How to Obtain a Situation - Form of Application - Salary - The Road to Success - The "Living-in"

System - Rules - "Why Many Assistants Prefer to "Live-in "

A girl of sixteen or seventeen who has had a good all-round education, and is good at figures, should have no difficulty in finding an opening in the drapery business, if this calling be her chosen field of labour.

Many big drapers view the system of apprenticeship with disfavour, because so many young men and women tire of the trade before they have served their time, and because experience has shown that the smartest women are not always produced from the ranks of those whose fathers can put down a premium of a hundred pounds or so. The first step is a simple one. Get a list of firms doing a large wholesale and retail business. It is not altogether safe to take these names and addresses from the directory, because the names of very small agents and businesses are often entered in such a way as to look like those of big firms.

Initial Steps

A good plan is to get a copy of a drapery trade paper, and by studying its contents an idea of the standing of the various firms can be ascertained. A walk round the neighbourhood where an outside view of the premises can be obtained will serve to show whether a house to which the would-be draper has a leaning is a large concern or not.

Of course, these methods are only to be adopted where the applicant is not personally acquainted with anyone in the trade who could give all information first hand. Even where no such personal acquaintance exists, a chat with the local draper where the applicant's family deals would enable one to learn the names and addresses of large wholesale firms where that draper buys. A Letter of Application

Having got the name of the firm to which application is to be made, the applicant should write a letter to the manager couched in terms something like the following:

To the Manager, Messrs. So-and-so.

Sir, - I beg to ask you whether you have a vacancy on your staff. I am desirous of entering a large house where I can learn the drapery business thoroughly, and later occupy a position of importance and trust with a good salary. If you can give me a trial, I shall do my utmost to prove satisfactory. I am at present at school, but I shall leave as soon as I find the opening I want. I am sixteen years of age, good at figures, and of strong constitution.

I shall be pleased to call upon you at any time you may be good enough to appoint.

I enclose a stamped addressed envelope, and anticipating the favour of your reply, I am,

Yours obediently, etc.,

A letter written on these lines in a good clear handwriting, upon plain white note-paper of business size, will bring a reply. If that reply says that no vacancy exists, the applicant should repeat the letter to other large firms until she is successful. According to conversations I have had with the heads of big drapery houses, it will not be necessary to wait long before finding the required opening.

Prospects

For the right girl there are a number of highly satisfactory considerations which will help her to put out her very best energies when she enters as a junior in a big house. Beginning in a particular department, where she will remain for twelve months, at a salary of £10 to £25 a year - living-in - she will have the comfort of knowing that every woman above her on that staff began as she is doing. For usually all the higher posts are filled by the promotion of those formerly occupying minor positions.

When the junior has completed her first twelve months, she will ask the firm to transfer her to another department, when she will also obtain an increase in salary of from £5 to 10 a year, according to circumstances. She should have got a general grasp of her work in her first year, and what she learns in each subsequent year is more or less in the nature of specialised knowledge.

"To be a successful draper, to qualify for one of the best positions at the top of the tree," said a partner in a big London firm to me, "a young woman must understand every department of the business, and, over and above that, specialise in one."

It probably pays a young woman better to stay with a big house after learning her business than to set up for herself in the suburbs of a large town.

The Living-in System

The living-in arrangements employed by. the trade as a whole are healthy, both from a hygienic and moral point of view.

That the majority of the assistants are in favour of or opposed to living-in is a point which must be necessarily debatable until some reliable statistics are obtainable. In many cases, of course, the assistants have been consulted on the matter by their employers, who, leaving the matter in the hands of their assistants, have invariably been informed by the latter that they would prefer to live in.

After all, the value of the services of the average assistant can be accurately gauged, and it is probable that, if he or she were in receipt of the full amount at which their labour is valued, they would be unable in most instances to secure lodgings as good as those with which they are provided by their employers. One must not lose sight of the fact that only those assistants must necessarily live in whose lack of experience or ability renders it impossible for them to command a wage which would enable them to live comfortably away from the control of their business establishment. It is frequently urged, too, that without the present system the retail establishments of London would be unable to secure a satisfactory supply of assistants - especially young ladies - from the provinces, for, after all, the countryside and the cathedral cities are the principal recruiting grounds for labour for the large industrial centres. It is the fact that they are aware that their children will reside under some form of supervision that induces' respectable parents to allow their children to leave home. Without the attractions of living-in, the services of such assistants would not be, in many cases, secured, with the probable result that the employer would be forced to engage assistants of a class inferior to those he has at present in his employ.