The fun of starting the Social Security Administration

[grampahol]

This is an excerpt from the Social Security Administration's own site of when they first opened the accounting operations office..
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p27.html

Quote:Finding Office Space

Finding space for the growing agency was a major problem. The Board set up in temporary sites in Washington and split staff among multiple locations. Frequent moves and multiple locations became such a problem that Frank Bane, the Board's Executive Director, remarked that he would be quite willing to set up in a barn if he could have everyone under the same roof (McKinley and Frase 1970, 25).
It was impossible to find the kind of space in Washington that was going to be needed for the huge (and heavy) task of maintaining paper records on all Social Security number (SSN) holders and covered wage earners in the United States. Fortunately, the Board was able to find "suitable" space for its Accounting Operations close to the wharves in Baltimore—suitable more for the paper than for the employees, unfortunately. The space was in the Candler Building, a warehouse made for heavy industry that had formerly housed a Coca-Cola plant. The offices occupied by the Division of Accounting Operations (DAO) had wooden floors on top of cement, with sand in between. Employees often complained of the sand fleas (SSA 1997a). There was no air conditioning. The temperatures ranged from scorching hot in summer to freezing in winter (Simmons 1977, 12). As one Bureau employee later reported:

Quote:It was a huge factory, really. It was hot in the summer, we had the huge floor fans, which blew papers around. It didn't give us much comfort from those fans. And in the wintertime we used to sit at our cardpunch machines with our coats on and gloves because it was so cold. Then there was some company that made some kind of medication or something, the odor was horrible. They had big black bugs. I guess they came from the water. The girls used to be afraid of them, I would squash them. They made really a good sound. And another time I remember as we were sitting at our cardpunch machines, we were throwing paper clips at rats, and I mean they were rats. I remember one time the men were trying to get a rat down from the pipes that ran across the ceiling, and we watched them try to get that rat down. Then the mice, too, were doing damage, they were eating up all the data, the tabulations, etc. (SSA 1996d).

The employees worked at unfinished wooden tables whose rough lumber ran slivers into the workers' hands and arms (Altmeyer 1966, 72). Ringing bells told employees when to take their ten minute break in the morning and in the afternoon and when to go to lunch. Those wanting to smoke retired to the rest rooms to avoid sending the place up in flames (SSA 1996d). As this was during the Great Depression, people were glad to have a job even under these working conditions.

And people today complain about their office space.. Roasting heat in the summer and freezing cold in winter with hot and cold running rats and roaches..  Fun times no doubt.. That was in 1937 or thereabouts.. Whether you like the SSA or not I think these folks could qualify as great Americans.