In Hans Fallada’s novel Kleiner Mann – was nun?, published by Rowohlt in 1932, the clerk Johannes Pinneberg loses his job. In Berlin, Jachmann, the lover of Pinneberg’s mother, gets him a position as a men’s clothing salesman in the Mandel department store. There a consultant introduces a compulsory sales quota. Pinneberg falls behind it, and a customer’s complaint is used as the reason to dismiss him.