By Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
U. S. employers first hired women as office workers in significant numbers after 1870. Men continued to fill office jobs after 1870 but women took the largest share of clerical jobs. In 1900, 92.7% of women clerical workers were single. It was clearly viewed as transitory employment.

One woman interviewed in the 1930s wrote: “I’m married and the next day I was out of a job…They were going to let somebody go… If I was married, then I’m the one who was SUPPOSEDLY being supported by my husband, so I didn’t need the job as much as somebody else. Jobs at that time were because you needed them.”

The typical office of the early 1900s bore little resemblance to Bob Cratchit’s office of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol of the 1840s. Office workers sat in desks arranged in long parallel rows in a “hygienic” setting with electric lamps, large windows, and a supervisor whose only job was to watch his workers and increase productivity.

Initially, employers had to address the fears of many who argued that the hiring of female clericals would destroy the family or a woman’s femineity.

Anne Helen Petersen wrote an article titled, “Are You Sure You Want To Go Back to The Office?” She says that “Many companies are preparing to bring employees back in the spring or summer, depending on how fast the vaccines roll out.”

Juliette Kayyem says, “The corporate culture that so many employers prize is based on a level of interaction that will not be regained simply by being in the same building.” Shown below is a poem that explores the challenges of secretarial work and the return to the office of 2021:

I REMEMBER:

The office receptionist, “deceptionist,” and gatekeeper. The secretary who when asked by her employer to get his broker on the phone, replies, “stock” or “pawn?”

Dehumanized women workers who were once referred to as “office wives” or decorative “girl Fridays.” Women who learned to type on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing…and those who banged away on their I.B.M Selectric. Those who recall Shire Hite, who used an advertising campaign with the tagline, “The Typewriter That’s So Smart, She Doesn’t Have to Be.”

Women like Karen Nussbaum and Ellen Cassedy, who founded 9 to 5, a new organization for women office workers.

“Plug and play” new hires who don’t need any training. Cold calling individuals – Smilin’ and dialin.’

“Transitioned,” “severed,” “surplussed,” “non-retained” and “deselected” employees fired via Zoom.

Nine to Fivers who remember when “a secretary’s pad was to write in, not spend the night in.”

“Unkeyboardinated” – those unable to type without repeatedly making mistakes.

Secretaries who worked when the 3 R’s represented (the) Royal [typewriter] Road to Romance.

Those who haven’t learned that “a typo can mean the difference between hired and fired.”

Happy office people, too—the Joy Polloi—who are assisted by robots named Robot Redford, Archie Bumper, and Beeping Tom. The recipient of office jokes: “Today is Administrative Professionals Week. Take yours to lunch—take mine, too.”

Workers who ask, “Can I stir fry an idea in your thinkwok”?

And I REMEMBER the “well seasoned” people who can relate to this Oct. 16, 1966, New York Times job ad: Secretary needed. Brite-eyed lassie to work in a “one-girl” office in the Empire State Building.

―MARJORIE GOTTLIEB WOLFE is a retired business educator and author of two books on Yiddish. She will be giving a Zoom talk on Feb. 17, at 1 p.m. on “The 3 B’s: Brooklyn, (the) Bronx, and the Bungalows of Rockaway Beach.” Contact the Friedberg JCC in Oceanside, N.Y. for details.

For more than seven months, office workers worldwide have been working from home.  Yes, the Covid-19 outbreak has changed the way we previously spent “adult time in the workplace.  How can we tell that we’re ready to return to the office? YOU’VE .

