December 1959

"I’m not exactly dissatisfied, but the novelty of the job is starting to wear off."

March 1976

"About that mental note you told me
to make—will two copies be enough?"

November 1948

"When I get home tonight
I’m gonna lean back and relax!"

December 1948

"I’ve got him talking to himself."

October 1959

"Well, let’s see. I get off at eight. My husband picks me up. We put the children to bed. I read the
paper—talk a bit—bathe—go to bed. Why?"

December 1948

Cartoons: On the Job The Saturday Evening Post

"Well—it breaks the routine!"
from November 23, 1957

"How long have you been unemployed?
I have never seen a resume prepared in needlepoint."
from November/December 2008

"Would it be possible for you to type with your keyboard on your desk
like everybody else?"
from October 1989

"Cheney is semi-retired."
from March/April 1995

"What we need is a man who can think for himself."
from March/April 1994

"Sorry, Mr. Heinsohn.
I make it a practice never to hire anyone I’d be afraid to fire."
from April 1986

Cartoons: Office Observations The Saturday Evening Post

“Well, it looks like somebody is catching up on his paperwork!”

From Jan/Feb 2005

Don’t you hate when the boss shows up at an inopportune time? I think they have radar for honing in on this sort of thing. The radar doesn’t work when you’re plugging away, just when you relax (okay, goof off).

“Don’t play games with me, Henderson. I know you can hear me. Get on the red-eye back tonight. We need you for the presentation in the morning!”

From Jul/Aug 2007

Whoa—talk about radar. Don’t think you can get out of work by going on vacation, either. I knew I shouldn’t have picked up that seashell!

“I heated the thermometer next to a light bulb so my wife wouldn’t send me to work.”

From Mar/Apr 1997

It isn’t just the boss you have to work around sometimes. A day off with the dog, TV, and a bowl of popcorn is just the ticket—even if one has to be devious to pull it off.

“I’ve decided to get up and go to work after all. I’ll call in sick some other day when I feel better.”

From Mar/Apr 1997

We are an odd species: work when we don’t feel well and stay home when we do. I guess this guy didn’t want to waste a perfectly good sick day.

“His new motto is never put off until tomorrow what you might be able to get out of altogether.”

From Sep/Oct 2001

Some folks just have it down to an art form.

“Could you at least burn a candle at one end?”

From Mar/Apr 2005

Of course, if you really want to master the art of getting out of work, just study a teenager. Have a safe and happy (Getting-Out-of) Labor Day!

Cartoons: Caution, Cartoonists At Work! The Saturday Evening Post

“Ms. Martin, I’ve been meaning to have a little chat with you about your cubicle addition.”

From May/June 2003

Admit it: You’ve known a co-worker who came just shy of this with a cubicle jam-packed with photos and memorabilia. And you just know there’s a little hand-stitched, framed sampler that says “Cubicle, Sweet Cubicle.”

“…and all those opposed to my idea signify by saying ‘I resign.’”

From Mar/April 2009

And we’ve all known this boss. That’s why I say you just have to laugh about a bad day at the office. And a little wine doesn’t hurt, either (especially if you still work for this guy).

“The good news, Harcourt, is that I don’t know what I’d do without you around here—the bad news is that I’m about to find out.”

From Jan/Feb 2009

If the “good news” part is supposed to make Harcourt feel better, I rather doubt it worked.

“We’ll add extra to your severance package if you promise to go work for our competition.”

From Mar/April 2009

There IS something worse than getting fired—being bribed to work for the competitors! Open wound, insert salt.

“How long have you been working here, Gilbert?” “Since I heard you coming down the hall!”

From Sept/Oct 1999

I reached back to 1999 for this one. I think Gilbert may end up working for the competition, bribe or no bribe.

“So this is hell? It looks just like my old office.”

From Jan/Feb 2001

Pretty much says it all. Not about MY office, of course. Lucifer does bear a striking resemblance to a former boss, though…

“You put me in charge of employee morale. If you take away everyone’s million-dollar bonus, it’s going to undo everything I’ve accomplished!”

