266 
Efficiency  in  Drug  Stores. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
June,  1914. 
men  out  of  the  business.  The  great  cry  of  the  retail  druggist  is, 
"  that  we  cannot  get  competent  men." 
The  P.  C.  P.  and  other  colleges  give  men  good  scientific  training, 
which  most  of  them  never  have  an  opportunity  to  use.  The  drug 
journals  contain  article  after  article  about  building  up  business; 
these  are  read,  possibly,  but  seldom  put  into  actual  practice.  The 
various  organizations  ask  for  action  and  attendance,  but  get  little 
or  none,  although  the  advantages  to  be  gained  are  obvious.  Tradi- 
tion has  established  a  routine  in  the  drug  store,  which  very  few  have 
been  able  to  break  away  from,  and  those  who  do  are  usually  con- 
demned. 
There  is  no  hope  for  the  man  who  works  thirteen  (13)  to  fifteen 
(15)  hours  a  day.    It's  a  losing  game  every  way  one  looks  at  it. 
The  philosophy  of  the  business  must  be  changed.  It  must  be 
studied  from  the  standpoint  of  the  sale. 
Business  is  buying  and  selling.  Selling  is  our  objective  point. 
Our  drugs  and  merchandise  must  be  organized  toward  making  the 
sale.  The  sale  is  the  point  from  whence  the  money  comes.  Sales 
and  quick  ones.  The  five  (5)  and  ten  (10)  cent  stores  are  based  on 
the  principle  of  small,  quick  sales.  Your  average  sale  in  the  drug 
store  is  from  fifteen  (15)  to  eighteen  (18)  cents. 
Efficiency,  then,  is  the  keynote.  It  is  the  only  salvation.  Mr. 
Emerson  would  probably  try  to  pull  the  manager  out  of  the  mass  of 
details  first,  so  that  he,  the  manager,  could  get  a  perspective  of  his 
business.  So  we  will,  on  that  assumption,  try  and  apply  the  seven 
(7)  principles  to  the  manager  first,  since  a  business  is  but  the  length- 
ened shadow  of  a  single  individual. 
There  is  one  thing  that  the  druggist  is  fortunate  in  having,  and 
that  is  twenty- four  (24)  hours  a  day.  The  trouble  is  that  he  does 
not  use  it  advantageously.  Twenty-four  (24)  hours,  then,  is  a  fixed 
quantity,  fixed  and  unchangeable.  Time  is  what  we  are  trying  to 
save,  therefore  we  will  use  it  as  our  basis. 
Standards. 
The  first  principles  of  scientific  management  is  "  Standards."  A 
standard  is  a  reasonable  attainable  maximum  of  desirability.  Before 
standards  can  be  established,  however,  many  records  must  be  made. 
A  record  is  anything  that  gives  information  of  any  kind.  Records 
play  an  important  part  in  everything  we  do.  Baseball  furnishes  an 
excellent  example  of  the  use  of  records. 
What  we  want,  then,  is  a  record  of  what  the  druggist  does  with 
