October 10, 1917 



The Lumhermans Round Table 



Another Boost for Wood 



The superintendent of a large hospital in Ihe East, which re- 

 cently occupied a new building, has had an experience which is 

 suggestive from the standpoint of the manufacturer of wooden 

 doors and interior trim. The doors and frames in this fireproof 

 building are of steel, and the superintendent wrote to ojie of the 

 hospital magazines telling it about the terrific noise which follows 

 the closing of the door. 



"It sounds like a pistol shot," he said. "We have done every- 

 thing possible to remedy the trouble, but nothing seems to do any 

 good. The frames seem to be well fitted into the walls, though 

 it was suggested that an opening back of them might be re- 

 sponsible. ' ' 



Architects who have designed buildings of this type admit that 

 avoiding excessive noise where steel doors and frames are used 

 is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. They recommend that 

 a special type of door check, described as " non-slamming, " be 

 employed as a means of reducing the noise to a minimum. 



What it amounts to is that steel in this instance is not a satis- 

 factory substitute for wood. It seems to conform to the require- 

 mens of fireproofness, but it has other disadvantages which offset 

 the primary one. With fireproof floors, walls and partitions, a 

 building could be equipped with wood doors and frames without 

 adding materially to the hazard, and the occupants of the build- 

 ings would be spared the nerve-racking noise which accompanies 

 use of the other material. 



At any rate, this is a feature which wooden door people ought 

 to look into, for it seems to constitute the weak point in the 

 armor of the substitute. 



Piece Work in Lumber Yards 



A successful hardwood dealer in an Ohio valley city is a great 

 believer in the piece-work system as applied to handling lumber. 

 He has been using it for a number of years, and has found that 

 it works. It seems to be of special interest at this time, when 

 labor is scarce and the character of help which can be secured 

 for lumber-yard operations is not any too good. 



The first thing, of course, is to establish a rate that will insure 

 having the lumber handled at a reasonable cost to the yard, and 

 at the same time will enable the industrious worker to make a good 

 return on his efforts. The yard should be protected and the un- 

 ambitious employe penalized. 



After the rate has been decided on, it should not be changed. 

 Sometimes employers who adopt the piece-work plan find that 

 certain individuals are making such large amounts that their earn- 

 ings seem unreasonable, and an attempt is made to revise the rate 

 downward. But this involves an implication of bad faith that is 

 likely to cause the workers to lose their enthusiasm. 



One of the advantages of the piece-work system, as indicated 

 by the experience of the dealer referred to, is that yard crews do 

 not have to be driven, either individually or collectively. The man 

 who hangs back, and does not do his part to get the car loaded or 

 the pile stacked, is not only decreasing his own earnings, but those 

 of the other men in his crew, and they are sure to play the part of 

 foreman and to prod him to greater exertions. Hence "soldier- 

 ing" is reduced to the minimum. 



The men likewise do not need to be watched to see that full 

 time is put in. On the other hand, some of them come to work 

 an hour or two ahead of the usual time, in order to get through 

 early. They are in every way more interested than under the day- 

 work system, because their earnings are directly in proportion to 

 the amount of work actually accomplished. 



It is very little more trouble to keep track of footage handled 

 under the piece-work system than to total up the time put in, and 

 the inspector can take care of this detail as well as not. Some of 

 the hardwood men believe in paying a little higher rate for han- 

 dling thick lumber, on account of the usual amount of labor re- 



quired, and there are other individual variations; but the plan as 

 a whole seems to be readily workable. Negroes take to it as soon 

 as they understand that the hard worker will get more than the 

 loafer, and the contest feature involved makes them enjoy the 

 system. In the South this is a feature worth noting. 



Call on Them All 



One of the most noticeable features of putting a new man into 

 a territory, no matter how long that territory has been covered, 

 is that he will usually dig up some new accounts. He may lose 

 a few of the old ones, which were held by the personal connections 

 of the other man, and the net gain may not be large, if any- 

 thing; but the significant feature is that new business is located 

 and booked. 



What this really means is that salesmen get in the habit of 

 regarding certain business as impossible to land, and give up 

 trying for that reason. Or they may have had personal experiences 

 of a disagreeable nature in calling on the buyers, and crossed 

 their names off their lists for that reason. In this way the number 

 of "live prospects" regularly solicited by every man is usually 

 a good deal smaller than the total number of lumber users in his 

 terriliory would indicate. 



Th'C readiness with which a new man can go in and land orders 

 from some of the buyers who have not been regularly called on 

 is thus proof of the fact that many salesmen are not developing 

 all of the business that should be had in their territories. The 

 hardwood man who is studying sales problems, and is figuring on 

 the correct proportion of business each territory should develop, 

 may study that proposition with some profit. 



It might be a good idea to ask a salesman to report the names 

 of concerns they are regularly calling on, and then compare this 

 with a complete list of consumers. After having the names of 

 those not being solicited listed, the salesman should be asked to 

 make a special effort to get business from those who seem to be 

 desirable from a credit standpoint and otherwise. Stirring up the 

 boys a little in this way will probably get them to expend more 

 effort along the line of obtaining business from some of the 

 neglected sources, which, nine times out of ten, can be cultivated 

 to good advantage. 



Don't Forget the Child Labor Law 



A number of forms have come to this office in the last few weeks 

 relative to the national child lalior law that was enacted September 

 1, 1916. The law prohibits shipment or delivery for shipment in 

 interstate or foreign commerce of a product of any mine or quarry 

 of the United States in which within thirty days prior to that ship- 

 ment children under the age of sixteen years have been employed; 

 it also prohibits the shipment of any article or commodity being the 

 product of any mill, factory or other manufacturing establishment 

 in the United States in which within thirty days prior to the ship- 

 ment children under the age of fourteen years have been employed 

 or permitted to work, or children between the age of fourteen and 

 sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work more than 

 eight hours in any day, or more than six days in any week, or after 

 the hour of seven in the evening or before the hour of six o'clock 

 in the morning. 



As the act became effective September 1, 1917, it is necessary ■ 

 that all invoices for merchandise affected by the law have stamped on 

 them a guarantee that they were within the law. As there are heavy 

 penalties for violation of the act, all shippers who might be affected 

 would do well to give the situation immediate consideration. 



The question of how much to charge for small lots of work in propor- 

 tion to larger ones, makes a hard problem for the woodworker to 

 solve. It involves many other points besides the fact that on the 

 average it costs fifty cents every time a machine is changed, and in 

 the end there is always some guesswork. 



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