Omaha daily bee., 1885-01-01
rELurAbE
Girl Operators Detected in Flirting
by Means oE Them-A Fast
system,
New York Herald.

New York Herald.
No more will the tight.trousered and
dapper clerk breathe soft confidence to
the blue.eyed and blooming telephone
operator, 1ove.makipg and idle whisp.
erlnes over the wires are things Of the
crude and unscientifc past. In a few
days every central telephone Office In
this city will have o monitor desk In 1t,
and then the dapper clerk and the
blue.eyed maiden with the mookiug bird
voice must look out for squalls.
The monitor desk was invented by
Mr.. E. A. Eckert, chief operator of the
Metropolitan Telephone company. All
the girls say he Is real horrid and the
clerks are pining for his personal gore.
A Herald reporter has seen the moni-
tor desk which is operated in the New
street exchange. In a long, narrow
room, flanked by great shining brasa
switchboards sat fourteen or fifteen
pretty girls. Little strips of brass
crossed themselves on each dainty head
and held a receiver" to each left ear.
In this manner the left ear was devoted
to the public and the right ear to the
company. A confused chstteripg and
m%urmurlng, accompanied by staccato EN-.
bellishments on the part of a number of
small boys who pulled and pushed In
scores of brass plugs, supplied sound
enough to ~canfuse even the average hotel
clerk. And yet there was ar atmosphere
of regularity and order that was surpris-
ing. At the head of the room eat Man.
sger Thompson in front of the monitor
desk with a ''receivsr" fastened to his
left ear, too. Rising from the desk was
q little brass switch board and q series of
sn~nunciator flaps.
"Now," said the manager, ''you see |
can watch every girl in the room. The
instant l suspect any girl is flirting with a
subscriber or carrying on a personal con
versation with an operator in another ex-
change all l have to do is to place a plug
in the switchboard, in the hole CORES
ponding with her wire, and | am instantly
connected with the circuit on which she is
talking. She has no means of knowing
that | am listening, and yet can hear all
that is said on both sides. | can listen to
as much as | care to, then l can say,
Come off or Take n drop and both par
ties hear me. In this manner no girl will
dare to fritter away her time, for she
does not know whether she is talking di-
rectly into my ear or not. There Is
another advantage i'll the monitor desk.
If a subscriber complains about bad SER
vice, or a buzzing in the wire, or a broken
transmitter, or about anything else he
chooses, the girl simply switches him onto
my instrument, and without leaving my
seat | can find out what is the matter
from him, explain the trouble, and then
order the remedy. You cannot imagine
what a saving of time andtrouble and what
q wonderful sentinel this monitor desk is.
But the girls don't like it. Sit down and
listen yourself.
The reporter struck the transmitter to
his ear and sat down.
"Ah there, Central" came a voice.
"Whdt do you want2" responded an
other voice.
"None of your business. What do you
wantl"
go, you giddy little thing, you are just
as cruel as ever"
"You men are so rude" murmured the
second voice.
I've made a bet with n friend of mine
that your first name is Jennie. Is it,
60, my!"
Then there was a loud laughter in
which the reporter joined. The trained
ear of tina operator detected the vibrations
caused by the reporters laughter, and a
pretty, demure little damsel, not more
than ten feet away, looked around at him
with blushing cheeks.
Chief Operator Eckert stood by and
laughed loudly. He was unconscious of
what had happened but evidently had
strong suspicious.
"We can catch them every time," he
said. 81 first worked the monitor sys-
ten on the regular telegraph wire, so that
l could break in and listen to what was
going on between the operators at any
time. The day after it was introduced I
heard this conversation;
"EHello, Charley!
"'Hello2'
"'Why didn't you talk to me to-day2'
"I cant; there's a ~telltale on my
wire.'
"'Js that 500 Who got it up2'
CAV! An old fool who belongs to the
company"
Mr.. Eckert said that the mere knowl-
edge that the monitor was in the room
would check any future fooling upon the
wires. The telephone system of New
York, he said, would soon be near to per-
lection. The reason that a man some
times hears about st'aw hats suddenly
while he is talking to his Sunday school
scholar was that the wire crossed another
telephone wire. This would be fully
obyiated by having the wires under
ground, as provided for by the new law.
A beginning had already been made in
this direction. As for the singing and
buzzing which annoyed subscribers so
much, there wss no remedy, as it was
caused by induction. This might be re-
lieyed by the underground system, but
Mr.. Eckert feared hat sll the companies
would use the water and gas pipes for
grounding purposes, and thus a medium
for leakage from II wire to the other
would'be supplied.
So fast do the operators work that the
Spring street office made $500 onneo
tions In one day before Thanksgiving
day. The ordinary system is a complica.
ted one. There one row Of switchboards
for local calls-that is, calls from sub.
scrlbers for other subscribers in the same
district. But II q subscriber downtown
calls for a subscriber uptown the opera.
tor writes a memoranou m which Is car.
| riad I'M a&hov IN N ;ttrunku onaratnr who