The individual manufacturer or merchant,
therefore, need not wait for a general crusade
to abate the noise, the smoke, and the other
distractions which reduce his employee's
effectiveness. In no small measure he can shut
out external noises and eliminate many of
those within. Loud dictation, conversations,
clicking typewriters, loud-ringing telephones,
can all be cut to a key which makes them virtually
indistinguishable in an office of any
size. More and more the big open office as

an absorbent of sound seems to be gaining in
favor. In one of the newest and largest of
these I know, nearly all the typewriting machines
are segregated in a glass-walled room,
and long-distance telephone messages can be
taken at any instrument in the great office.

_Like sound in its imperative appeal for attention
is the consciousness of strangers passing
one's desk or windows_.

Movement of fellow employees about the
department, unless excessive or unusual, is
hardly noticed; let an individual or a group
with whom we are not acquainted come within
the field of our vision, and they claim attention
immediately. For this reason shops or factories
whose windows command a busy street