LESSON IN SPEED

Hokitika Guardian, 1 August 1929, Page 7

LESSON IN SPEED

WRAPPING ORANGES. AUSTRALIA’S CHAMPION. SYDNEY, July 18. i housands of people this week have watched, and marvelled at, the methods of Miss Jennie Rea, the'champion fruit packer of the Murrimbidgee Irrigation Area, who came to the city in order to induce the people to buy more oranges. Jennie itae has reduced to a fine art the packing of fruit. For sheer speed, economy of effort, and accuracy, she is supreme. And that is why she earns on an aver-, age £9 a week. There nre machines that move so rapidly that the eye cannot follow them in detail. Jennie’s lightning hands are like that. You watch her lift an orange with the right hand, a piece of branded tissue paper with the /eft, bring the two together—and before you can realise what has happened, the orange is one of a symmetrically grouped number in a case, and she has got through half the wrappings and packing of another orange. Yet, Jennie says it is all so simple. You watch her and you try to follow what she is doing, but you are baffled. Your eyes cannot keep pace with her hands. Tirelessly she will pack case after case. Jhe man who digs a ditch with a shovel probably has never thought out the most economical methods of doing his job. The average clerk probably spends days each year in wasteful movements lvhen he opens his ledger, picks up his pen, and makes an entry. Could he not learn to do the action .with the grace and the speed and the accuracy of Jennie Rea picking oranges. But don’t imagine that orange packing is a job that anyone can do. Jennie has a natural gift for the job. When she started five years ago she was on a wage of £3 10s a week. At the end of the first week the manager suggested that she would do better on piecework. She made the change, and in the first week she earned £5. At the end of the first year she was earning more than most of the men. Non she earns ~£3 a w r eek more than the average man in her shed, V'. “Do you find the work monotonous?” she was asked, and she replied: “You never get tired of the work you like. And, besides, I am on piecework. The harder you work the more you earn—and iwho minds that. If anyone was bn piecework more money would be earned and everyone would be happier. You know some of the growers complain that I make more money than they do. Anyway, I like the work. Besides, I want to see the Area sell more oranges. That' is why I am here. I would rather be back in the shed. Bui if I can help them I will.” The growers of oranges have been rather badly hit this year and because of heavy frosts they have been compelled to gather their crop earlier, than usual. The railway department is assisting them by establishing selling agents on railways and tramway property throughout the State, and selling the oranges at a uniform price of 2s a dozen. And fine big oranges they are. The railway commissioner' in Victoria also assist, the growers by encouraging til edrinking of orange juice. Last year, the commissioners in Victoria sold 2,000,000 orange drinks.