Ear on Chicago; From Sears to You: Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order; Part 2

Now we begin the second in a two -part series of a story of Sears Rollbuck and Company mail -order plant. As you'll remember last week, we picked up an order from a woman in Whitehall, Illinois, Mrs. Kenneth Phillips. Mrs. Phillips has ordered the following merchandise, a coat, a men's shoes, an electronic brain, which is a toy, a hammer, a high -gloss -finished paint, and we're now going to go to work on that order and have it made up. The first stop we'll make is the coat department. And once again, we will talk to our guide, Mr. OS Detweiler, who is the general manager of the mail -order plant. We go directly now to the coat department. You probably heard just a moment ago. There's another sound of a tube coming out of a holder coming out of this long tube from downstairs. Now this young lady over here, a name of Rose Innwright, is taking out the order from the tube. Now this

particular one happens to be ours, and this is for the coat. Now, Mrs. Enwright, may I ask you what steps are taken to price in order like this? First we take the medial, and then we check the catalog number, color, size, quantity, and price. Where is that done? Right over here? Yes, done right over here on this machine. Could we hear that done to this particular order? The card's been pulled out, and now it's going into the machine. Then we check to see that this has the perforation in for the listing. I see. Now, what catalog is this order taken from? From the G. And what record is kept, and by the way, why do you keep it? For the reorder man, so that he knows how many we sold out of the G catalog. I see. All right, now what happens? We have to pick up our coat somewhere, another one, so what happens next? The

order filler takes the ticket, and goes to stock, and picks the order. Just the order filler right here, what's his name? Otto Ratesc. Otto, what happens here now? Where do you receive your order? This little box, for example. Is that where you pick them all up? I pick up the order in this little box, and I go out to the open stock, and I check my lot number and pick my order. OK, could you do that for us? And I'll try and tell the listeners just what you're doing. Go ahead and pick up your order. Actually, he's not going too far away for this one, as I can see. A group of red coats almost right in front of us. Now, why did you pick this particular one out? Well, this is a lot number. The lot number I'll tell you is 1956. It's a red coat. It's a size 14. I pick it out, and that's what the customer ordered. And it's a red coat. It's about as red as you could get. Why do you take the order two for further handling? I have two Mrs. Schrams. She rejects the order to make sure that I picked it right, and that the price is right on the ticket. Where's Mrs. Schram? She's in the next section, in the following section from here, and I believe we'll

go there now. All right, fine. Yes, let's go down and see Mrs. Schram. Well, now we have reached the spot where Mrs. Schram, Mrs. Zelma Schram, the rechecker and the packer is located. We have with us our red coat, very fine coat, isn't it, Mrs. Schrams? Yes, it is. Beautiful. What procedure do you take in rechecking this order? We inspect it thoroughly to see that it isn't soiled, and we take the right size, and then we proceed to pack it to send to the customer. As Mrs. Schram was talking, she was going ahead with the checking. She looked at it, and now it's beginning to fold it. Why do you fold the garment the way you're doing it? I fold that so that it can reach the customer without being wrinkled. She's now folding the arms over, and just a moment she'll be ready to put it in the box. Now when the garment is folded and put in the box, what do you do next, Mrs. Schram?

Then I check the ticket. I pin the ticket on, and I check it for the basket number and the time scheduled. What are all those numbers in the upper left -hand corner indicate, by the way? They indicate the basket number and the time and the date. All right, fine. I think that takes care of it. The coat is in the box, and now she's folding the paper over it. We'll have our package in just about two or three seconds. Now she's going to tie a string around it. It's in a cardboard box, about two feet by about all 36 to 40 inches, I guess. Well, we're ready to move along now, Mr. Schram. We want to thank you very much for talking to us. Yes, sir. Now what happens, Mr. Deadwater? We have to pick up a toy before long. Yes, I'd like to take you to the toy department next, and then from there into the shipping

