A PEBBLE IN THE POND

You cannot throw a pebble into a pond without the ripples
of shock bouncing off the shore and returning to the source
where the pebble went in. That is a law of physics.


Nor can mankind perform an act, no matter how small it appears,
without a repercussion of that act. That is the Law of Retribution.
It is the law by which the heavens were created and the law by
which creation unfolds itself. If the act be good the repercussions
will be good. If the act be bad then the repercussions will be bad.
What mankind fails to notice is the delayed return of certain acts
that he has put forward. This article deals with one of those acts
of mankind.


When the typewriter hit the market it was assumed that it was too
complicated for women to run. Eventually though it was found out
that not only were women capable of typing but they were faster at
it than the men. Their hands and fingers were very agile. When this
was discovered it was the beginning of the end for the system that
allowed young men to rise easily in the small and large corporations
without University degrees, or without family connections within
a firm. How did it happen? Simple! Men did not see women as being
worth the protection of wage parity with themselves for the same kind
and amount of work.


At first women were allowed in as secretaries because of greed. They
needed the jobs and so, when they were offered less they had no choice
but to accept. When companies discovered that they could hire two women
for the wages of one man and those two did the work of three there was
no going back. Moreover they could be intimidated into jobs the men
wouldn't touch; coffee serving, errand running etc. . And so women
replaced men in the offices of the world.


Previous to this, companies had recruited managers and vice presidents
by the method of learning the business from the ground up. A man could
go from shipping, or clerking up to a takeover at the top of the
ladder. But he made it by going through the office system. Reaching
the position of secretary to the president of a company was how many
young men learned the final business of the company. He was more than
just a secretary, he was the confidant, support, and diplomat next to
the top position. Any shipping clerk could aspire to that ladder of
success.


Two factors changed all that. The lower wages for women meant profits
to the company. The fear of losing those jobs meant the women were
fair game for the Company men. The long range repercussions were not
noticed then nor are they really seen for the damage to men�s future
prospects in today�s world of commerce. In short: men did themselves
out of their sons futures. If women had worked for the same wages as
the men in the same job more men would have stayed in office work,
and those women who did get jobs would have worked on an equal footing
with the men. One cannot even begin to wonder at the change of
attitudes there would have been in the workplaces of the world. I do
know this; more men would have had jobs!!


There are few if any opportunities for men to enter business via the
secretarial pool now. And they wouldn't work for those low wages if
they could get in. If, at the beginning of entry of women into the
work force, men themselves had stood up and demanded equal pay for
the women and hiring on the bases of skill not wages there would be
far more opportunities for men than there are now.


Walk through any shopping mall or business area today and it is
filled with women. They are now competing with the men in a wider
variety of jobs and the main concern of those doing the hiring, when
skills are equal, is wages. The small business man with growing sons
does not see their future, but only his saving in wages today.


The most alarming trend going on now and one that I predict will have
far reaching consequences in the future is the part-time worker.
Department stores are switching over, or have already done so, to
the part timer with great savings in costs. Part timers get few of
the benefits of full time employees. They can be brought in or left
at home as work allows. If you had 100 full timers on staff you were
subject to loss of hours by sickness and accidents, plus retirement
or Xmas bonus expectations. Now they can put 300 on the payroll part
time. And if one is sick you phone for one of the others. No sickness
pay- no loss of staff.


Part time work started of as a boon to those women whose children
were grown and time hung heavy on their hands, or the young mother
trying to help out with the finances while still being available to
the family for the greater part of the day. But now it is beginning
to backfire on everyone. More and more women are being left to fend
for themselves and they need full wages - all day, five days a week,
not 24 hours a week. And they need the benefits of full time work.
And men have again lost out to women because of the switch. These
part timers that fill the large department stores not only get less
they have lost the bargaining power that comes with a large full
time staff. Unions don't handle part timers.


Again you can see the law of retribution working. Managers have
children that grow up and need jobs. They must have seen into the
future! Surely they saw the way things would go in the future. And
surely they could see the way things would go for the shopper in the
future.


The concept that a store is a cold, all business, just buy and
give us your money, place is wrong! Women can tell you that no
department store should ever be like that. There are three to four
generations of women at any one time from the same family shopping
in the same stores in most cities in the world. To go to a store
just once a month still means 12 trips a year. For how many years?
You want to see the same faces, the same assurance that they know the
stock and what they sell. When you can't receive that then you go to
the smaller stores where you know you will get that service and
assurance. And if they can compete with the prices of the larger
stores; all the better.


The world keeps on changing its way of doing things. Sometimes
they get better. Sometimes they don�t. But they stand a far greater
chance of staying the same or of getting better if we remember that
law of retribution. It works on all levels. It is Gods law, which
is why it works.