Words of Wisdom: a Century of Advice on Workplace Issues

Looking back at 100 years of workplace controversies, we find that, although we’ve made great strides in civil rights, we’re now facing unprecedented challenges in other arenas such as technology, safety and occupational stress.

Following are “words of wisdom” about these issues, written by workplace experts over the last 10 decades. Some of the writings may evoke chuckles or winces, as we review them with a sagaciousness earned with time. Others, because they address problems still unresolved, may cause us to pause in contemplation.

Child Labor: “Not all child laborers are ‘slaves.’ Those who denounce the evils of child labor in such generalizations . . . are a menace to this reform. Intelligent people, seeing many of these 2 million children who are not ‘wan’ or ‘dwarfed’ and who bear no other visible marks of slavery, discount the whole cry against child labor as sentiment. . . . Not all coal breakers are dense with clouds of dry dust. Not all telegraph offices employ little children to carry messages at midnight to houses of vice. Not all children in Southern cotton mills work through a 12-hour night.”

“Child Labor and Family

Disintegration” by Owen Lovejoy,

in “Independent” (1906)

*

Night Shifts: “Work at night involves injury to the human body by reason of the unavoidable use of artificial light. . . . The moral dangers for women and young girls doing work at night are so gross as scarcely to need statement. . . . The saloons, offering brightness, warmth, cheer and stimulant, possess a charm absent at other times. The very cold and darkness of early morning remove a restraint powerful by daylight--the fear of the observant neighbor who would disapprove.”

--”Industrial Democracy:

Women in Trade Unions”

by Florence Kelley (1906)

*

Women in the Workplace: “Even if a girl enjoys the comforts of a good home until she arrives at legal industrial age, and can in other ways qualify for employment, the objections to our modern system are by no means removed. . . . No girl of 18 can, without physical injury, sit or stand continuously in the most sanitary store, laundry or factory 10 hours a day without risking her chance for future usefulness as a woman.”

--”Employment of Women”

by Edna Bullock (1911)

*

Unemployment: “No question, unemployment is due to personal defects. There are men who are occasionally unemployed, but the unemployables are always weeded out. Defect of character, everywhere, swell the army of unemployed. . . . Here is the personal cause. As far as the man himself is concerned we find three great causes militating against him. These are intemperance, shiftlessness and lack of thrift.”

--”The Problem of the

Unemployed” by Dr. W.S. Williams

(1917)

*

Employer Motivation: “Man survived in earlier ages through destroying his rivals and killing his game, and these tendencies bit deep into his psychic makeup. Modern man delights in a prizefight or a street brawl, even at times joys in ill news of his own friends, has poorly concealed pleasure if his competition wrecks a business rival, falls easily into committing atrocities if conventional policing be withdrawn . . . and is an always possible member of a lynching party. He is still a hunter and reverts to his primordial hunt habits with disconcerting zeal and expediency. . . . All this goes on under naive rationalization about justice or patriotism, but it is pure and innate lust to run something down and hurt it.”

--”Foundations of Employment

Management: Motives in Economic

Life” by Carleton Parker (1918)

*

Technology: “The worker’s degree of self-direction and independence is diminished as the machine is perfected. He is forced to adjust his physical and mental powers to the time and rhythm and functioning of the machine; his activities must be coordinated with those of numerous others who, like himself, are subject to the pace of a common driving mechanism. He merely feeds the machine and takes from it the produce it continuously yields in an unvarying manner with clocklike precision.”

--”Labor Problems” by Gordon

Watkins and Paul Dodd (1929)

*

Race: “Comparative Ability and Efficiency: A reason given for excluding the Negroes from certain occupations requiring mental alertness is that they are slow-witted or that they need more supervision than white workers. . . . In the case of the Negroes, the comment is that they require more guidance and directing than whites and that they exhibit less initiative, whether individually or in groups.”

--”Racial Factors in American

Industry” by Herman Feldman

(1931)

*

Hiring: “Applicants of some undesirable nationality for some particular piece of work or those coming from a center where there has been considerable labor trouble or from a firm with a reputation for hiring inferior types of workers are representative of those on the taboo list in some plants.”

--”Psychology for Business and

Industry” by Herbert Moore PhD

(1939)

*

Interviews: “Do you drink?

Do you own your own home?

Can you live on $25 a week?

How much does [your wife] earn?

Have you ever had a social disease?

Are you a Democrat or Republican?”

--Employer interview questions

cited in “How to Select and Direct

the Office Staff” by Edward A.

Richards and Edward B. Rubin

(1941)

*

Entertainment Industry Jobs: “Nearly all the motion picture stars have private secretaries; some have two or three. Life as a secretary to a film star can mean a quiet, peaceful routine, such as the girls on Bing Crosby’s office staff enjoy. . . . Or it can mean taking dictation at the edge of a swimming pool, with your employer dressed in shorts and taking a sun bath.”

--”Careers in Business for

Women” by Doree Smedley and

Lura Robinson (1945)

*

Office Etiquette: “Don’t expect a man to rise when you speak to him, and don’t even expect him to let you go through the door first. Just be thankful if he doesn’t let it slam and hit you, as you meekly walk behind him.”

--”The Successful Secretary”

by Margaret Pratt (1946)

*

Grooming: “One ‘pet peeve’ with employers is red, purple or other conspicuous nail polish. . . . More than one employer has told me he has fired a competent stenographer who ignored repeated hints, suggestions or requests to forget red nail polish during office hours.’