room, where all of these items will be assembled, and in one order, we'll go to Mrs. Phillips. Yes, but before we go, Mr. Deadwater, I'd like to talk to somebody about actually purchasing this garment, and actually purchasing things for the entire operation. Well, fine, Mr. Hill. Mr. Grable, our buyer in charge of buying all of these coats happens to be here at this time. I'd like for you to meet him, Mr. Grable, Mr. Hill. Mr. Grable, I'm sure that you bought this particular garment, did you not? Yes, sir, I did. This is a very handsome coat. How do you tell us go about deciding on what you're going to buy? Well, we take certain basic styles that have been proven sellers in the past. This particular coat happens to be made in our own serious factory, and is made to our specifications, and the particular body we have here is one of the best sellers on the market today. Well, now that's about Christmas time now,

and this coat is for Christmas, I would assume. But when did you buy it? We bought this particular coat early last May, and we got it in sometime during the month of June, and we started selling them in July. What are you buying now for next spring or summer? We're buying for next spring now, which that merchandise will be coming in within the next three to four weeks. Do you have to worry about your catalog date line, a deadline for printing when you go out to buy your merchandise? Yes, we do, very much. We can't buy more than we need, and still we have to fill the last business that comes in here. So the cheers is a very difficult task at times, I can imagine. We think so. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Grable. I think we're going to have to move on now. Thank you for talking to us. Yes, sir. Now we go down to the toy department. Yes. Yes, down to the toy department. Mr. Debtweiler, we seem to have lost our way somewhat. We were going into the toy department, now we're into a large telephone exchange, which it looks to me like at

least 50 to perhaps 100 telephone operators in here. What's going on in here? Well, Mr. Hill, I very intentionally led you into this room, because it is a very, very important part of the mail order business. The taking of orders over the telephone. And I would like to introduce to you at this time Miss Sittkowski, who is in charge of this very important activity, and she will explain very much in detail to you. Mr. Hill, Miss Sittkowski. How do you do? Now, during one hour's Miss Sittkowski can an order be placed over the phone? Order can be placed around the clock 24 hours any time of the day or night. At night, too? That's right. Well, who would place an order at 3 a .m. for example? Well, we have waitresses, nurses, factory workers who place orders at their lunch time or their rest periods. Do you really have a lot of orders coming in after midnight? Yes, we do. And how early in the morning? Oh, anytime from 3 .30 to 5 .30 or on to 8 o 'clock till the orders are switched in here. What's the busiest time? Oh, between 9 .30 and 11 .30 and between 1 .30 and approximately

3 .30. I suppose that's the time the kids are off to school. Well, when will these customers ordering? Now, for example, right now, it is 11 .15 as we record this particular part of the program. Any order that is placed now or anytime before 1 o 'clock is delivered the next day? Is that right? That's right. Do your customers have to pay for this delivery? Yes, we have a delivery charge, but it is not as high as the parcel post reads. Well, this is just for the city of Chicago, is it not? The city of Chicago and suburbs. Well, can they call in here from the suburbs? That's right. What's the radius that you cover? It's approximately about, oh, I would say about 35 to 50 mile radius here. Say, I wonder if we could listen in at least at this end of one of the phone conversations. Could we? Surely you can. Is this girl here taking an order right now? What is your account number?

And the account is open. And what is your first name? That's BS and boy. She's spelling out the name of the customer right now, and we just assume not. In this instance, record the name of the customer, because perhaps on the other end of the phone conversation, the customer wouldn't like for us to record it. She's not taking down the address. I wish we could have gotten in right at the very opening of the phone conversation between this young lady and the customer. Very pleasant, good morning. This is Sears Telephone Service. This particular order is coming in from Displains. So this is a suburban call. Now let's listen for just a minute. And what is your first catalog number? Yes. And how many? What

is the item? These are rubbers in what color? What size? 11. And the price? 219. And you don't need a style of heel on those. All right, and the next item. And how many? And what is that? When outfit, what is the cowboy outfit? What color? That's included in the number in what size? And the price? Well, she has a couple of items. That's about as much time as we'll have to listen in. I think she said that somebody was getting a cowboy outfit. It's a good thing we didn't tell them the names because the boy might be listening into this program and find out he's getting a cowboy outfit for Christmas. That's right. Now, what I'd like to know is once she has this order, what happens to it? Now, we've done the story, or we're doing the story, of an

