Jills-in-Office

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 571, 25 January 1929, Page 5

Jills-in-Office

This Awful Efficiency

The efficient woman, the woman who has by sheer grit and brains succeeded in obtaining an executive post —what a terrifying creature she often is. Even in the most dainty of garments, her mien is much more impressive than that of the.most formidable of the male sex. The other day a colleague of mine found himself involved in a knotty little problem that he could not solve for the moment, said an English writer recently. “Ask Miss So-and-So,” I suggested. “She will probably know all about it. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare, ’he replied. “She looks so horribly efficient.” I quite understood his feelings. The damsel in question did not wear mannish attire or disdain the use of face powder, but her glance was so severe, her bearing so determined, that the whole effect was one of relentless efficiency. Shrewd, Cold, Severe . . . I am sure she never made a mistake herself, and she took a horrible delight in seeking out those of others, and giving them all possible publicity. In all her business dealings there was a complete lack of humanity. She was not popular, although she was respected.

My business often brings me into contact with women who hold important posts. Oldish or youngish, their eyes are always shrewd, cold and severe. They are tight-lipped and sharp-tongued. They have no sense of humour. They are always more busy than the busiest man ever dreamed of being. bor instance, one of the busiest men I know is the managing director of a huge corporation. 1-Ie works at least twelve hours a day, but he always has time for a few words if one meets him, and he never forgets a face. One comes away from an interview with him feeling that here is a line personality who has a sense of human values. Not so after an interview with this type of woman. One positively crawls away, feeling not only less than the dust, but less than the most humble worm. A business man may be interested in many things, and he may look like a boxer or a poet, but these important, business women are unmistakable and invariably true to type. Their ages may vary from 25 to 50. but they all bear the hallmarks of “the efficient business woman.” Probably this terrifying attitude is merely a reaction from, the helpless femininity of the past. Or else women consider it a protective armour to aid them in the battle of life. They do not realise that commerce is not just a battle, that efficiency is needed, but not to the complete extinction of humanity and humour. This Efficient Pose The business woman, like every other woman, has to spend a certain

portion of her life in the company of the other sex, and this “efficiency” pose is not likely to make her popular. The trouble is that the manner cannot he dropped with the matter. She can put away her fountain pen and close her desk, but she cannot im-

mediately assume a new personality. She may prefer to be taken at this valuation, but at the same time no woman, however hard-headed, likes to he regarded as entirely uninspiring to the male heart. The spiritual grandmother of the “efficient” woman is the Victorian “blue stocking.” Victorian literature often dwells rather unkindly on her little foibles and attitudinising. She does not appear to have made any very great appeal to the men folk of that not very critical age, any more than her “grand-daughetr” does to those of to-day. It is worth remembering that “Efficient is the art tha tconceals efficiency.”