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PAGE FOUR
L—MAGAZINE SECTION
women
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The vst room at the Ivy Exchange, showing operators at leisure.
By MARTHA RANDOLPH
WHEN you're in a hurry and are fussy and irritable and can't
get the telephone number you want and say unkind things,
did you ever think about the telephone operator's work*
Did you ever take the trouble to tind out how and when
she works and under what conditions?
It is doubtful if more than a very small percentage of telephone
subscribers know anything about a telephone exchange, its opera
tors and its operations. Yet tin* telephone exchange is an interesting
institution. If the people who use telephones knew more about its
workings and the girls who get numbers throughout the day and
night, there would be less fault-finding and better service all around.
A short time ago several Atlanta women interested in the -wel
fare of the women workers of Atlanta visited the Bell exchanges,
and they learned things which they did not know before. They were
surprised and well pleased.
I. too. visited the exchange. Although I had a rather fair knowl
edge of how a telephone exchange is operated. I saw things I had
never seen before and 1 learned things 1 never knew.
I was like most of the thousands who use the telephone daily I
had given little thought to the telephone operator or to the condi
tions under which she works. X’ow I know and I am glad I visited
the Ivy and Alain exchanges of the Bell company.
HOW THE OPERATORS REST
It is not the easiest work in the world to sit at a telephone
switchboard eight hours a day. cater to the wants of fifty-seven varie
ties of human beings and get numbers at the rate of 250 an hour.
The Bell officials know this, and for that reason every effort is made
to make the work less tedious and arrange for the comfort of the
operators in Atlanta who make it possible for 18,000 subscribers to
talk to each other.
In the first place, each operator is relieved ever" two and a
quarter hours and rests fifteen minutes. She goes to the rest room,
where the comfortable chairs and conches are waiting and where the
books and papers in the library may allow her to forget there is such
a thing as getting numbers for irritable people.
When a gong announces that it is time for her to again get on
the job, she is refreshed. For a period of two hours she watches the
little lights appear in front of her and works her hands and arms
putting in and pulling out plugs, and then she has a rest period of
one hour to do as she pleases.
While she is doing this work, supervisors walk up and down the
room watching the switchboards and helping here and there when
the calls in front of any operator threaten to tax her ability to handle
' them.
It is interesting to stand at one end of a long switchboard, as
shown in one of the photographs above, and watch the hands of say
fifty operators moving with clock-like regularity. It would make an
interesting moving picture.
CARED FOR IF THEY ARE ILL
if one of the operators becomes ill while at work, there is a
supervisor at her side in a minute taking her place, and off the opera
tor goes to the rest room. If she is too ill to walk, an invalid chair
is quickly on the scene and the matron soon has her on the way to a
couch or a bed.
For there is also a bed room adjoining the rest room. In it are
beds with immaculate linen for the use of the operators who work at
night. There are two shifts of operators at night, and while one
shift works the other sleeps.
The matron who looks after the comfort of the operators is also
f a trained nurse, and when she opened a cabinet and showed me an
assortment of bottles which would do credit to a small drug store, I
imagined 1 was in a hospital. She also showed me an electric pad
which can he heated to temperatures to suit. When I visited the
Main Exchange she couldn’t allow me in the bed room there, for
she was busy catering to the wants of an operator who was a little
ill and the fuss she made over the girl made me think she was taking
care of a sick daughter.
It must not be supposed that a Bell exchange is like a hospital.
But in an organization where there are something like 300 girls, it is
natural fora feu now and again-to be indisposed, and that they may
be given every care and consideration, all these preparations are
made. As a matter of fact, most of the girls prefer to remain at the
exchange in cases like this where there are conveniences which
homes are not supposed to have.
Telephone operators are just like you ami me. and of course t hey
have to eat. I suppose they could do like I have done many and
many a bring a sandwich or two in a newspaper and eat it
<vl>i|e on the jump Bui that wouldn t suit the Bell officials, or the
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN AND NEWS: SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1912.
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o'
A telephone girl who walked six milt's to preserve her attendance record, when a storm had stop
ped street car service.
View of a section of the operating room in the Alain Exchange, showing operators on duty .
ATLANTA WOMEN PAY VISIT TO THE
BELL EXCHANGE AND ARE PLEASED
In the party of Atlanta women in- "I was very much pleased,” said Mrs. surround them with the care necessary
terested in welfare work who visited Ottley. “with what I saw and learned In to avoid any embarrassment or tempta
the Bell exchange was Mrs. John King the visit of inspection. I found that tlon. I was very much gratified and
Ottley, chairman of the Georgia branch the girls were given every attention topleased, and I am sure that those on
of the Woman's Welfare Work of the comfort possible during their working the committee with me were equally
National Civic federation. Not only hours and during the periods of recrea- well pleased. We can strongly recom-
Mrs. Ottley, but each member of the 'ion. I learned also that the officials mend the Southern Bell Company as
committee with her, was Intensely in- are very careful and painstaking in , one of tlle l!i rger corporations
terested In what there was to see and their efforts to secure for their employ "he 1 of°?he
learn. young women of good morals and to young lady employees."
girls either, so other arrangements are made.
DINING ROOM FOR THEIR LUNCHES.
Adjoining the rest room and bed room is a
dining room—-one of them is shown above—and
there is a gas range and a maid. The Bell com
pany does not serve lunches to the operators.
But it almost does that. It provides coffee, tea.
ice and chocolate and seasonings, a inaid and the
place to eat and things to eat with.
All this doesn't mean that the operators
must tile down to the dining room during lunch
or supper time and eat. They may go where they
please during the time allowed them, but they
have found there is no place like that provided
by the Bell company. 1 would have a good sized
bank account if 1 had been able to bring lunches
from home and eat them in a Bell dining room
with free coffee. I have to buy mine and they .
cost more than those brought from home.
