In the half-hour which elapses between eight and eight-thirty, many of the minor executives—particularly those of the selling floors—make their appearance at the designated doors upon the side streets. In the parlance of the organization these are known as "specials" and are divided into several classes, denoting chiefly their connection with its selling or non-selling forces. They "sign in" their arrival upon a sheet. For while Macy's is known as the department-store without a time-clock, there is none which is more punctilious about keeping an exact record of the comings and goings of its workers, from the lowest to the highest. In the entire permanent organization of more than five thousand folk, there are not more than ten or a dozen who are exempted from this necessity. A man may draw a twenty-thousand-dollar-a-year salary at Macy's and still be compelled to sign his time. It is part of the inherent democracy of the organization which holds as a high principle that what is fair for one man is fair for another. A better bed-rock principle can hardly be imagined.
Half after eight!
A bell rings somewhere. The time-lists of the minor executives—perhaps it is better to remember them as the specials—are closed, and new ones substituted. These are duplicates of the earlier ones. When the section manager (a modern and much better name for the "floor-walker" of the earlier days) signs one of these, he does not merely put down an "X" as before eight-thirty, but specifically writes down his arriving time.
But from eight-thirty to eight-forty-five is known to the rank and file of the organization as its hour for arrival. Three doors—one in Thirty-fourth Street (for the women, as well as for men executives) and two others, in Thirty-fifth Street (for the other men workers and the junior girls respectively) open on the precise moment of the half-hour. Even before they swing backward upon their hinges the earliest risers of the Macy family are beginning to group themselves in front of them. They go tramping up the broad stairs together; dropping into the slender receptacles the individual brass checks (of which much more a little later) at the first barrier-gateway; after which they go scurrying off to the locker-rooms, before descending or ascending to their various posts in the store.
For fifteen minutes this rank and file—a miniature army it is—comes trooping in. There is no time to be lost; and yet no unseemly haste or confusion. And no noise. Noise, particularly surplus noise, is quite unnecessary in a machine which is functioning well.
At eight-forty-five the barrier at the head of the main employees' stair at Thirty-fourth Street closes. And in order that there may not be even the slightest particle of unfairness—one gains an increasing admiration for the absolute impartiality of an organization such as this—the pressing of a button at that stairhead automatically orders closed the two auxiliary entrances in Thirty-fifth. And yet, in order perhaps that perfectly automatic and impartial systems may, after all, be tinged by a bit of human sympathy and understanding, eight-forty-five is forever translated at the employees' doors as eighty-forty-seven. And in cases of bad weather, hard rain or snow or extreme cold, eight-forty-seven becomes the stroke of nine by the clock—in very extreme cases even later, with a special allowance being made from time to time for the occasional breakdown of New York's rather temperamental transportation system.
From eight-forty-five (eight-forty-seven) to nine o'clock, the late-comers—out of breath as a rule and extremely embarrassed into the bargain—are herded into a special group and given special "late" passes, without which they may not even enter the locker rooms, to say nothing of their posts in the store. Sometimes—when the tardiness percentages of the store have been running to unwonted heights—the group is admonished; always gently, always considerately. It is made to them a point of fairness, between the store and themselves. And almost invariably the admonition is received in the spirit in which it is given. In other days it was quite customary for the store manager or one of his several assistants to receive these late-comers personally and individually and talk to them, heart-to-heart. This method has now been entirely abolished. It led to controversy. It led to argument. And both of these led to ill-feeling. Macy's will not tolerate ill-feeling between its executives and its rank and file. Therefore, anything that might even tend to such an end was abolished—completely and permanently.
In due time, and when we are studying in greater detail the Macy family, we shall come again to the consideration of the methods of checking the force in in the morning and out again at night—as well as in and out at different intervals throughout the day. Consider now that it is still lacking a few brief minutes of nine o'clock on a workday morning. The sales force are through the lockers and getting to their day's work upon the floor. The non-selling forces as well—elevator-men, cashiers, all the rest of them, are at their posts. A doorman is told off to each of the public street entrances to the main floor. It is the regular post for each of these. He goes to it a minute or two before the coming of nine.
After a brief period of busy activity the store aisles are for the moment practically deserted once again. There is a group of buyers "signing in"—once again the inevitable time-list—at the superintendent's office just beneath the main stair, where five or ten minutes ago the "big chief" of the whole main floor was giving his section managers their special instructions for the day. The rest of the aisles are all but empty. The clerks are behind the desks, the cashiers at their posts, the section managers at attention, the elevators banked and waiting at the ground floor— Then—
Nine o'clock!