From Jul/Aug 2007

Put this guy in charge of morale? Let’s take a vote…

Cartoons: The Office The Saturday Evening Post

Remember it was the French who gave us that wonderful statue celebrating liberté in New York Harbor, of the lady holding a torch, the one they so aptly named Liberty Enlightening the World.

Liberty is what America has been all about over the years. Most American families came from somewhere else. What all looked for in the United States has been freedom and independence. A meritocracy where anything is possible—a country where striving, regardless of race, creed, or color could pay off. A land where dreams come true. Is that so wild a dream? President Obama is living proof it isn’t. But the idea of “yes we can” did not start with him. Over the years, American inventors from Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, and Robert Fulton, to Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers confronted naysayers who told them it simply couldn’t be done. Of course, they proved otherwise, thanks to a combination of inspiration and perspiration—Edison claimed it was mostly perspiration. Thanks to their tireless efforts and vision, they made life better for themselves and everybody else, too.

And we Americans could not only dream, we could build as well. Not only do we create new machines, we make them run.

Today, we hear sophisticated people say that America can’t make what we create anymore, that we have to outsource manufacturing because Americans don’t want to get our fingers dirty. When I hear that statement, it makes me sad, even angry. And I don’t believe it for a minute. Given half a break and a level playing field, American workers today are still the most productive and efficient in the world. While far from perfect, we are still the nation of dreamers and strivers. And one thing we still dream of and strive for is freedom, not just for a chosen few, but for everyone in America.

Once when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was singing at Lincoln Center, they asked me to write a patriotic poem. The choir hummed “My Country ’Tis of Thee” in the background. Here’s what I wrote:

America, land of the free,

My home sweet home of liberty, of thee I sing;

Let freedom ring for everyone in America:

Freedom from want, freedom from fear,

Freedom to speak, freedom to hear.

And when we bow our heads to pray,

To worship God in our own way,

I have a dream, may it come true

For everyone in America.

Working for Liberty The Saturday Evening Post

Quigley’s Building Supply—Putting Customers First

The St. John River in Maine swiftly and relentlessly surged over its banks. After a record snowfall and heavy spring rains in May 2008, the river’s waters rose more than 30 feet. The lumberyard of Quigley’s Building Supply in Fort Kent, Maine, became a grim yardstick of the floodwater’s progress. Foot by foot, plank by plank, the water swallowed pallets of wood until the 66-year-old family business was 12 feet under water. In just an hour, more than $200,000 of the small business’s inventory was either waterlogged or swept away by the murky currents.

Six months before the flood, owner Norman Ouellette died in a boating accident at just 51 years old. That left general manager Justin Dubois, Ouellette’s son-in-law, running the company. Then, only a few months after the flood came, the man-made disaster of the financial crisis hit. Fresh from college and only 24 years old, Dubois felt a little like the Biblically unfortunate Job.

But Dubois wasn’t alone. Many other businesses throughout the country were submerged or swept away in the overflow of the financial meltdown. However, Quigley’s and many others survived and even thrived through these tough times.

Despite an economic mess and big businesses outsourcing labor and manufacturing, the spirit of small business continues to drive the growth of our nation with enterprise, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. Small businesses still create most of the nation’s new jobs, employ half of the country’s private sector work force, and produce more than half of the private sector gross domestic product, according to the Small Business Administration. Much like the hardworking Americans that came before them, the modern-day entrepreneurs you’ll meet here are striving for success against all odds, whether the problems are thrown at them by the economy or Mother Nature herself. These small businesses keep their doors open with a mix of smarts, guts, and determination, even in the face of unexpected hardship.

After the floodwaters crested, Quigley’s buckled down, adapted to the changes and challenges, and notched one of their highest sales years ever, with a 21 percent sales increase from 2008 to 2009.

“Just like everywhere else in the United States, there was a slumping economy and the housing market was nonexistent,” Dubois recalls. “If we just sat back and allowed it to happen, we’d fall. We looked at the slump as a chance to increase sales, customer traffic, and loyalty.”

