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of memoranda represent simplicity to the 100 per cent degree? If so, place a figure 5 opposite "Note-books" in the column designated "Simple." Continue in the same way with the other four tests, crediting each a 5, a 3, or whatever your selections really deserve; and then do likewise with the other three classes. A perfect score equals 100 points.

How many credits have you?

Should this grade not satisfy you, remember that it is subject to improvement at any and all times. In the school of efficiency the final marks are never entered once for all upon the books.

A Final Warning!

A fad is a good idea pressed too far. The recording and filing systems described above may become merely fads in the hand of a zealot who, without discrimination, makes a note of everything which falls under his observation and religiously files it away. One must keep perspective, and not forget the waste-basket.

The things most worth filing concern themselves with standards. Last year as a result of several months' experimenting in your machine shop, you standardized the making of brass valves. Are these standards now your permanent possession, recorded and filed? In your office for six weeks this spring a high-priced systematizer was replacing rule-of-thumb with standard practice. Do you have this standard practice, or has most of it disappeared with the expert? Do you work out with toil and patience a practical method of getting more from your time and effort, the one best way to hire a stenographer, equip your summer camp, mix dye stuff, or write letters?

Record it and file it!

CHAPTER IV

OFFICE EQUIPMENT

The whole aim in standardizing conditions is to arrange means to eliminate duplication of effort to make things easier to kill off waste-to facilitate, in every possible way. C. E. KNOEPPEL Industrial Engineer.

The Executive's Workshop

The preceding chapter was concerned with certain mechanical aids which have proved useful in the handling of details. The present chapter carries the matter of personal system a step further.

The office of an executive should be a well-arranged workshop, where, with minimum time and effort, a maximum mental output is attained. While it is true that this output, owing to its intangible nature, cannot be ticketed in the storage bins, it is none the less real. Its cost, like that of foundry castings or machine parts, varies according to the completeness with which the conditions incident to its production have been standardized.

The recognition of this fact more or less clearly has been responsible for the marked changes in the various types of office equipment which have taken place during the last decade. The executives of the present day are introducing scientific management into their personal affairs, and surrounding themselves with result-getting equipment which was unknown twenty years ago.

Let us commence with the leading article of equipment in an office, its desk.

The Office Desk

Several decades ago, as Harry A. Hoff tells us, it was the fashion to have an office desk of walnut or bird's-eye maple that stood five feet high, opened up like a safe, and had neat little boxes fitted in tiers of pigeonholes, not only in the desk itself but in either door. Filing cabinets were unknown and the worker at the desk had to keep within his immediate reach all the numerous letters, papers, and records relating to his work.

After the invention of filing cabinets, the roll-top desk came into vogue. It was an improvement on its archaic predecessor, but even the roll-top desk was an unwieldy piece of furniture which afforded too many opportunities for the storage of papers and records in its cavernous drawers.

Later came smaller desks with superstructures low enough to permit a clear view of other desks in the office. In the meantime as filing cabinets were perfected, less need existed for utilizing the desk as a storage cabinet. This consideration led finally to the modern flat-top desk, a type which is widely used in the business world today.

The "Built-to-Order" Desk

The desk is now regarded very properly as a business work-bench. Two different tendencies may be noticed as follows:

First, there is the wish to utilize every possibility of the desk, every inch of its top, every corner of its drawers, for quick, first-aid reference. To secure such complete adaptation of desk to user it is often desirable to have the desk built to order. This does not necessarily imply blue-printed specifications for some skilled cabinetmaker. Various filing equipment manufacturers have saved us from such necessity by designing "desk units." (See Figure 6.) With dozens of combinations available-in fact, one company professes to offer

8,000 possible combinations-the desk-worker selects the units which most fully satisfy his requirements, in this way building his own serviceable work-bench.

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This represents one of many possible combinations, units being available for a variety of purposes.

The Desk Cleared for Action

The second tendency is the wish to have the desk clear, free from any accumulation or litter. To clear out the rubbish and start afresh with a clean desk constitutes a first step toward office system.

Our favorite adjective for expressing neatness, completeness, and efficiency generally is "shipshape." On a ship everything must be stowed away in its place because the space is limited-there is just room enough. When Rear-Admiral McGowan, "the business manager" of our navy, was transferred from a battleship to the office in Washington, he applied the same principles of practical efficiency he had known on shipboard.

"Why not," thought McGowan, "have an office as shipshape as a ship? If there is wisdom in having a warship

stripped for action, why not a business office? Why not be just as efficient, just as free from lost motion, on land as on water?

"Roll-top desks and pigeonholes are the foes of the do-itnow impulse," said McGowan. When he became paymastergeneral the offices were full of roll-top desks and he made a request for a new equipment of desks. When it was refused he sent for a carpenter and had him saw off the tops and pigeonholes. The result-well, that may be described in the words of the private secretary of Judge Gary of the United States Steel Corporation, who has the same idea:

"That table," said Judge Gary's secretary, "reflects the state of mind of my chief as he begins his day's work-cleared for action." Its polished top bore pen, ink, and scratch pad, nothing more.

The Desk Kept Cleared for Action

Now that the desk itself has been rid of every junk-heap characteristic, the time is at hand to install a system under which accumulations will not accumulate. Material will come-receive the proper attention-then go! This system will increase the day's output and prove conducive to better sleep at night.

"One at a Time, Gentlemen!"

A litter of papers tends to create confusion, since attention is divided among a number of problems, at the expense of all. Each paper in sight is a problem awaiting solution and it automatically prods the mind to solve it. But since the attention can be focused effectively upon only one thing at a time, every paper, every task to be done, should be dealt with as callers are dealt with-one at a time and each in his turn. This requires system, which in this particular in

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