Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1901-01-11
TELEPHONE USAGE.

TELEPHONE USAGE.
By Angus Hibbard, General Manager
of the Chicago Telephone
Company.
The man who knows how to use
telephone properly is compara-
lively a rare parsonage, and the
observance Of few simple rules
and suggestions in relation to
telephone usage would accomplish
for busy man, great economy
III money, time and vital energy.
The telephone has done more
to lay bare latent strain of bel
igerency in all mankind than any
other feature ofmodern experience,
and this element offers the great
est obstacle known to the univer-
sal success of telephone operation.
But this attitude is not the only
abnormal development attending
the act of telephoning. A man re-
fuses to recognize plain physical
conditions that would be apparent
to child in the primary grades.
What man of affairss swonld will
ingly give audience to caller who
turned his back to his host and
directed his voice in direction
away from him? Yet the majority
of business men keep their faces
a foot away from the telephone
and turned away from the instru-
ment. To expect satisfactory re-
suits under such conditions is pre-
posterous. The lips should not be
an inch away from the rim of the
transmitter and the voice should
beat squarely upon the drum to
which the little Sound hopper
leads. Give a telephone instru-
ment a square chance and it will
do its duty, unless radically de-
ranged or defective.
This, however, is not the main
difficulty. 1t is only the symp-
toms of the disease. Lack of men,
tai focus is the real trouble. both
in talking and hearing-or, in
telephone parlance, in transmitting
and receiving. If your thought is
not concentrated on the transmits
sion of your message you will not
make yourself heard or hear what
is said to you. This is where q
failure to realize that you are
holding actual conversation is ap.
parent. No person understands
this phase of telephone trouble
better than the operator of long.
distance lines, where conversations
are important and comparatively
expensive, and time is limited. He
knows that, in case the two on the
line do not readily hear each other
he must make each realize he is
not talking into hole in the end
of an iron arm.
Sometimes it takes a sound
shock to affect this focus of mental
faculties. Occe, when hard push.
ed, resorted to desperate ex-
pedient, which demonstrated this
point with disputable force. That
was several years ago, when prom
inent men we're not SO accustom.
ed as at present to the use of the
telephone. They generally dele.
gated the task to their assistants
a practice now much in vogue in
England, where it is well-nigh
impossible personally to engage
the head of an establishment in
telephone conversation.
! But in case of calls on the lone
distance wires the conversations
we're generally of a confidential
nature. Therefore the parties, >
although not thoroughly accus-
toned to using the telephone
must be made instantly to under.
stand each other, despite the
added disadvantages of the '1ong
range" At that time [ was in
charge of certain long-distance
lines in the east, and was called
upon to engineer conversation
of the utmost importance between
a Baltimore capitalist and Boston