"Ralph Williams - Business as Usual, During Allterations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Ralph)

I've been watching it. Probably means the end of our whole economy, I suppose. Did you read what that tag on the machine said?"
"Martens said something about chipping foundations."
"I copied it down-just a minute-here it is. There was something about how to operate the machine, then this: 'Warning! A push of the button grants your heart's desire. It is also a chip at the foundations of human society. A few billion such chips will bring it crashing down. The choice is yours.' Well, I guess the chips are flying already. My General Motors stock-" He groaned.
Over in the appliance department I caught a glimpse of the screen. A toy automobile was on one pan of the duplicator. The announcer was using a toy crane to lift duplicates off the other pan, ranging them in neat rows on the desk top.
"But what about the store, Mr. Brown?" I asked.
"I don't know, John, I just don't know. You're there, you do the best you can, just hang tough till we see how things are going to work out. "
Hang tough! In this business, people who hang tough and wait to see how things work out get plowed under. If you want to stay in business, you get on top of trends and move with them. Well, Mr. Brown used to be a real merchant, he built Brown's up from a comer variety store; but that was forty years ago and we all get old.
"O.K., Mr. Brown," I said. "I'll do what I can."
"Fine, John, I know you will."
He hung up, Before I could do the same, the operator broke in "Oh, Mr. Thomas," she said. "Mrs. Jones wants you in Ladies Wear; she says it's emergency."
Mrs. Jones is one of those people to whom everything is an emergency, but Ladies' Wear is on the first floor, only a few aisles from the phone I had been using. "Thank you, Connie," I said. "I'll take care of it. "

When I got over there, Mrs. Jones was flustering around a stocky, middle-aged man who was fooling with something on the wrapping counter. It was a duplicator. He was trying to balance another on one of the pans. It kept tipping until he got a pencil fixed under the pan as a prop. He stepped back a little. "Presto chango, abracadabra," he said, and pushed the button. The duplicator settled back on its base with a thump. There were now three of them-the original and one on each pan. The pencil fell away and, rolled slowly off the counter. In the flesh, so to speak, it was a much more impressive operation than on TV.
He took one off, readjusted the pencil, and made another.
"You're the manager?" he asked me.
I nodded.
"How much?" He jerked his head at the two duplicators on the counter.
"I'm not sure I understand," I said cautiously. "You mean, you want to sell them to the store?"
"I do, indeed." He put the two original duplicators back in a cardboard carton and tucked in the flaps. "Come, come, I'm a busy man this morning. What have you got in the till there?"
It could be a con game, of course. Some sort of electronic flimflammery on the TV, and a confederate going down the street working sleight of hand in the business places- But, no, Mr. Brown had been getting it at home, too. Besides, it didn't smell like a con game. I rang "No Sale," took out the bills, and counted them-ninety-three dollars. I had guessed wrong bigger than that a lot of times before. I laid the money on the counter.
"O.K., bud, you're in business," the man said. He picked up the money and carton, turned and shoved through the crowd of employees and customers. No one paid him any attention. They were too busy staring at the duplicators.
I picked one up and looked at it. It weighed about fifteen pounds, just a black metal box with some plumbing at the top supporting the two pans, and a button to push. Under the button was the tag with simple instructions: " When you push the button, any object placed on one pan will be duplicated on the other," and then the warning Mr. Brown had read to me. A nice piece of merchandise, no doubt about it.
-I'll give you two hundred for them," one of the customers said impulsively.
"Just a moment, please," I told him. I adjusted one duplicator on the pan of the other as I had seen the demonstrator do, pushed the button and held my breath. It worked.
"Here you are, sir," I said. "The price will be $19.98. Mrs. Jones, take the sale, please."
I made several more, checking the action. There was nothing to it.