• Alphabetized your spices (basil, chives, curry, ginger, etc.
• Completed your adult education course titled, “Jello For All Seasons” .
• Agreed with Jerry Seinfeld that an office is “a stationery store with Danish.” .
• Explained the meaning of the sentence: “I ended up having to put an F.A.Q. doc together.” .
• Explains to your children the difference between “outer space” and “open office space.
• Told the kids that Judge Judy is NOT the Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.
• Stopped using the rabbit ears on the TV to house clothes.
• Named your new vacuum, ROBOT REDFORD.
• Audited a Stanley Kaplan SAT course. Just for fun.
• Thinking of having another baby.
• Texted the CEO at Macy’s to complain that Santa won’t be visiting their stores this Christmas; .
• Written a letter of complaint to Walmart for holding its Black Friday deals over four weeks, instead of one day.
• Ironing sheets .
• Mastered Bunka (Japanese needlework), calligraphy, macrame and Chinese wok cooking.
• Joined a “Quarantine Dating Game,” played via Zoom.
• Investigated “My Burrito Finder,” an app that pinpoints the closest place that will satisfy my burrito craving.
• Reassuring your 12th grader that Joe Biden is the first Democratic nominee in 36 years without a degree from an Ivy League university.
• Awarded yourself a YOUTUBE degree: A Bachelor’s Level Certificate that people award to themselves after they have deemed themselves to be experts in a particular field of study by watching various instructional and how-to videos on You Tube.
• Described Google as one of the cushiest workplaces in corporate America, with its screening rooms, nap pods and mound of free snacks.
• Memorized all the details of the “Working Families Flexibility Act of 1997” .
• Been greeting your children at the door with the Joan Rivers’ opener, “Can we talk?” .
• Been tempted to “sit shiver” for Brooks Brothers, Century 21, Barneys, Lord & Taylor, Modell’s, Fairway, Tuesday Morning, and Neiman Marcus.
• Begun to use these terms in your everyday speech: Crazy Mika, Psycho Joe, Wacky Omarosa, “oysgetrakht nayes” (invented news), Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd, and “build a wall & crime will fall.”
• Begun leaving your son the following message: “Hi, Son.  I’m leaving for Montauk for the weekend, so I hid $100 in your room for food.  Clean your room and you will find it.” .
• Been faxing a copy of this elevator sign to all your office workers; THIS ELEVATOR IS OUT OF SERVICE.  YOU ARE WELCOME TO: hide in it read in it sing in it do Yoga in it study for the bar in it BUT YOU CANNOT go up and down in it.

Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe is a retired business educator and free-lance writer.  She is the author of two books on Yiddish.

by
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe 

During the “zumer” (summer) of 1959, my
husband and I worked at Camp Leonard
Leonore in Kent, Connecticut. Today this
camp is known as “Club Getaway.”
Camp staff member learned “tsutroy” (trust) and responsibility,
teamwork and
problem-solving skills. They witnessed
camp Directors working in a frenzied
climate – 24/7.

As a first-year business teacher in ’59, I
learned my lessons well:

1. To succeed in business, one must learn
the language. In camp-talk, “Skunks in
the Bunks” means “cabin inspection”;
“three-alarmer” means “bonfire”; and
“store the gore” means “cleanup–mom
and dad are coming for Visiting Day.
The camp cook is the grouchiest person
on the planet and the last one you want
to “baleydikn” (offend). In some [Jewish]
camps, a serious relationship means
knitting a kippah, and a “yentavent”
means to spread gossip.

In business, “face time” means “time
spent interacting with someone in
person, rather than via email or some
other electronic link.” A “mancession”
is a recession that affects men more
than women. And “False Authority
Syndrome” is a noun meaning “the
tendency to assume that a person who is
an expert in one field is also an expert in
a related field.” In business lexicon,
“intexicated” means preoccupied by
reading or sending text messages,
particularly while driving a car on the
campgrounds.

2. Hire the most competent people: camp
directors, group leaders, counselors,
specialists, and nurses. Find the mavens
and you’ll remain in business. Surprise
Lake Camp, for example, has been in
operation since 1902.

Businesses must also hire the best. Jack
Welch (“Winning”) wrote, “…put the
right person in the right job to drive a
big aha forward.” Oh, NEVER hire
anyone young enough to think that Guy
Lombardo is a back ailment! :-)

3. Camp directors have discovered that the
most expensive gifts on earth is the gift
of gab.
Jeffrey J. Fox (“How To Become a
Rainmaker”), wrote, “Returning phone
calls is a basic courtesy. When you
return a person’s phone call, that person
feels respected, important, listened to.
When you don’t return the call, the
caller feels you don’t care.

4. The most successful camps have
retention rates of more than 50% among
campers and staff members.
In business, a “gliklech” (happy)
customer is a returning customer. The
customer coming back is how you
continue doing the business you do.

5. Camp directors must prepare for the
summer recruitment season. There’s no
such thing as a routine sales call. They
must listen to the concerns of potential
customers.
“How are you handling cases of Swine
flu?” “Have you installed hand sanitizers
outside the dining room?” “Do you offer
rock climbing?” “Do you offer an
American Red Cross Lifeguard
Certification Training program?” (Camp
Hadar in Andover, MA, does!)
Businesses must also find appropriate
ways to reach new customers/clients.

6. “People tend to eat almost everything
you put in front of them,” says John
DeCastro. In many camps, there’s no
“mystery meat” or “bug juice.” Most
days it’s salad bar, or stir-fry, or toasted
tofu dogs around the fire. (By cutting
back on sugar and caffeine, the kids are
more manageable.)
Retailers have discovered that if you feed
shoppers, they will buy more. And so we
see more shopping malls with “food
courts.”

7. Camps are innovative and make use of
marketing gimmicks. Some offer
discounts for siblings attending camp.
Others offer FREE canteen, or NO
TIPPING policies.