I have worked on quite a few newspapers,
but 1 never found one yet which had a bath room
where 1 could wash my hair.
Yet I found bathrooms at the Ivy and Main
Exchanges which were better than those in many
hotels. My attention to the bath room was call
ed by seeing one of the operators sitting at a
window drying her hair. I then learned that
because of the conveniences at the Bel! exchanges
nearly all the operators preferred to wash their
hair where they worked,
Ip to this point my eyes showed me the
many things done for the comfort of the women
workers in the Bell exchanges. But I learned
more which my eyes didn’t see.
PROTECTED AGAINST ANNOYANCES
Naturally, in an institution having so many
female employees, there are many attractive ones.
In tact, most of them are. The picture of one of
them shown gives an idea of what at least one
telephone operator looks like.
So, in the first place, the easiest way for one
ot the men working for the Bell company to get
fired is to annoy an operator. Only certain male
employees ever have business in the large rooms
where the operators work, and while they are in
this room they are subject to the orders of the
chief supervisor.
There is the fresh person who uses the
telephone and who will endeavor to say things to
the operator besides the number he wants. The
operator immediately puts him into communica
tion with a supervisor, and if he persists or be
comes offensive, it is easy to notify police head
quarters.
This has been done more than once in order
to protect telephone operators. Not long ago.
at the Bell exchange in Richmond, a man on the
end of a telephone wire undertook to unload some
profanity on an operator. The police got him
before he could get away and he was given 30
days to think it over without paying a tine
The precautions against the annoyances of
mashers are not necessary except to protect the
feelings of the operators. For the Bell company
Lunch room in the Main Exchange as it appeared on Christmas Eve
last year.
is careful to have for its operators girls not susceptible to the
masher.
HOW APPLICANTS ARE SELECTED.
Tin' utmost care is taken in picking applicants for positions, and
when the officials are satisfied regarding the moral, physical and men
tal qualiiieations of Ihe girls, they are careful to protect them.
So peculiar are they about this sort of thing that not long ago
the police were called upon to break up a practice which reflected
upon the operators of the Ivy exchange. A certain class of women
were in the habit of making appointments near the Ivy Exchange
and told those they met that they were ‘‘telephone girls.” The Bell
officials heard of it and it was broken up.
Such attention to the comfort of female employees is bound to
tell. I found that it did. The operators are apt, quick, efficient and
take pride in their work. They are graded and marked for
and they seem to fee) the responsibility placed upon them and to
know that it is the quality' of their work which keeps 18,000 people
of limited telephone knowledge ami of various temperaments satis
fied with their telephone service.
Os course many telephone users are dissatisfied at times, but
they would be more lenient. I’m sure, if they could see what I did
and could understand the conditions. I made up my mind never 1o
get impatient again with, a telephone operator after I visited them
and saw them at work and at rest.
TRAINING SCHOOL FOR OPERATORS.
If you can't get a number you want and want right now. don't
jump to the conclusion that the operator is green and inefficient.
This kind never gets an opportunity' to give you a number. All be
ginners are placed in a training school al the Ivy Exchange, where
they are instructed and drilled in the use of switchboards. They
have real switchboards for their use—the only difference being that
they are not connected with the outside world—the connections are
with other boards in the building. The instructor gives lessons in
every possible condition which might arise in emergencies, and when
the operator becomes expert in this work she is placed on the job at
night when the calls are few.
The Bell traffic staff in Atlanta at present consists of 75 opera
tors, 10 supervisors and 3 chief operators in the Ivy' Exchange; 85
operators, 12 supervisors and 3 chief operators in the Main Ex
change; 40 operators, 6 supervisors and 1 chief operator in the toll
or long-distance room; 12 operators. 2 supervisors and 1 chief opera
tor in the West Exchange; 6 operators, 1 supervisor and 1 chief
operator in East Point : 7 operators, 1 supervisor and 1 chief operator
in Decatur, and 15 other operators who handle ‘‘information.” com
plaints and special work.
In charge of all these operators is a man. who is a traffic expert
of long experience, who has specialized in this work. Three chief
operators are necessary in the Main and Ivy' Exchanges on account
of the heavy 7 traffic and in order that the day' may he divided into
three shifts.
There are dozens of stories which could be written of the hero
ism of Bell operators. 'l'hey have stuck to the job in various parts
of the country in the face of fire, ilood and panic to save life and
property. They have never been called upon in Atlanta to do this,
hut they' are the kind which could do it if they were called upon.
And that they are this kind is due to the care in selecting them
in the first place and the care ami attention afterward in looking
toward their welfare and comfort.
THEY ARE AS SAFE AS AT HOME.
Every effort is made to be sure the right kind is employed, and
then every effort is made to protect them. The operators are girls
who live at home and have home ties. And they' are protected at
work as they’ would be protected at home. Once in a while an oper
ator s conduct might give rise to doubt the wisdom of having em
ployed her. M hen this occurs, there is a vacancy. Butthat happens
in every line ot work, and it doesn’t happen more frequently in the
telephone business, it as often, as in any other line.
I could write tor an hour or two longer of the things I saw and
was interested in on my little journey to telephone- land, but they
wouldn't print it if 1 wrote it.
It I thought I would ever have sense enough to understand the
myriad ot lights, holes, plugs and wires of a telephone switchboard.
I believe I would try for a place at ml of a wire in the Bel)
Exchaiige I know it would he more comfortable than a newspaper
office and I would have a place to eat my lunch in peace and a place
to rest occasionally’.
And 1 d be as safe as I am al home.