Push the button, take one off, push the button again. By steadying the machine with your hand, you could get away from the pencil business.
The clerk from the next counter had been standing at my elbow, watching breathlessly. "Do you see how it's done?" I asked her. "You do? Good. Would you operate the machine, now? Just keep taking them off and pushing the button."
I looked around and saw the floor supervisor in the crowd. "Sam, get a couple of your people and clear off those blouses by the door. Handle the sales from there, no wrapping, cash and carry, $19.98 each, one to the customer. We'll use this counter to make them."

"Ah," a sardonic voice said at my side. "Business as usual, eh, while Rome bums. " I knew the voice, as well as the style. Both belonged to George Beedle, our personnel manager. In the old days, before Dr. Elton Mayo invented Human Relations, personnel men were people who made out hire and fire slips, worked up wage rates and job qualifications, so forth. Now they are doctors of philosophy, fully prepared to instruct operating officers in the fine points of practical psychology, sociology, economics, epistemology, and the Sermon on the Mount. I enjoy arguing with George, it's amazing how erudite a person can be without having the slightest grasp of merchandising, but not when I have work to do.
"Go away, George," I said firmly. "I'm busy now.
He looked at me curiously. "Busy at what? Making money for Brown's? Here, let me show you how to do it the easy way."
He found a ten-dollar bill in his wallet, laid it on the pan of a duplicator. With his left forefinger, he pressed the button. As another ten-dollar bill appeared, he flipped it off the pan with his right forefinger, pressed again, flipped again. "I often wonder," he said dreamily, "what the vintners buy-" press, flip, press, flip, press, flip. The air was full of ten-dollar bills.
Two or three people started scrambling for them. The rest just stared.
I must confess I was flabbergasted, myself. This potentiality of the duplicator just had not occurred to me. Goods, yes, everybody makes goods, but only the government makes money--or perhaps I should say, used to make money.
"The marketplace, John," George said-press, flip, press, flip "that's your little Republican tin god, and the lifeblood of the marketplace is money. What price money now?" He picked up one of the bills, creased it, touched his lighter to it, and lit a cigarette. "Good kindling, I suppose, if you have a fireplace."
"Uh, yes," I said. I pulled myself together. He was wrong, of course, in a general sense. About ten-dollar bills, though, he was obviously right as rain. It was a dirty shame, just when we had an item as hot as these duplicators to move; but there it was. In the retail trade, you learn not to argue with facts or waste time in vain regrets. I caught Sam's eye and motioned him over. "No cash sales," I told him. "None whatever, personal checks only."
"Checks can be duplicated, too," George reminded me, but he looked a little uncertain.
"What for?" I said. "A check isn't legal tender, it's a specific order from a specific person to transfer credit in a specific way. I don't need a duplicator, I can write all the bad checks I want without one."
"Oh," George said.
I had been thinking while I was talking. A lot of those people look like the kind who might not have checking accounts.
"Wait a minute, Sam," I said. "If they can't write a check, open a credit account for them. The' main thing is, keep the merchandise moving. These duplicators are hot now, but they'll be dead as Moses tomorrow. "
"Right, Mr. Thomas, gotcha," Sam said. He hurried back to his counter. I called up the Credit Department and made arrangements to handle the accounts. "If they've got a home address and a job," I said, "that's good enough. Get their signature and give them the merchandise. "

George was still standing there, he had got back his normal self assurance, a superior smirk on his face-the intellectual sophisticate, no Babbitt he, even if crass mercantile ventures did pay his salary. Sometimes George irritates me just a little.
"Well?" I said.
"Nothing," he murmured, "nothing at all. Just marveling at the business mind in operation. It's so beautifully oblivious. Here's a gadget that spells the absolute destruction of our economy. Are you worried? Only about how to make a fast buck spreading the plague."
There must have been two hundred customers milling around in Ladies' Wear now, the word had spread fast. The duplicators were coming in a steady stream from the wrapping counter. Two girls from the Credit Department had just stepped out of the elevator and were hurrying over with big stacks of contracts under their arms. "That's what I get paid for," I told George, "moving merchandise. Other people get paid for worrying about the social implications."