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Helping Hands. For generations Harrods held to a strict caste system for employees; a charwoman could advance no farther than head char. Nowadays things are more democratic, and many a shipping clerk has risen to a minor executive's job. No salesgirl can take the floor without at least six months' schooling in "the Harrodian spirit," which has been sloganized into "Think of the customer first." Salesgirls never ask: "May I help you, Madam?" Instead, they are instructed to strike up a casual conversation about whatever Madam has her eye on, and to feel her out on the price she wants to pay. Never, never ask her directly, salesgirls are warned. Harrodians start out at only $11 a week. But they have their own country club and a pension plan, and tend to stick around: 850 of the 5,000 employees have more than 20 years' service.
Even in a Socialist economy, Harrods' snob appeal continues to pay off; last year's profits for the store and subsidiaries* were $2,300,000 after taxes. On its birthday last week, Harrods gave a champagne luncheon in the store for some of its 30,000 stockholders and told them that for the third year in a row the store was paying a 4 shillings dividend on its common stock, a 6% dividend at the current market price. But when an American congratulated one of the executives on the store's success in capturing the trade of the upper middle class, the old Harrodian stiffly corrected him: "Not the upper middle class, sir! It's the lower upper class which we serve."
* For news of another visit by Queen Mary, see FOREIGN NEWS.
* Harrods Ltd. has two more stores in London, others in Manchester and Sheffield, but now owns only a small interest in Harrods of Buenos Aires, which it founded in 1913.