DIVISION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. 33 



to the employee handling the subject by drawing a line under his name or 

 adding his name if not printed on the slip, with the instructions indicated on 

 the route slip, and dropped in the outgoing basket to be picked up on the next 

 round by the messenger. Such a letter should therefore be at the destination 

 where the work is done on it in one-half hour from the time it is started on its 

 route after entering in the files, or one hour from time of arrival in the 

 Bureau. 



Plans received with letters are routed direct from the file room to the 

 employee and generally reach him before the letter. To make this possible 

 the file room has a copy of the key to distribution of duties of employees and 

 few errors of routing occur. 



Letters of classes (c) and (d) are put on the writer's desk to receive 

 instructions from him or from the chief constructor himself. 



As the writer is generally advised of the chief constructor's wishes, class 

 (c) can ordinarily have instructions given directly. Class (d) , the fewest in 

 number, must usually be taken up with the chief constructor for special 

 instructions. After receiving the instructions both follow the same routes as 

 the others. 



Jobs for the criticism branch go direct to the employee handling the 

 special subject, and his desk or table is visited periodically each day by the 

 chief draughtsman (acting as direct head of this branch) and by the officer on 

 duty in this room. Such visits to each desk or table number three to six by 

 each of these responsible people each day, and also, though less frequently, 

 visits are made by the writer as head of division, when it is desired to look 

 into some special subject. 



Jobs for the design and scientific branches, which generally require more 

 than one man to work on them, go to the leading draughtsman in charge of 

 the room and not to the individual employee, and are planned and assigned 

 as will be explained below. 



Supplying Materials. — It now becomes of importance to get to the 

 employee the necessary material with which to do his work. This usually 

 consists of plans, specifications and previous correspondence, sometimes of 

 reference books other than those in his standard outfit or previous calcula- 

 tions. Immediately on the receipt of a letter — which generally comes with 

 the others of that day's jobs — the employee looks it over and sees what he 

 needs and makes out requests for what he requires of the following:^ (a) for 

 letters from the files; (&) books from the library, or (c) information from 

 another branch, as shown on page 34. This form he drops into his outgoing 

 basket to be taken up by the messenger. For plans he makes request on form 



