Under-porters and errand-boys

In the Hotel Occidental, two under-porters stand behind sliding windows dispensing information to guests. There are never fewer than ten guests waiting. Each under-porter is assisted by an errand-boy, who retrieves materials from a bookshelf and from “various files.” The work is exhausting, with frequent changes in personnel:

Franz Kafka, Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), trans. from the German by Michael Hoffman (New York: New Directions, 2002).

Also from Amerika
An American writing desk : A highway : A bridge : Companions

[Hierarchy, hierarchy, everywhere in this novel.]