To increase customer count, Quigley’s needed to find their niche. The store increased advertising, and management looked to long-term employees for new revenue suggestions. Of the 16 employees, many have been working for the company for 12 years or longer. Their know-how helped identify that customers were requesting more and more products they saw on television or the Internet. The bottom-line result for the store: The special order department has increased 50 percent in the past three years. “This has changed the way we do business,” Dubois says. “We’re increasing customer service. No matter where a customer sees a product, we can get it for them.

“The employees are the reason we changed,” he says. “I looked to them for advice and knowledge. We couldn’t have done that without their knowledge and support.”

Schacht Spindle Company—Woven to Success

From its humble origins, Schacht Spindle Company has grown to world-class status with a reputation as a maker of quality hand-made looms and spinning wheels.
Photo courtesy Schacht Spindle Company.

Pulling together the similar fibers of employee knowledge, Barry Schacht has spun the Schacht Spindle Company into the kind of American success story that’s vanishingly rare these days. The Boulder, Colorado-based company began in Schacht’s garage about 
40 years ago and has grown into a 35,000-square-foot factory with 35 employees. Today, Schacht’s is the second-largest weaving supply and loom manufacturer in the world.

“In those early years, I made a point of finding people who knew more about the business than I did,” says Schacht, who owns the company 
with his wife, Jane Patrick. “That employee knowledge helped me 
create a better product.”

Schacht says he constantly strives to improve relations with his staff and provide them the right tools and benefits—both at work and in their personal lives. In addition to health insurance, the company offers two months of unpaid leave, assuring employees that they’ll still have a job when they return. Schacht and Patrick also built a special, environmentally controlled room for an employee with asthma and allow flexible schedules for workers with children.

“We hire people for their skills, then work with their schedules,” Patrick says. “We emphasize family values, getting back to what’s important. If employees need time to take care of a sick parent or child, it’s not a problem.”

The work atmosphere Patrick and Schacht created has paid off: The duo’s philosophy has fostered long-term staff retention. One employee has worked with the company for 39 years, a few others for more than 20, and several for more than 15. And Schacht is quick 
to credit those employees with the company’s ongoing success. For example, staffers recognized a market for lower-priced, entry-level, easy-to-use spinning wheels. Their input led to the development of the company’s new Ladybug spinning wheel. Adding to the company’s handmade cachet, each is unique, with a ladybug logo individually placed somewhere on the wheel. During the past two years, such entrepreneurship has helped Schacht Spindle Company to post a 35 percent sales increase. But the company can’t rest on such successes, and its bottom line can be dramatically affected by the fortunes of suppliers and profit-driven big box retailers. “Some of the companies I have dealt with over the years have disappeared,” Schacht explains. “I have had a more difficult time finding suppliers.”

Schadt’s hard work has paid off: The company’s spindles, looms, and winders are in just about any weaving supply store in the country, and they ship orders worldwide.

Yet, Schacht’s garage-born business roots are never far from his reach. On his desk is the first spindle he ever made. Constructed from an old, used doorknob and wooden stick, it’s the genesis of his business. “It reminds 
me of the complex, yet simple, beginnings,” he says. “When I started, what was most inspiring was making new products and solving old problems with a creative touch.”

Hudson Beach Glass—Hearts of Glass

Touch of glass: Operating out of a renovated firehouse, the artisan owners of Hudson Beach Glass prove that pursuing their passion makes good business sense.
Photo courtesy of Hudson Beach Glass.

The glass-blowing furnace in Hudson Beach Glass burns 24 hours a day. Visitors to the converted firehouse in Beacon, New York, feel the heat and hear the hum of the furnace that glows white hot, full 
of molten glass. For the 26-year-old company’s owners—John and Wendy Gilvey, Michael Benzer, and Jennifer Smith—that furnace is the source of their art and entrepreneurial freedom.

“In the last 26 years, we’ve been able to make the work we want to make,” John Gilvey says. “Doing that has been satisfying. I feel like I’ve done it my way. That’s so corny. But true.”

The different blown glass styles of the artist-owners are on the shelves throughout the store. John, for example, crafts Tiffany-like vases with leaf-like patterns. Benzer’s trademark work is hand-cast tiles and bowls that have been Hudson Beach Glass signature pieces for more than 20 years. Wendy Gilvey and Smith produce fluid-form pieces, often with opaque, sandblasted finishes.

