the housewife will quickly realize how much it is to her immediate
advantage to employ women who know how to do all kinds of housework,
instead of having those who make a specialty of one particular branch.

The specialization of work in private houses has been carried to
such an extreme that it has become one of the greatest drawbacks
to successful housekeeping in small families. Under this system of
specialization, a household employee is not capable in emergency of
taking up satisfactorily the work of another. Even if she be able to do
it, she often professes ignorance for fear it may prolong her own hours
of labor, or because, as she sometimes frankly admits, she does not
consider it "her place." The chambermaid does not know how to cook, the
cook does not know how to do the chamberwork, the waitress, in her turn,
can do neither cooking nor chamberwork, and the annoyance to the whole
family caused by the temporary absence of one of its regular employees
is enough to spoil for the time being all the traditional comforts of
home.

In hotels and public institutions, and in large private establishments,
where the work demands a numerous staff of employees, the specialization
of the work is the only means for its successful accomplishment, but in
the average home requiring from one to four or five employees no system
could be worse from an economic point of view, nor less conducive to the
comfort of the family.

Specialization produces another bad effect, for it prevents the
existence of the feeling of equality among employees in the same house.
Each "specialist" speaks rather disparagingly of the other's work,
regardless of the relative position her own special "art" may occupy to
the unprejudiced mind.