order that comes in through the mail. But this is somewhat different. But I suppose the same process happens, doesn't it? That's right. After she has completed the order, she puts it in a tray. And the girl that comes around and picks up our orders on schedule time picks up this order. And it leaves here. We are on a schedule time here. And she takes it out to the tube stations to be dispatched to the various departments which I think you have just left. Yes. This would be about the same process. Would it not Mr. Deadweiler? Yes. We've been doing ourselves. Yes. That is correct. Well, thank you very much for talking to us and telling us about the telephone service. You're entirely welcome, Mr. Hill. Now, shall we go up to the toy department? Yes. Yes, we will now go to the toy department. We have come now to the toy department. Now, this is not a toy department that you might see in a department store. Because people don't come up here with little kiddies and visit Santa Claus. All the toys here are under cover and they're in packages and in boxes. Now, they have

a man here called a picker and he is Casimir Deptula. Casimir, what do you have to check in picking the customer's order? Well, I have to find the correct bin, check the catalog number against the bin, also the quantity and the price. Now, in this particular instance, you're going to pick us out a mechanical toy. Isn't that right? That is a certain correct, sir. Well, why don't you go ahead and do that? What's this big bin you have here that you're going to have? This is our order picking truck which we picked the orders, tie the ticket on and drop them into the truck by which means we put the orders on the mixed belt. Okay, go ahead and move your truck over there then. All right, he's moved over here now and has picked up the toy and has laid it on here now. Actually, you'd be picking up other items, would you know? That is correct, sir. But for purposes of this program, he's only going to get this one. All right, now that you have that toy picked, what are you going to do next? Well, next thing I'll fasten the ticket onto the package by means of tying with the string here. I see. Casimir is actually

tying the ticket onto the box now. Now, as I said, and as he said, he'd have a lot more to pick up but for purposes of our broadcast, he's just only going to have one item. Okay, it's down into the bin and away we go. We're walking down the long aisle. You can hear that truck of Casimir's moving. Walked about 50 feet away now. Over here to what it looks like is going to be a long table. Truck moving up into place. Now, what's going to happen here, Casimir? Well, I will pull this lever, which opens the catch at the bottom of the truck and drop the order on the belt, which will take it down to the shipping room. Now, what about a belt inspector? I understand we have one of those gentlemen here. Well, the belt inspector is right here. Mr. John D. Moore. John, what about this belt inspecting business? What is that?

Well, after the order picker deposits the merchandise onto the belt, I spot checked by picking... Take the package right off of there. Well, now, John, I know that you wouldn't inspect Casimir here because I understand he's been here for 20 years, and he's not about to make any mistakes in picking this order. But let's just for, again, for the purposes of describing how this operation is undertaken. Pick his off of there. So let's take it off the belt. And now, what would you do? You take the ticket first of all, we got the ticket here, off of the package. I checked for the correct catalog number, the quantity, the size, price, and so forth, to be sure that the customers get in the merchandise they ordered. What about the picker himself? What if he made a mistake? How would you know who made the error? The order picker's punch gives me this information. At the sign -out desk, they've punched the tickets before they're given to

the order picker. Do you check all pickers? I check the new employees more than the older ones. When I assume the here that Casimir hasn't made any mistakes, is that right? Well, I mean, in this package here, there's no error. No, this is correct. He has the right quantity, the price is correct, and... Now, what happens? Now, the... You take and put it back on the belt? Back onto the conveyor and onto the sorting room. That's it, and that's it. Okay, John, thanks a million for talking to us, Pa. Thank you. What a thank you, Casimir. I know you've been standing here looking at us, and thank you a lot for talking to us. Thank you very much, sir. Now, we get back over here to Mr. Detweiler, and before we leave, I saw the coat, and I can't ease my curiosity unless I open up one of those packages and take a look at that toy. Fine, we'd like sure you that toy, because it is a very, very outstanding electronic toy. It's supposed to be demonstrated to you. Well, it's... Here it is, now they... Mr. Rubak is our buyer.

