Not only must he ascertain the customers' needs and direct all of them, plainly and courteously, but he has direct supervision over all of the employees within his section. He is held responsible for their deportment and it is his duty to observe, as far as possible, their mental, moral and physical condition. He must be able to detect errors in the methods used by his salesclerks, and in order that he may be in a position to teach them correct methods, he must, himself, be master of the store system. Parts of this constantly are being changed, so that in addition to all of these other qualities, the successful section manager must possess an alert mind. The importance of his work may be visualized to some slight extent at least by the manual which is prepared for his guidance. This is a loose-leaf book of some fifty closely printed pages; the number varying according to the changes in the store system which are made from time to time. Just to give you a slight idea of what this captain of a merchandising army has upon his mind, consider that under the division entitled "Section Managers' Daily Duties" there are forty-six different items, and under "Miscellaneous Duties" thirteen. Moreover, he must have at his instant command all the technical procedure regarding transactions and forms, refunds, complaints, transfers, employees' shopping, the Internal Revenue Law, accidents, and then some more. I submit this as a job requiring all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy!
Salesmanship is the thing that really made R. H. Macy & Company and it therefore is patent that they should consider the actual sellers of their goods as the very backbone of their organization. In another place it is related how, in the department of training, employees are taught to sell, and in another something of the working out of the psychology of the customer and the salesclerk. Education counts. It helps to make the salesclerk a vital factor of the store organization.
Macy policy sees to it that the clerk is, in so far as it is possible, kept interested in his or her work. There are, as we have already begun to understand, as few rules governing their conduct, dress and liberties as are consistent with the smooth, economical operation of the business. On the other hand, there is all possible encouragement for them to become familiar and even expert with the things that they sell. In many of the departments special booklets have been prepared as aids in selling the particular line of merchandise carried. That for the stationery department, for instance, covers: Paper, with its history from the earliest times, its manufacture, sizes and characteristics; engraving, with a full description of the processes connected therewith; fountain-pens and their manufacture; desk accessories, commercial stationery and the like. Ambition to excel in salesmanship is further stimulated by taking clerks through factories where their lines are made, and by exhibiting motion pictures of the manufacturing of these goods.
Here, then, is the store's most direct contact with its patrons. There are others, however, to be classed as at least fairly direct. Take that big and comfortable restaurant up on the eighth floor. It is one of the real landmark's among eating-places of New York, a world city of good eating.
Its own magnitude may easily be guessed from the fact that in a single business day it feeds more people than almost if not any other in the town. Translated into cold figures this means that there is an average of twenty-five hundred lunches bought by customers each day that the store is open; with a maximum on extremely busy days reaching as high as five thousand. Figures are impressive. Yet these do not include either afternoon teas or late breakfasts for both of which there is a considerable clientele.
To serve these hungry folk who come to Macy's there are two hundred waitresses, buss-boys and other employees upon the floor, besides fifty in the general kitchen, twenty in the bakery and eight in the ice cream factory. And if you still try to doubt that this restaurant is not of itself a real business and one to be reckoned with, consider that in the course of an average year its patrons consume—among other things—two thousand barrels of flour, fifty-two tons of sugar, seven hundred and fifty thousand eggs, ninety-three thousand six hundred pounds of butter, two thousand bags of potatoes, and nearly half a million quarts of ice cream. This latter item, however, covers the ice cream used at the soda fountain and in the employees' and men's club restaurants.
The employees' lunchroom—conducted on the cafeteria plan—serves four thousand men and women each working day. It provides tasty and wholesome food at a cost that makes it entirely possible to eat to repletion for twenty cents or less. Soups, for instance, are three cents a portion, and meat dishes six, while other items, such as sandwiches, vegetables, desserts and the like are correspondingly low.
Nor is this luncheon the sole restaurant resource of the employees within this institution. In the men's club nearly a thousand more of the Macy family eat their midday meal each day; and eat very well indeed. Here the meal is served at a flat rate: at the uniform and moderate cost of thirty cents.
Under the same general management direction (the third assistant general manager) as the restaurant is the store's supply department—not different very much from the supply department of a big railroad or manufacturing unit—which supplies everything for its consumption, from coal to string; the manufacturing departments in which are produced glass, mattresses, printing, engraving, custom-made shirts, millinery, picture frames and paper novelties; the candy factory over near Tenth Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, which completely fills a big modern six-story building; the telephone service; and the so-called public service department.
These last facilities command our attention for a passing moment. The telephone is, of course, the nerve-system of the Macy organization; nothing else. Its chief ganglion is a far-reaching switchboard on which little lights twinkle on and off and at which at a single relay sit nine competent operators in addition to a corps of inspectors and supervisors. The big board, from which run fifty-nine trunk-wires to the neighboring Fitzroy exchange, is none too large. Year in and year out it handles an average of nine thousand calls a day. And in the Christmas season this number easily is doubled and trebled.