Omaha daily bee., 1902-07-27
GRIEVANCE OF HELLO GIRLS
joker System Of Checking Telephone
Operators Makes Trouble,
MISTAKES AND DELAYS CUT IN on PAY
Dissatisfaction over working of Plan
Causes Talk OF Union Among the
Employees mt the Local
Central station.

The Joker system" Is causing dissatis-
faction among the young women operators
at the telephone exchange. OF the 100 girls
employed there, Il Is said that not more
than ten have been In the service Of the
company more than a year. while a majority
Of them are new" their names having
been added to the payrolls within the last
few weeks. This explains the somewhat err
ratio service noticed Of late. The operators
are inexperienced.
The "joker system" is a system of espion-
age by which the company keeps tab OF
is operators and regulates their pay ac-
cording to the errors made. One young
woman is designated as the detective"
with stop-watch in hand she sits before a
board which is connected with the switch
boards of the operators. h instant a sub
scriber calls a drop falls and the detective
starts her stop-watch. II more than three
seconds elapse before the operator answers
a notation OF this fact is made on the OPP
orators pay clip and her salary is reduced
in proportion TO the number Of notations.
But the detecting Of tardy answers is not
the only business Of the detective. She also
marks the operators on the following lapses:
Failure to d%isconnect the phone within
three seconds after the subscriber has
ceased speaking. the giving Of wrong num-
bers, cutting of before the subscriber has
ceased speaking, plugging in" or switching
on q connection before the subscriber has
ceased speaking, failure to repeat the num-
Der, in~terrupting a conversation, being I'M
! pleasant, unnecessary talk, failure to test
connections TO see II lines are still in use,
using the word "helloo,' using the term
"all right
shows Up I'm the Pay Roll.
II will be seen from the foregoing that
there are an even dozen ways in which an
operator can be derelict in her duty, and
the Joker system is so cunningly devised
as to detect every one Of them. It is said
that 1t is little short of q miracle IL a girl
can get through with the month without
someone out Of the dozen being checked up
against her, which is another way Of say
ing that a girl seldom draws her full quota
Of pay|S35.
I'VE never know until the end OF the
month whether we are to draw $35 or S25
or SIS, and 1t frequently falls as low as
S15," said one Of the operators. This
makes 1t very unsatisfactory. 1t has come
to such a pass that a girl won't stay there
II she can get anything else to do.
There has been some talk within the
last week OF 30 Of organizing a union. All
the girls have read how the operators at
Des Moines won their fight, and 1t has
given them some encouragement. The move
ment originated with the girls who have
fathers or brothers who are members OF
labor organizations, and these say that we
could organize under the protection OF
some Of the older unions. But from the
way things look now nothing will come OF
1t. The trouble is there are so many new
girls that we don't dare make the move
ment general, because we don't know
whom we can trust. We are afraid that
some Of those greenhorns would seek to
ager with the tale.
About a year ago there was dissatis-
faction among the girls over an
other matter. and we talked Of
organizing a union, but someone
tipped 1t of and the manager made us
a speech, in which he threatened to dis
miss any girl who took any part in It oil
even talked about It. This scared them
and the matter wasn't mentioned after
ward. l hardly think It could be carried
to a successful Issue now"
what the Company Wants.
Vance Lane, general manager Of the com.
pany. admits that his concern uses the
joker system i estapllshed IL myself
q few months ago." said he. land I under
stand that It is working admirably. Of
course some Of the young women nnd Il
Objectionable, but they are the drones and
incompetents. The really competent oneI
do not object to It. because It does not al
feet them. The purpose OF II is to improve
the service. We want a three second
service and, while we haven't reached Il
yet, we are working to that end and will
succeed"