I'd like for you to meet him. Oh, are you, sir? How did you do, Mr. Rubak? I suppose I better let you tell us about this toy. What does it do? Well, this electronic brain goes back at four side words, either to the left or right, has lights that turn on, depending on the direction in which it is going, a blue light on one side, and a red light on another side. It has under the cap a series of electronic controls, and the variations of the settings cause the various maneuvers of this toy. It also has the projectiles which are fired as the toy progresses along its path, and will fire first one, and then the other. A very... What's that noise it's making? The wheels are ready to take off? Yes, they are. This is on right now. And it will turn to the left, and then back to the right, and eventually the... All on its own,

you don't have to move it. No, this is battery operated. It has three batteries contained on the underside of the toy, and it has all the functions that anyone would care to have in the toy. Why does it decide to move all on its own? I mean, I don't understand the principle here, I guess. Only have an on and off switchback here that controls the two motors that are contained in the toy, and these two motors, of course, control all the maneuvers. It has a life only controlled by the life of the batteries. I see. Well, that certainly is something. I have the two projectiles sticking out here on top of the toy. It looks like an automobile, actually, a convertible. Yes. But then they have this man with a huge helmet, looks like a football helmet, on top of his head, sitting here, directing it, and then the two red projectiles shooting out from the front. Two springs in the back, surrounding those lights, the blue light on the left and the red light on the right. It's really a wonderful toy. Thank you very much for telling us about it. You're very welcome, sir. Mr. Detweiler, where

do we go next after we've seen this brain, a very interesting item indeed? Next, we'll visit the shipping room. All right, let's go down there. Fine. We've come now to the end of our conveyor belt. It's a long belt indeed. We took quite a good long walk. At least one city block, perhaps two, I wasn't counting. But we have reached the point now where the basket is coming out the shoot and is ready for some more sorting. We're going to talk to Bernice Rasko. Now, what are all of these canvas baskets for, the ones with numbers above them? These canvas baskets are in each individual customer with the customer's number above the basket so that we handle each customer's order separately. Now, I don't know whether you knew this, but we have actually taken an order and processed it this morning. We had only time to go to two of the departments. One was the toy department, the other was women coats. So, our order will be about ready to be assembled before long. So, it'll be going into one of these baskets, right? Yes, it will. How can you tell when each order is completely assembled?

After I have checked in several of these large baskets into these canvas baskets, then in my last basket we have a system where we receive our customers orders written order binds. And then we know that our order has been completed. And how do you know when you have received all of the merchandise for this time schedule? On the top of my top sheet, I have a number which tells me how many invoices I must have. As in this one, I should have 12. I've counted it, I have 12, and I've pin it up to make sure my order is complete. And do you wrap up or pack these orders also, Bernice? No, I don't. I'm only interested in assembling the customer's order. Make sure that everything is in there, and then I push it on through to the packer who packs the order. That's on the other side over here. That's on the other side of this rack. Well, I think we'll go over there next. Thank you very much, Bernice. You're quite welcome, Mr. Hill. Well, we've stepped over now to the other side of the rack. It's only a few feet away. And on this side are the canvas

sacks. And there's a large number of them. Actually, they call them baskets. I suppose you could call them baskets or sacks or anything you wanted to. We're going to talk now to Mae Stennell. Mae is there an order for a different customer in each one of these baskets? Yes, Mr. Hill. There he is. Each basket contains an order for individual order for a customer. And how do you know when you should wrap an order with wrapping paper or when you should well pack the merchandise into a cart? Well, that depends on the order. Some orders are large and some are small. Some orders, for example, will be small. We would put in an envelope. But when the order is large, what would consist maybe of some hardware or some paint? Well, that we would put in a cart. Because we want to ensure safe delivery to the customer without damage. Mae, do you pack an order the same way for shipping by parcel post as you do when the order is going to be shipped by truck? Yes, or that we do. We have to make sure that the size and the package is just right. What are those papers that are attached to the outside of the finished package, Mae? They are called customers' invoices. They are attached to a finished package and then thrown on the belt. Now, here's a

