Note 232 — Chapter VI · DIFFICULTIES IN DOMESTIC SERVICE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE EMPLOYER
Reading edition
An excellent blank is used by the employment bureau connected with the Boston Young Women’s Christian Association. Seven questions are asked the persons to whom the employee has referred:
“(1) How long have you known her?
(2) Is she temperate, honest, and respectable?
(3) Is she neat in her person, and about her work?
(4) Is she of good disposition?
(5) Is she faithful to her work, and is she trustworthy?
(6) In what capacity did she serve you, and how long?
(7) Was she capable and efficient in that capacity?”
The bureau states its aim to be “the recommendation of worthy persons only.” The detailed form of the questions asked is more successful in preventing an evasion of disqualifications, than is the personal recommendation of a general character, which often tells the truth, but not the whole truth.
One large bureau states that it formerly used blank forms, which it sent out with each employee. Employers were asked to fill out these blanks and return them at the end of service, and these were kept on file as recommendations. It was soon found that employers grew lax and would not take the pains to fill them out, and the practice was abandoned.