don't stay the way you are. , W.S.S. |