“Every object we make, we’re proud of it,” Benzer says. “We’re not making big money, but we’re not sure we could work for anyone else.” John likens the Hudson Beach Glass business model to subsistence farming. “Or subsistence artists,” he says with a laugh. “We know we have done something right at the end of the year if we’re still in business.”

The four originally opened Hudson Beach Glass Studio in 1984 in a warehouse-type building and sold through distributors and trade shows. Seven years ago, they opened their retail store in an old firehouse on 
Main Street. In 2008, John’s son, 
Sean, opened his own Hudson Beach Glass storefront in Philadelphia. Works from the studio have been featured in the book 500 Glass Objects, and plates from the Philadelphia store were used by 
chef Jose Garces when he competed 
on the cooking reality show Iron Chef.

Such success came after riding more than two decades of up-and-down economic trends. The downturn 
of 2009 definitely caused some scrambling. “Our business took a big hit,” John says. “No one was calling with orders, no one was buying.” And they had to make the difficult decision to lay off four full-time employees. Knowing that their business could 
turn in a season, John and Benzer continually look for new markets and different ways to distribute their work. In recent years, they have expanded to include etched glass awards and table settings for high-end restaurants. 

“We adjust to what’s happening in the marketplace,” John says. “We’re also continually experimenting with new colors, forms, and processes. In our business, new is everything.”

They learned that lesson in the mid-90s. After 20 percent to 30 percent growth per year, their business became flat. When attending a business consulting seminar, they realized the studio hadn’t been rolling out enough new products. “After that, we didn’t go to a trade show without something new,” Benzer says.

Enterprising Endurance The Saturday Evening Post

Nationally, however, it seems to balance up this way: in war industry, women have been pulling their weight, and still are, though the last few months of 1943 saw a dismaying tendency among job-holding women to quit.

Women do all right in the armed forces when enlisted, but too few bother. In civilian-volunteer work, the situation is healthy only in special lines. In the home they could do better; in general co-operation they are unimaginative. The sum is not impressive. It is easy to see why many women going all-out in topside war-activity jobs admit disgust with their own sex, sometimes heatedly.

The author reported that the WACs (Women’s Army Corps) was having trouble meeting recruitment numbers. Hospitals were short of nurses’ aides. Moreover, women were spending a lot of the money they were earning and not saving precious household wastes.

The favorite general diagnosis for the failure of women to enlist is that fathers’ and boy friends’ disapproval is the catch. In view of how little masculine disapproval affected women’s urge to vote and wear colored nail polish, the theory seems inadequate.

Rosie the Riveter’s detractors like to harp on the fact that, in spite of fair-to-wonderful pay, absenteeism and turnover run higher among women than among men in war jobs.

Fair-to-wonderful was $31 a week doing the same job that paid a man $56 a week. Beyond the unfairness of the pay inequity, there’s also the household budget reality: a women who replaced a man lived on 45% less money.

"When G.I. Joe comes home from the wars, and naturally wants his old job back, will she have to come down from her perch?"

Admirers point to the fleets of planes over Berlin and Micronesia, made in plants where 40 per cent of the pay roll are women, many of whom never had an industrial job before.

The significant point seems to be that, where employers realize that women are not just “little men,” but different creatures, Rosie does very well. In some War-Department plants, handling high proportions of women cleverly, their absenteeism and turnover are better  than men’s.

The Moore Dry Dock Company, of Oakland, California, an important shipyard turning to women as manpower dwindled, once had a women’s turnover of 20 per cent every three months… Nowadays. Moore’s newly recruited women go on the job after a full course… to break them in on what men know automatically… It works. The first three months reduced turnover of women so processed to 7.9 per cent.

Rosie’s other troubles may come from the obvious fact that, to quote a sage expert, “Women don’t have wives”—nobody at home to clean the house, get breakfast, pack a hearty lunch and have a hot supper waiting. With a home and often youngsters to look after before, or after, her eight-hours at the plant plus transportation time, Rosie has a job and a half. No wonder so many women quit war jobs in a few weeks from discouragement or, after four to six months, from exhaustion.

