When it is a question of work being prolonged beyond the eight hours a day by the entertaining of friends, one can only say that this ought not to happen if the housewife planned her working schedule carefully. She alone is responsible for her social engagements; she alone can make a schedule that will enable her to have her friends come to luncheon or dinner without prolonging the day's work beyond the hours agreed upon between herself and her employees.
When friends arrive unexpectedly, however, or when a dinner party or a big social function takes place in the home, an eight hour schedule may be the cause of great inconvenience, unless a previous agreement has been made to meet just such occasions. It is certain that some compensation is due to all domestic employees for the extra long hours of work caused by unusual events in the home life of their employers, and many ways have been devised already to remunerate them.
In modern social life a custom of long standing still exists which makes it almost compulsory for this remuneration to come out of the pocket, not of the hostess, but of her guests. The unfortunate custom of giving "tips" is not generally criticised very openly, but when viewed in the light of reason and justice, it seems to be a very poor way of trying to remove one of the present hardships connected with domestic labor. Why should the housewife depend upon the generosity of her guests to help her pay her household employees? She never demurs at the extra expense entailed in giving luncheons and dinners in her friends' honor, nor in taking them to places of interest and amusement. Why then should she object to giving a little more money to her household employees upon whose work the success of her hospitality so largely depends?
There are many women who entertain extensively, but they never recompense a household employee for any extra work that may be demanded from her on that account. They consider themselves fully justified in exacting extra long hours of work because of the high wages they pay, especially as it frequently happens that while the work is more on some days, it is less on others, and they think in consequence that their employees have no cause for complaint.
It is a mistake, however, to think that an employee who is obliged to be on duty and has little or nothing to do on one day, is really compensated for the extra hours of work she has been compelled to give on other days. A saleswoman who on certain days has no customers or only a few, is just as much "on duty" as if her work filled all her time, and it is the same with a domestic employee. Indeed it is generally conceded to be more irksome to remain idle at one's post than to be actively engaged in work.
But on the other hand, there are many housewives who feel that they ought to give their employees more pay for extra work especially when it is connected with the entertaining of friends, and the following ways of rewarding them have been tried with more or less success.
One plan that gained favor with several families was to give ten cents to the cook and ten cents to the waitress every time a guest was invited to a meal: ten cents for each guest. At the end of a month the ten cent pieces had amounted to quite a sum of money.
Another plan that was tried in a small family was to give fifty cents to the cook and fifty cents to each of the two waitresses for every dinner party that took place, regardless of the number of guests. Still another plan was to give at the end of the month, a two dollar, five dollar, or ten dollar bill to an employee who had given many extra hours of satisfactory work to her employer.
All these plans are good in a certain sense, inasmuch as they show that women are awakening to the realization that some compensation is due to household employees for the extra long hours of work frequently unavoidable in family life. But unfortunately these plans lack stability, for they depend altogether upon the generosity and kindness of different employers, instead of upon a just and firmly established business principle.
And now comes the question: What method of payment for overtime will produce a permanently satisfactory result?