--”Fitting Yourself for

Business” by Elizabeth Gregg

MacGibbon (1947)

*

Marriage and Work: “Question: I wish to continue working for a few years after I am married. Am I supposed to ask my employer for permission to do so? Answer: Even if an employer heartily endorses married women’s working, his secretary is expected, as a matter of courtesy, to ask him if it will be agreeable to him for her to continue on the job. . . . Your employer may explain to you that it is a policy of the firm to have jobs filled by single girls wherever possible and that you might be replaced if someone satisfactory should be found.”

--”Etiquette in Business”

by Marie Carney (1948)

*

Disabled: “We naturally do not employ the afflicted when we have sound material at hand. Taken as a whole, even when fitted to the job, they are apt to prove less satisfactory, because of an accompanying mental state of depression or nervousness often to be observed.”

--Employer policy statement

cited in “Rehabilitation of the

Physically Handicapped” by Henry

Kessler (1953)

*

The Older Worker: “There is . . . no harsher verdict in most men’s lives than someone else’s judgment that they are no longer worth their keep. It is then, when the answer at the hiring gate is ‘You’re too old,’ that a man turns away . . . finding nothing to look backward to with pride, nothing to look forward to with hope. . . . Almost three out of every five employers covered by the 1965 [Secretary of Labor’s] survey have in effect age limitations [most frequently between 45 and 55] on new hires which they apply without consideration of an applicant’s other qualifications.”

--”The Older American Worker:

Age Discrimination in

Employment,” Secretary of Labor’s

Report to Congress (1965)

*

Termination: “The act of firing . . . has awesome potency far beyond the fate of the individual concerned or the justice of the decision, and tends to make the person who is empowered to commit the firing a tribal shaman in the eyes of his subordinates. Like the ritual priestess of pre-Hellenic Europe, the ‘firer’ must perform the sacred act himself, and on his choice of the right victim lies the survival of his tribe or group.”

--”Power: How to Get It, How to

Use It” by Michael Korda (1975)

*

Women Executives: “How to Tell a Businessman from a Businesswoman:

A businessman is aggressive; a businesswoman is pushy.

A businessman is good on details; she’s picky.

He loses his temper at times because he’s so involved in his work; she’s bitchy.

He knows how to follow through; she doesn’t know when to quit.

He stands firm; she’s hard.

He is a man of the world; she’s been around.

He isn’t afraid to say what he thinks; she’s mouthy.

He drinks martinis because of excessive job pressures; she’s a lush.

He exercises authority diligently; she’s power mad.

He’s climbed the ladder of success; she’s slept her way to the top.

He’s a stern taskmaster; she’s hard to work for.”

--Repeated in “Feminine

Leadership or How to Succeed

in Business Without Being One

of the Boys” by Marilyn Loden

(1985)

*

Substance Abuse: “A marijuana user can be detected by the odor of the substance, which, like nicotine, will permeate the clothing and the air. Also, there will be a dilation of the pupils, which often prompts the use of dark or sunglasses. . . . There is a loss of motivational drive . . . and the development of an ‘I-don’t-give-a-damn’ attitude.”

--”The Alcoholic Employee:

a Handbook of Useful Guidelines”

by Ashton Brisolara (1979)

*

Violence: “Another very ‘at home’ experience in terms of stress awareness came one day a few years ago when one of our members became so incensed at his supervisor that he got a gun, walked into the supervisor’s office, and shot him dead sitting in his chair. The worker got away, jumped in his car, drove down to the union hall, shot the business agent right between the eyes sitting at his desk, calmly walked over and put down the gun, climbed in a police car and went to jail--very blase about the whole experience, but he got it off his chest.”

--”A labor view of stress

management” by William

Winpisinger, from “Work Stress:

Health Care Systems in the

Workplace,” edited by James Quick

et al. (1987)

*

Stress: “The recent increase in claims for stress-related mental disability is not yet as publicized as black lung or asbestos-related diseases have been. . . . In California, where stress claims are making the biggest bang . . . stress claims increased 47 times faster than disabling-injury claims overall in that state; whereas the number of traumatic or disabling work injuries fell 5% for every 1,000 workers . . . mental stress claims increased a whopping 360%.”

--”Stress in the American

Workplace” by Donald DeCarlo

and Deborah Gruenfeld (1989)

*

Downsizing: “Then, of course, we have the survivors. The survivors often do not have time for mental health services, vacations, time with family, educational or professional development, etc. Many of these people are the walking wounded of the downsizing wars. The macho among these survivors will always ignore inner cries for help. For them, heart attacks and strokes are preferable to the use of mental health services.”

--”Breaking Point: The

Workplace Violence Epidemic”

by Joseph Kinney and Dennis

Johnson (1993)

*

Commuting: “A commuter is a logical candidate for burnout stress. At least as far as physical symptoms are concerned, many commuters report a tiredness or exhaustion when they arrive at work or return home. . . . The accumulation of such negative stimuli begins to have a toxic effect on the individual. Adaptive physiological responses are reduced, and the falloff in individual performance appears in many measures of productivity, including a likelihood of becoming a victim to a workplace accident.”

--”Commuting Stress: Causes,

Effects and Methods of Coping”

by Meni Koslowsky et al. (1995)