Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-22

4" HE lot of the Hello Girl IN wash
ington is about as comfortable as
that of the woman anywhere who
u works for wages and earns her own
living. Washington has now over
$1,000 telephones, and this is 1900 more
than 1t had in 1903. The number of tele-
phones is constantly increasing, and it now
takes seventy-five operators to handle the
traffic. There are 243 employees in the
operating department OF the local company.
including workers away from the switch
board. The telephone girl has a school
where she starts in at SO week while she
IS learning The business, and she will get
As much as $40 a week when she gets up
TO the position of a chief operator. The
girls start in when they are sixteen or
eighteen, and their life In the service is
usually about eight years. At the end of
that time they are usually promoted or
get married. Marriage Is the most fatal
malady in the service, and causes the COM
pany more trouble than all the other Ills
combined.
These are some of the general facts
CLEANED in hasty survey of the telephone
situation in the city. The man who takes
his receiver off the hook and kicks be-
cause he has to walt over five seconds for
the party he is after probably never stops
TO think how many motions have to be gone
is connected with the number he wants.
Also he does not know how close q watch
Is kept on not only all the employees of the
company but on himself. too. so that If he
registers kick on the service 1t can be
told almost to certainty whether he or
the operator is at fault and, IL 50, what
operator Therefore 1t Is we'll to be care
full when making a kick to have your facts
and dates well co-ordinated. There Is al
most sure TO be check on you at the
other end.
The big white building that houses tho
main exchange on 18th street is cheerful,
clean and commodious. The telephone busi-
ness is clean from necessity. There is
nothing that is more liable to cause wire
trouble than dirt and dust. Consequently
the interior OF the big building. with Its
miles and miles of wires and cables is kept
spotess enough to be a model for any
housekeeper. All OF the operators and
many of the chiefs are girls or women.
They have TO pass a strict mental and
physical examination before they are even
considered candidates at the school for
operators. They are intelligent because
they have to be, polite, general rule,
because II pays. and they are we'll taken
care of by the company in working hours
because the company finds that pays There
fs no particular sentiment about it. 1t is
simply good business.
1t is interesting to trace the course OF
cali that comes into the main office from
some OF the outlying exchanges. II is a
simple operation in the abstract, but
mighty complex in It's working out There
are now four exchanges-the North, East,
West and Main. Suppose a man in .he
West wants number l144 Main. He simply
takes his phone off the hook and tells his
operator. Then he kicks one foot against
the other and perhaps swears under his
breath TIL the person called answers.
But meantime what has happened? His
message Is first flashed to the operator in
charge of the phone in his division who
has bank Of about $50 little frosted glass
buttons in front OF her. The callers num-
Der is lighted up with Il tiny incandescent
behind the frosted glass. The operator
calls for n trunk line leading into Main"
and the trunk operator bitches up pair
OF vacant cords to a hole in the switch
board in front OF her and her part of the