Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-09-07
THE TELEPHONE GIRL.
She Has No Rights Which Any Sub
scriber Is Bound to Respect.

scriber Is Bound to Respect.
If go into my grocery store on
Saturday night when every clerk Is
on the jump, and yell that I have an
important social or business engage
ment and demand that the clerk
leave the customer he is waiting up
on and attend to my wants because
my business is almighty important,
the proprietor tells the clerk that
the rule in that store is to wait on
people, rich and poor, in the order
in which they come in, and that is
the only way in which he can do bus
mess, and he informs me that he Is
very sorry, but that If 1 will have a
little patience I will be waited upon
soon. / yell at him and want to
know why in thunder don't he get
clerks enough to attend to his bus
ness. He tells me that he does, but
he cannot afford 10 hire half dozen
extra clerks to take care Of rush
of an hour on Saturday night and
let them sit down for the rest of
the week. Yet this same merchant
will take the head off of the poor
telephone girl because there are
rush times in her office when the
shutters fall like snow flakes in a
mountain storm, during which she
is unable to answer his phone In
fraction of a minute. He calls up
the manager and tells him that he
uses his instrument more than any
one else in town (that is, he gets
more for his money than any one
else,) and intimates that unless his
phone is answered at once he pro-
poses to go to the city council and
see what can be done about rotten
service. The butcher complains
about the laundering telephone girl
and makes the air smell of sulphur
every time she gives him the wrong
number, but he sings mighty low
when l tell him that 1 go home and
find my wife in tears bee ause she
meat at 9 o'clock and the laundering
delivery boy took it up to the wrong
house. He tells me not TO be unrea-
sonable, he hires the best help he
can get, but that mistakes will oc-
cur. Yet the same men forget that
thousand subscribers may want to
talk at once; they have a right to,
even at night. They will not grant
the same consideration to the tele-
phone business that they demand
for themselves.
The telephone girl has no right
anyone is bound to respect. She is
responsible If the party the subscrib-
er wants to talk to is out, If one of
the hundreds of screws connected
with the phone is loosened, If the
cord in the switch board breaks, for
storm, for wind, for sleet, for cleo
trio current, for lightning, for the
fact that the dunned debtor refuses
to answer the importunate creditor,
for the fact that the delayed train has
made up time, for the fact that the
dress did not get home from the
dressmaker, that there was a delay
in calling the fire department, be-
cause it was not called five minutes
before 1t broke out. In fact, she Is
to blame for all things evil on earth,
under the earth and above the earth.
A. ;c n,-,ix,
ed at if we judge by those who for
get that she is. human being and
may be a lady although she tolls for
her daily bread. That she has the
same characteristics, the same aspira-
tions and the same fidelity TO duty
that other people have. AS we for
get when the telephone works and re-
member only when it doesn't, so we
forget the thousand kindnesses, ac-
commodations and favors that the
telephone girl confers upon us that
are outside of the duties of her en-
ployment.
The business man complains that
the telephone girl has it in for him,
forgetting that she does not have 1t
"in for him" any more than he and
his clerks have it in" for the custo-
mer who persistently insults all the
clerks and the proprietor on every
visit 10 the store. He fails to recog-
nize or condemn it if he does see it,,
the habit that his employees have
formed in initiating him in talking
smart or abusive to central. Possibly
courtesy might pay as we'll toward
the telephone girl as we'll as towards
other human beings.-Macon, Mo-,
Republican.