Businesses use gimmicks. Starbucks will
now offer FREE Wi-Fi. And one year,
Domino’s pizza kicked off a promotion
which offered a buck off a pizza for
college students who bring in a job
rejection letter. Or, if you lost your job,
a pink slip will do. Bed Bath & Beyond
mails 20% off coupons practically every
other day. They even accept expired
coupons!

—————————————-

Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe is a retired business educator who
lives in
Syosset,
New York.

(A letter to Jackie Mason)
by Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
The job
function of a comic is to communicate truths about “di velt” (the
world) in a way that makes people stop worrying about their “tsores”,
if only for a moment…and laugh.
Jackie Mason writes (“How to Talk
Jewish”), “My family always spoke Yiddish. It was the first language I
spoke. In my neighborhood (“shkneyneshaft”) everybody spoke Yiddish..
If Yiddish dies out, it will be a great loss. It’s a colorful language
and a very dynamic form of expression. And that’s why to this day I use
it. It is pictorially more interesting, I think, than English.”
Sholem Aleykhem, Mr. Mason:
I’m
not going to be long winded, boring (“hakn a tshaynik”). I know that
you would like to be considered a “mensch’ or a “richtiger mensch”–a
really great guy. I am also aware that you’ve been honored by Nelson
Mandela, the United Kingdom’s oxford University, and scores of other
organizations.
However, you don’t seem to “fershteyn” (understand) the word “shemot”–the names we use for others.
This
is surprising since you once said, “I am as Jewish as a matzo ball or
kosher salami.” And since you started out as a cantor and rabbi. (At
age 28, you quit the rabbinate and became a comedian.) You joked,
“Somebody in the family had to make a living.”
About 20 years ago
you got in trouble when you called David Dinkens, then a “kandidat” for
N. Y. C. mayor, a “fancy shvartze with a mustache” And just recently,
you referred to Obama as a “shvartze.” Some people say that this term
is equivalent to the “N” word. Others say that it’s just part of the
Yiddish culture and a literal translation of the word “Black.”
I
read that one person attending your performance at Feinstein’s at Loews
Regency in N. Y. C. walked out “broygez’ (angry). He shouted, “He’s
more offensive to the Jews than Madoff tonight.”
Mr. Mason, I do not
accept your excuse, “I’m an old Jew: I was raised in a Jewish family
where ‘shvartze’ was used. It’s not a demeaning word and I’m not going
to defend myself.”
Jackie, I know that much of your acts (“Jackie
Mason, freshly squeezed,” “Love Thy Neighbor,” “Laughing Room Only,”
“The World According to Me,” etc.) has involved making fun of various
ethnic groups. However, you seem to have become an out-and-out racist.
How would you feel if someone called you a “kike”? (“Kike” is an
offensive slang term used as a disparaging term for a Jew.)
Rabbi
Jason Miller (RabbiJason.com) writes, “For too long, our ancestors have
used the wrong names to refer to our Black brothers and sisters. May we
learn from the misdeeds of our ancestors. And may we and our children
and our children’s children immerse ourselves in learning so that we
come to understand the essence of the ‘shemot’–the names we use for
others… With America’s first Black president taking office this
January along with a Jewish chief of staff, now is certainly the time
for the Jewish community to end its use of the term ‘shvartze’–whether
it is used derogatorily or in jest.”
“Zayt gezunt.” (Be well.)
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
——————————————-
Marjorie
is not making “Much Ado About Everything,” the title of one of Mason’s
plays. But, “shvartze” is one Yiddish word that deserves to be lost.

(this from a frequent contributor…)

by Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe

As the 2008/2009 school year is about to begin, I am reminded of the marvelous story of the boy who failed his entrance exam at Princeton University. Before heading home he stopped off to see President Robert Goheen and thanked him saying, “I’ve learned a lot here.”

President Goheen asked in amazement, “But you were never enrolled here. What could you possibly have learned from us?”

The young man replied, “How little I know.”

Goheen answered, “Son, we will take you in. You are already two years ahead of the freshman class.”

Shown below are some educational facts, trivia and humorous stories:

1. [Re: the importance of silence when doing homework]

“Honey, just listen for a moment: what you’re hearing now is called silence. There used to be a lot of it in the world until about 1973, when most of it went right out the ozone hole. But if you can find any of the little that’s left, it’s still the best accompaniment for work. Thomas Jefferson had it when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. If he’d been watching ‘Dance Party,’ he might have written, All men are created AWFUL.”

“Can I at least phone someone?”

“You think Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while he was on hold?”

“Dad, those were the olden days, when you were a kid. Things are much better now: Lincoln could fax that address to Gettysburg.” Bill Cosby, “Childhood”

2. Barack Obama earned a law degree from Harvard, His wife, Michelle, also graduated from Harvard Law School.

In a 2005 commencement address at Knox College, Obama said “Every one of us is going to have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off some bad habits–like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our economy and feed our enemies abroad. Our children will have to turn off the TV set once in a while and put away the video games and start hitting the books.”

