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Swenson vt?"(-6,
701127
Living Folklore
Feb.1, 1939
(Collected from members of Department Store Workers Union, 1250.)
Irving Fajans, of 112 East 19th Street, who has been a
Department Store worker for over five years, greeted me with the smil-
ing courtesy which has become habitual with him in dealing with custom-
ers. Asked if the enforced rule of politeness to all comers did not
desert him in after -work hours, he replied:
"Oh, no Miss I guess it's got to be natural for me to
act polite. You see the first thing a counter man learns Is to keep
his personal thoughts and opinions to himself. Whatever we may think
of a customer is out of earshot Some of them make extreme demands
on a fellow's patiente, though. Like the time I was behind the cigar
counter and a woman holding a squirming brat asked me for a 3 cent stamp,
and then asked me to hold the kid while she fished for the pennies in
her purse,/
Mr. Fajans has made his own classification of customers:
1. The customer who enters the store periodically to buy the same
article at the same price-- such as socks or handkerchiefs.
This type, you always know what he's going to ask for before he tells
you.
2. The kind who tells you she knows exactly what she wants, and then
takes two hours to make up her mind.
3. The type that's in a hurry-- has to make a train, or has an appoint-
ment, and then dawdles around, hums and haws over everything you show
her, finally walking out without buying.
4. The type who will slip in just before the closing bell rings and
teka up the salesman's time after hours-- of course very apologetic
about it.
2.
5. The type who is purchasing an article for someone else, without
knowing _size, age, or sometimes, sex.
6. The fMatob. It" type. She'll come in with a smudge of lipstick
on a piece of paper, for instance, and want you to match it exactly
in the article.
7. The type who tells you she has seen the same thing in another
store at a much lower price-- but buys from you just the same.
8. The euatomer who will place C.O.D. order for a large amount.
Sometimes hundreds of dollars, to impress the clerk, and then the mer-
chandise is returned nest day.
9. Another type anxious to impress you, is the woman who buys some
cheap article like washcloths, say, for U. cents a piece$ and then
explains that she is choosing the inexpensive cloths because she is
"'Buying for my maid.*
Mr. Fajans has been employed in several of New York's chief depart-
ment stores, including Macy's in New York, May's in Brooklyn, Ohrbachs
Ilaammix
Kearns, and various Woolworth and Grand Stores. Be helped organize union
in all these stores, and has participated in many strikes and sit-downs.
He remembers the famous March 1937 strike staged by Grand employees through-
out New York City, which lasted for eleven days
The leaders kept the hour of the strike secret until the last minute
so that news of it would not leak out to the management. Tha management
had refused to negotiate with our committee, and the workers had voted for
a sit-in as a demand for shorter working hours and better working condit4o
ions.
At 11:30 a.m. on March 14, the whistle were blown in every Grand store
in New York, and the workers each finished their sales and folded their
arms. Refusing to wait
oft he workers joined us
on any more customers. Practically 100 percent
and most of the stores almost immediately closed
their doors. We were prepared to stay in for a month if nesessary.
3.
Arrangements had been made for food and bedding to be brought in, and
the workers notified4 their families by phone that they wouIC be away
from home indefinitely. We had cots brought in and blankets, electric
burners or coffee, and plenty of eats. Although there was food and other
things we might have used in the store, none of our people touched any
sort of merchandise during the strike. Two engagements were announced
during the time we sat in, and we held parties. We even held a marriage
ceremony there for a couple who decided to get married during the strike.
The girls dressed up the bride, and the fellows groomed the groom, and
we had a priest sent for, and married them.
It was pretty cold, being early spring, and the blankets we had
serilmottenough, so we had to huddle together at nights.
Some of the fellows slept on the counters. There were some
canary cages in the store, and we kept the birds fed...They'd trill and
wake us up early in the morning. We had games like checkers and cards,
and we had a radio and danced to the music.
The strike held out over Easter week, and it happened that some
of our people were Italians and Irish Catholics, so since they couldn't
attend services, we held Easter services for them in the store.
Nobody left the store, except the Committee to contact the
management, for eleven days. The girls held out just as well as the
fellows, and everyone tried to be gay and have as a good a time as poss-
ible. Luckily, no one in our store got sick during strike. The mana-
gement finally heard our Committee and met our demands-- largely as a
result of the publicity our sit-down had gotten all over the country
Another strike that got a lot of publicity was the May Depart-
ment Store in Brooklyn, there the girls got up on the elevator structure
and shouted that the boss was unfair. On Lincoln's birthday, one of the
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boys dressed up as Abraham Lincoln was parading on the picket line.
A policeman came up to him and said,'I don't know who this Abe is, but
anyhow you're under arrest!,
During the Ohrbach strike a couple of years ago, two salesgirls
pulled a neat stunt that resulted in the granting of our demands. There
was a dinner being held for Mr. Ohrbach at the Hotel Astor, at which
he spoke. Now Ohrbach is supposed to be a big philanthropiat, contri-
butes to a lot of charities and such. Well, when he was spouting about
some of these public charity funds, two girls who had crashed the dinner
by coming in borrowed evening gowns, climbed up on the balcony and chain-
ed themselves to the railing. Nobody had noticed them, and suddenly they
began shouting in the middle of Ohrbach's speech: 'Charity begins at home&
Give your anployees shorter hours and better payi' Of course, there was
a big hubbub, and the girls were arrested. But the papers carried a big
story, and the boss had to grant our demands to WROMEMpublic opinion.'
From Miss Clarene Michaelson, organizer for local 1250 of the Depart-
ment Store Workers Union, obtained two poems written by Department Store
workers. She grants permission to print them.
A SHOP GIRL'S SAGA
By
Betty Mindling, (of Norton's Department Store)
A SALESGIRL'S LIFE IS NOT SO HOT,
EVEN IN THE BETTER DEPT. SHOP.
DEPOSITED EACH MORNING FROM TBE SUBWAY CROP,
TO WADE IN THE PUBLIC AUCTION LOT.
WITH A SMILE, WE STAND AIMED TO PLEASE,
NO MATTER HOW lewsT ACHE AND PAIN:
THOUGH SELECTED CLIENTELE COME 10 TEASE,
THE SHOW MUST Go oN00,BERE ARE SALES TO GAIN.
THEN THERE ARE THOSE LADIES OF LEISURE,
WHO ALWAYS DALLY, WAY AFTER AFTER THE CLOSING BELL:
TO SERVE-- WE ASSURE THEM IS REALLY A PLEASURE:
THOUGH WE WOULD AS LIEF TELL THEM TO GO TO Hi
IF IN MANNER WE RIVAL THE HOLLYWOOD GLAMOUR,
AND PUT ON THE ACT TO CLOSE A DELL,
IT'S THE UNWRITTEN LAW-- BY POPULAR GLAMOUR
TO SEASON ALL SALES WITH A DASH OF SEX APPEAL.
THE RUN ON THE STOCK IS SIMPLY TERRIFIC,
TO KEEP IT APPEALING IS QUITE A DAY'S WORK:
SUMMED UP, OUR WORK MUST BE PROLIFIC,
TO TOTAL THE DEGREES OF DEPT. STORE CLERK.