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PAGE FOUR L—MAGAZINE SECTION women ! Y r; Gj.O=|p> RJSDr ' ’ wSMBfcX -•-■=-«? y-®-?:® I » ' Oiro BW-IW'^uW ; oJba aw^fe 1 J . till TITO > 1&- /MrWlHa OmfSWv 1 x I ■ •■ ■ J '.'■ Wf ill inKi vfl ft®® ItL »■■ ■ ' Jrt&ffMMMjlM&L. j-._ MmL. K. Z-tYaMM ME**'‘‘jMßs^nK/Bi'^i n. a "® w< ' i **WPMpWhh l W Jff ■^iiT w HSM QUXQ - fc ' ', B5l? - w * MTOBwSwwSiijjfeaMgfcj JBB Bs ’Mm Ip 1 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. , \ /z —v/ aS— 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.