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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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She said, “I think it would help you. I think you'd get a lot done.” Because what she saw was that I was interrupted through the day when she was here. One thing and another would happen, and people would call on the telephone. I worked here, up on the third floor. The big room across the back I laid out originally to be a kind of a workroom, where my papers are. So I would work there, but I would be interrupted, and I'd be called off, and people would come to see me. There would be an interview arranged, and so forth.

She said, “Why don't you get a dictaphone? Then you can work at it any time. You're not using my time to your full advantage. You're not getting full value on my time. I could do much more than I do if your stuff was ready.”

So she encouraged me to hire a dictaphone. She knew where you got them, and she hired one and brought it into the house, and we set up the little dictating machine in my bedroom, so that I could work at it at night.

That solved the problem. It really was the solution to the problem of getting it done, because as soon as the people were out of the house at night, then, by half past nine or ten, I was free. The family had either gone out for the evening, or they'd gone to bed, and there was nothing on my chest except to do this work. Telephones weren't ringing, you know, and mail wasn't coming in--all that





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