3. [joining the track team] “So I was glad that my son became interested in this character-building sport [the track team] until he announced that he needed new sneakers. This troubled me, because he already HAD new sneakers, which cost approximately as much as an assault helicopter but are more technologi- cally advanced. They are the heavily advertised sneakers that have little air pumps inside. This feature provides an important orthopedic benefit: It allows the manufacturer to jack the price way up. Also it turns the act of walking around into a highly complex process. ‘Wait!’ my son will say, as we’re rushing off to school, late as usual. ‘I have to pump more air into my sneakers!’ Because God forbid you should go to school underinflated.” Dave Barry, “Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up”

4. SAT News Meredith Kolodner, Daily News staff writer, said that New York City school students continued a downward slide on the SAT college entrance exam last year. They scored the lowest since 2003. A city education spokesman said the drop was due to an increased number of students taking the exam who previously hadn’t considered college as an option, especially low-income students at high-needs schools.

Andrew Jacob, Education Dept. spokesman, said, “It’s great that more of our students are opening the door to college by taking the SAT, almost 30% more than at the start of the administration.”

5. Humorous Biology Definitions The writer’s granddaughter, Amanda, will take a Biology course this year. The writer is convinced that she–and other high school students enrolled in the course–will enjoy these Biology definitions:

Blood pressure Persistent relatives
Metacarpal A big car pool
Homeostasis Stays at home
Microbodies Short people
Organelle A small musical instrument
Tachycardia A tacky sweater
Filter feeders Coffee drinkersFilter feeders Coffee drinkers

6. Assistance with homework (a story)

Little Irving sat down with his mama, as always, to do his homework.

“Mama..what’s an x-axis?”

“Darling what do I know from x’s? But it’s a good question.”

“Well, what about stem cell research?”

“The only stems I know are on fruit,” she answered.

“Well, why does lightening come before thunder?”

“I forgot, but I’ll look it up in World Book Encyclopedia.”

Then little Irving askd, “Do you mind me asking you all these difficult questions?”

“Mamala! If you don’t ask, how can you learn?”

7. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. Go figure!

8 A Simple Hello “I have always felt sympathy and compassion for the kids I see at school walking all alone, for the ones who sit in the back of the room while everyone snickers and makes fun of them But I never did anything about it. I guess I figured that someone else would. I did not take the time to really think about the depth of their pain. Then one day I thought, “What if I did take a moment out of my busy schedule to simply say hello to someone without a friend or stop and chat with someone eating by herself? And I did. It felt good to brighten up someone else’s life. How did I know I did? Because I remembered the day a simple kind hello changed my life forever.” “Chicken Soup for the Soul” by Canfield, Hansen & Unkovich

9. A college professor had his sociology class go into the Baltimore slums to get case histories of two hundred young boys. They were asked to write an evaluation of each boy’s future. In every case the students wrote, “He hasn’t got a chance.” Twenty-five years later another sociology professor came across the earlier study. He had his students follow up on the project to see what had happened to these boys. With the exception of twenty boys who had moved away or died, the students learned that 176 of the remaining 180 had achieved more than ordinary success as lawyers, doctors, and businessmen.

The professor was astounded and decided to pursue the matter further. Fortunately, all the men were in the area and he was able to ask each one, “How do you account for your success?” In each case the reply came with feeling, “There was a teacher.”

The teacher was still alive, so he sought her out and asked the old but still alert lady what magic formula she had used to pull these boys out of the slums into successful achievement.

The teacher’s eyes sparkled and her lips broke into a gentle smile. “It’s really very simple,” she said. “I loved those boys.” “Chicken Soup for the Soul”

11. [cost of buying books] Remember Bernstein’s Book Principles: 1. If you buy a hardcover edition of a book, the paperback edition will appear next week, at a much lower price. 2. If you buy a paperback edition of a book, the hardcover will be remaindered next week, at a much lower price. 3. If you buy a paperback edition, or a hardcover edition, or a remaindered copy of a book, the next week you will find that a copy in excellent condition will be available in a used-book shop–at a much lower price than any of the other three. “The Official Explanations” by Dickson

12. Proofread! Proofread! Proofread! The New York Times sometimes makes interesting and embarrassing errors, which are corrected ASAP.

On April 13, 1996, this correction appeared in the newspaper: “An article about a visit by Vice President Al Gore and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman to a Jewish community center in Florida misattributed a Yiddish greeting. It was Mr. Lieberman, not Mr. Gore, who said, “Shalom aleichem”; Mr. Gore said, “Mazel-tov.”

______

Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe, a retired high school business teacher, wishes everyone a successful and happy year in school.