conveyor belt again. Where does this conveyor belt take these orders, Mae? After the package goes on the belt, it goes down the belt to the weighing hour. Where it will be weighed and lay... stamped. And ready to go. Ready to go. Well, it isn't going to be long now before our customer is ready to get their order. They'll get it very fast. Thank you very much, Mae, for talking to us. Hi, thank you, sir. Mr. Debtweiler, where do we go next, sir? Well, the next we will move into the post office. They will know the weighing. That's our... All right, let's go over there there. We're going to tell a brief story now, which is not entirely a part of our overall story. This is the Partement 188 outbound shipping. These are large packages which are coming down the chute right in front of us, and will be delivered by truck, by a rail. 70 % of the outgoing businesses I understand it from Sears & Rollbuck is out of this department. Now, we're going to talk to George Peters. George, what's this loudspeaker up here? This is a communication system between the chute here and the various

floors and various groups for our merchandise comes down. Is this a sorting operation? Yes, it is. It's a primary sort. These trucks you see around here are going to various sections. We're going to... Well, six sections containing 240 sewing units. We have 40 units right in this section right here. Mr. Deadweiler, I can see that over a long conveyor belt there, the package arrived just a few moments ago. Slit down a chute and down here to one of the scales. And there are at least, or it looks like 15 or 20 scales, where our group of girls are weighing the packages. Now, would you explain that operation for us? Yes, this is the activity where the order from Mrs. Phillips now is in the weighing section. That's the section that we are in now. And on this label that is attached to the order for Mrs. Phillips, there is a number which indicates the zone out of Chicago.

This package then goes over the scale and the amount of postings to be applied to the package is indicated by the zone. So these girls are applying these stamps to the parts of post package. From this activity, the package travels into the billing. At the billing stations, the order is total. In fact, it is balanced out. The post is added to the amount of the order. And from there, it passes into the post office, and from the post office into our trucks, and then down to the railroad terminals. It does not clear through the main post office, it goes direct to the railway terminals. And from there, of course, out to the customer. That is correct. Well, now there's one final step then that I'd like to go to and take a look at. Fine, then we'll go to our mail shoots which carry the bags of parcel post right into the truck itself. Fine.

Well, we've come now to the mail room where we're going to talk to a mail handler by the name of Don Schumacher. Don, what is your job as a mail handler? My job as a mail handler. And here is working up here on the shoot where the bags come down from the post office to call off the depot stops that are on a tag on each mail sack. I heard it fell just yell out seven. What's that mean? That says a Dearborn station stop. Number seven. Well, we designate certain bags by different numbers, mainly because we have say a D3 or a 3 for several different sources. I see. So they're kept from having confusion in here. On the different trees, we'll change one tree over to a 7. So it'll cause less confusion in the handling. Well, does all the mail go out in bags? No. No, I would say off hand about 75 percent of the mail goes

out in the bags. The rest of it goes out on what we call outside packages. That is mail. That is too large to be sacked. I see. How many train shorts do you have in your job? We have at the present time 26 sources of mail. And does all the mail go by a railroad or is some routed by truck time? No, most of it goes out by railroad, but we have two different sources, but we call a star route, which is within approximately 150 mile radius of the city. And then we also have what we call a T50 source, which goes directly by truck from here each evening to Cincinnati, direct. How many states do you serve all together? Six states. Six states. That's right. Well, it's a big operation in here, Don. We want to thank you very much for talking to us about. That's quite all right. I'm glad to be of your systems. Thank you very much, sir. I do. Well, Mr. Deadweiler, I see that our package has arrived finally in the mail bag, and we started our program series of programs, I should say, a week ago, with a

mail bag being delivered with our order in it. Now we're seeing the mail bag again, and this time, with the shipment of the merchandise going out to the customer. It's certainly been a great deal of pleasure for us to tour serious roll -backen companies, mail order plant out here on the west side of Chicago, Mr. Deadweiler. And we want to thank you and all of your associates for allowing us to make this tour. Well, thank you, Mr. Hill. It's been a real pleasure. I want you to know that not only have I enjoyed the trip through the plant with you, but all of the employees have participated in it. Again, thanks very much, and I hope you come back to see us again real soon. Thank you, sir. And that's the story of series roll -backen company mail order plant in Chicago, and this is Hugh Hill speaking.