62 PRESENT SYSTEM. 



2. He is apt to use general terms loosely, charging his time, 

 say, to " Miss. Repairs," " Shop Fixtures," " Jobbing," etc., instead 

 of giving it definite names by which its exact nature may be 

 hereafter distinguished. 



3. In case the workman is absent, during all or part of the day, 

 there is nothing but the memory of the foreman to rely upon as 

 to the fact. For example, the workman may be marked " absent " 

 when present, or may be credited with some time when absent ; 

 in neither case will the error be discovered until the pay-roll is 

 signed, nor even then unless the workman has kept his own time, 

 and unless in the latter instance he has been honest enough to 

 forego the advantage given by the foreman's mistake. 



4. Besides such errors in stating the gross amount of time, the 

 following mistakes are not infrequent in the distribution of the 

 time : In form B, the foreman, being cramped for room if he has 

 many entries to make on one line, is led to abbreviate them or to 

 condense them, so as to save himself trouble. 



5. In form C, also, he is not unapt, in order to save himself 

 the trouble of writing new headings, by no means an easy thing 

 while walking about the shop taking time, to charge the man's 

 time to an old heading, or to merge it with some other job worked 

 at on the same day. 



6. With the best intentions possible, he will also make mis- 

 takes by inadvertently placing the figures on the wrong line, 

 and even sometimes in the wrong column ; and generally, he is 

 subject to all the errors attending verbal transmission of import- 

 ant information, aggravated by the interruptions which it is a 

 foreman's regular business to meet. 



At the end of the month these time books go to the main 

 office, where the clerks use them in making out the pay-roll, and 

 afterward in allotting the various charges among the appropria- 

 tions to which they belong. But the latter part of this work is, 

 from the nature of the case, very imperfectly performed. In the 

 first place the entries are confusing and in themselves indefi- 

 nite ; and again, clerks, from the nature of their occupations, 

 are incompetent to judge fully of the meaning of these entries, 