The steady rise in the birth rate in the last few years is one thoroughly valid reason, of course, why many young women are not in war work. The nation now has more than 1,500,000 babies and children under four whom it would not have had if the birth rate had stayed at 1937 levels. Taking care of them under wartime shortages of help and safety pins is often a full-time job for a new mother, and always the best possible national service.

Almost 3,000,000 babies born since 1940 were “first births,” meaning inexperienced mothers. The total woman-hours involved in taking care of the 10,300,000 American babies known to have been born in the last four years is no negligible factor in the national situation.

Still, many women accepted these challenges. They took on totally new jobs and continued to hold the old one as homemaker. However they contributed to the war effort, women must have taken a dim view of the armchair experts who questioned their patriotism. They could criticize women’s motives and performance because they were volunteered, not ordered. Men escaped such criticism thanks to the wonderful incentive of the Selective Service Board. Even so, many men found ways to dodge the draft, and the criticism.

An eminent American legislator, asked to wrestle with that problem for purposes of this article, finally muttered something about “Why just talk about women? Too many Americans of both sexes are still trying to sit out the war.”

Read “Are Women Doing Their Share in the War?” [PDF download].

War, Work, and Women, Part II The Saturday Evening Post

One way to get a break from work is to dump it all on someone else. The boss in Dick Sargent’s 1961 cover arrives at his office and finds it loaded with paperwork. No problem—Miss Secretary’s break is now over, and the boss can practice his putting. The boss calls it “delegating,” although the overwhelmed lady may have another word for it.

Shade Tree
Richard Sargent
April 12, 1958

Artist Sargent also shows us the fine art of slacking off from home chores. The man on the April 12, 1958, cover is resting peacefully under a shade tree. No one said you couldn’t enjoy the shade before you planted the tree.

Linemen Listen to World Series
Stevan Dohanos
October 4, 1952

The October 4, 1952, cover by artist Stevan Dohanos shows linemen showing a little break-time ingenuity in rigging up a radio to listen to the World Series. Artist Lonie Bee shows a board of directors with the same idea, taking a break from directing (or whatever they do) to watch the game in the comfort of the boardroom, complete with a fancy-schmancy black & white television.

Since telephone crewmen have to work in sleet, snow, heat, and storms, we won’t begrudge them a little fun when they get a beach job, as shown on the August 10, 1957, cover by Ben Prins. Sunbathing, enjoying a cup of coffee, and even roasting a hot dog—not a bad day at work.

Men Working
Stevan Dohanos
April 12, 1947

No slacker when it comes to painting slackers, artist Dohanos shows us that painting a “Men Working” sign is apparently hard work. When the Connecticut cop who runs the police department’s sign shop awakens from his after-lunch snooze, we assume he’ll finish the sign. Working and resting at the same time is the clever constable in the June 5, 1926, cover by artist Alan Foster. He rigged up a chair and umbrella so he could still reach the “stop and go” sign to regulate traffic. He even packed a picnic basket and liquid refreshment. (We’re sure the jug contains fresh water.)

Milkman Meets Pieman
Stevan Dohanos
October 11, 1958

Post editors referred to Dohanos’ October 11, 1958, cover as “a fine example of business reciprocity, each man helping to stimulate consumption of the other man’s product.” That’s a fancy way of saying, “I drive a pie truck; you drive a milk truck, so maybe there’s a good break idea here.” Another break idea occurs to the young man with the “rush order” of groceries to be delivered on the May 9, 1953, cover. He has apparently passed this stream far too many times not to come prepared with a fishing pole.

Man Daydreaming of Adventure
Norman Rockwell
June 7, 1924

Of course, there’s the good old American custom of daydreaming at work. Constantin Alajalov shows a travel agent staring out the window at a dreary scene, perhaps dreaming of an adventure of her own. The scene is not new, as Norman Rockwell shows in his cover of June 7, 1924. It’s hard for an accountant to remain satisfied with the tedium of keeping the books if he has been reading too many high seas adventures in his spare time. Whatever your adventures this Labor Day, we hope you have a well-deserved and relaxing break from work.

Gallery

Classic Covers: Work Break The Saturday Evening Post