Ah me! The time came all too soon when I had to leave this job of good food and cheerful surroundings—a whole week before the date set for me to take the position left vacant by the marriage of Mary’s cousin. And I bitterly resented the circumstances that caused me to leave though it was the offer of a promotion.
“We never promote a girl until she has been here two weeks,” Jane Ward said to me late in the afternoon of my second Friday. “Your second week won’t be up until next Tuesday, but you have done so well that the manager says I may put you in charge of that machine.” She indicated a machine which at the time she spoke was bringing down hot gingersnaps from the oven on the floor above. Then she added: “It means a dollar a week raise for you, and it is a sit-down job.”
For two whole days I debated with myself the question—to accept the promotion or not to accept. Those bountiful well-cooked lunches were a real temptation. Alice and Mrs. Wilkins had remarked more than once on the change in my appearance. The scales proved that I had regained seven of the fifteen pounds lost while in Atlantic City. If Jane had not been so eager to reward me! Or if only I hadn’t been so eager to make good.
Late Sunday afternoon I posted a letter telling Jane that it would be impossible for me to return to work the following day as I was needed at home. Though untrue, that excuse represented the awakening of my sense of personal responsibility.
For had I accepted that promotion I would have taken the place of some woman who really needed the dollar a week raise. Besides, I would have given Jane the trouble of training me. No such qualms of conscience had troubled me when the manager of the premium station offered me permanent employment, though I was perfectly aware that fifty-six other women had been hoping and working for the position.
Before turning away from the biscuit factory I wish to state that even to-day, after my experience in so many different lines of work, I have but one criticism to make: There is no reason why women should be forced to stand while packing crackers.
This may seem a small matter, but to the woman worker it is most serious. In all my experience I have never found any work so fatiguing as standing on my feet continuously for several hours at a time. The fact that the feet are incased in pointed-toed shoes with high heels does not lessen the strain.