222 Labor and Monopoly Capital
Walking time is tabulated for distances from one foot to a thousand feet, but since walking within the office requires many turns, “Walking (confined)" adds .01 minute for each turn. The reading of a one- to three-digit number is presumed to take .005 minutes, and of a seven- to nine-digit number, .015 minutes. To make comparison checks, going from one paper to another, is rated at .0026 minutes per character. To read typed copy, per inch: .008 minutes. And to write, not including “get" or “release” of pencil or pen:
For some reason, the operation called “jogging" is a favorite of office management experts, and is charted, analyzed, and timed in scores of studies. In this instance, the time for “jog" (“basic times, paper in hand") is given as follows:
In this table, the time for jogs from one to ten is given, and we are told to “add .01 for each jog over 10."
The time value for “Cut with scissors” is given as .44 minute, with “.30 for each additional snip."\* “A snip," we are told, “includes opening, moving forward and closing the scissors." Tabulations are given for unit time values for rubber stamping, including the time for getting the stamp, checking the date setting, and putting it aside, and for stamping a series of sheets and putting them aside, with allowance for inking the stamp at every fourth impression. Also for the time required to collate, gather, lay aside, handle, punch, staple (or remove staples), rubber band (or remove), move material between stations, count, fold or unfold, open mail container (envelope) and remove contents, insert mail in container. Unit times are given for locating a single item in a drawer file, Kardex file, Linedex file, Speed-O-Matic file, binder or folder, log sheet, planning card, or at a specific position on a form. Times are given to file random items, to start a new file, to do numerical and miscellaneous filing, to enter or write, and at this point, still another chart for jogging.
Typing times are subjected to a stringent analysis. The conventional standards for words per minute are charted against minutes per inch; but beyond this, time values are assigned to the steps of handling the paper, inserting it in the typewriter, aligning (for various numbers of sheets and carbons), erasing, making strike-over corrections, and “handling material after." We are given such intelligence as the “fact" that back spacing (per space) requires .0060 minutes on a manual machine and .0025 on an electric model. Further tables cover the time required for various duplicating processes, by offset, spirit, and mimeograph. A tabulation covering the operation of a key-driven calculator includes time values for clearing the machine and turning over each sheet between calculations (.0120 minute).\*
The charts used by Company B, which is described as a large manufacturer of rubber products, plastics, etc.—and is therefore presumably the General Tire and Rubber Company—offer a similar array of detailed tabulations. In addition to charts which duplicate, in other forms, the kinds of materials we have already described, there are charts for pinning, clipping, counting cash, operating Pitney Bowes postage meters, matching papers, xeroxing, working bookkeeping machines, and an extraordinary table as follows:
For the rest, tabulations supplied by other companies include, in addition to more of the same, time information for the operation of a great many office machines, including key punch and billing machines, and also for such bookkeeping functions as posting entries to ledgers by pen.
With the growing use of keyboard machines in offices, the analysis of the time requirements of operating them has become ever more intensive. For an example of this type of analysis, we turn to a 1963 volume called Work Measurement in Machine Accounting, two of the three authors of which were at the time of writing associated with the AEtna Life Insurance Co. In their
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\* Why it is that, when one is “jogging" or rapping a stack of papers to align them, the second jog takes longer than the first is not made clear. Nor is it clear why it should take almost half a minute to make the first snip with a scissors, and almost a third of a minute for each additional snip, unless these are misprints.
\* All the charts taken from the standards of Company A bear the legend: "Bare standards—no allowances included for rest or personal needs." These are to be added, since modern capital is nothing if not meticulous and considerate.