The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-09-16
Only One Complaint Made to Thou
sands of Telephone Messages.
Strenuous Days for Her
Are Now at Hand.

days journey and her services are in
constant and increasing demand as IS
shown by the fact that the number Of
telephones in the Bell system has reach
ed $500 600 and is growing at the rate of
20 per cent year. In one way the tele-
phone operator is at disadvantage in
the business world because her patrons
cannot see her do her work. but IL tele-
phone user took thestrouble to time Cen
trail with a stop watch he would find
that she is about the spryest person that
he has to deal with
Telephone managers do not use stop
watches in timing operators but the
tests made at regular intervals in every
Bell office show that on the average a
subscribers signal is answered within
five seconds after it is given and COM
munication is established over the line
wanted within ten seconds after that.
1t is not the operators fault, of course,
If the line is busy, or If no one answers
her ringing, or IL the person called
| Is slow in getting to his telephone. 1t is
rather her misfortune. for often she is
blamed for 1t as II she were personally
| responsible.
Has Her Champions.
| But WnlIe the telephone girl IS SOIle-
times unjustly blamed she has her
champions. Recently, at dinner. In
Illinois, someone was called to respond
| to the toast, THE Telephone Girl" He
| was evidently man who had given more
| thought TO his response than many an
| after dinner speaker for what he said
| showed an understanding of his subject
that would save much profanity and quite
as much heart burning If it were more
| general.
IF ! go into a grocery store on Satur-
! day night when every clerk is on the
| jump he declared. "and yell that | have
| an important engagement and demand
that the clerk leave the customer he Is
| waiting upon and attend to my wants be-
| cause my business is almighty important
the proprietor informs me that il l will
have little patience / will be waited
| upon in my turn; and that is exactly
right. 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 a fraction
of a minute. He intmates that unless
his phone is answered at once he proposes
| to go to the city council to 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 happens to give him the
wrong number, but he sings nightly low
when / tell him that | go home and find
my wife in tears because she has COM
rany for dinner. ordered her meat at nine
o'clock and the laundering butcher sent
it to the wrong house.
yet the same men forget that thou
| sand subscribers may want to talk all at
once, and have right to, even at night.
| They will not grant the same considera-
ton to the telephone business they de-
| ma nd fo
the telephone girl has no right anyone is
| bound to respect She is responsible il
the party the subscriber wants to talk to
is out. IL one of the hundreds of screws
connected with the phone Is loose IL the
dress did not get home from the dress
maker If there was a delay in calling the
fire department because II was not called
FIVE minutes before the fire broke out
In fact she is to blame for everything.
Such is the conclusion by those who
forget that she is a human being and
lady. although she tolls for her daily
bread.
Why They Complain.
Evidently here was man who had
had experience with Central" calcu-
lated to bring home to him her efiic-
| iency In spite of her faults. The same
thing was expressed in a different way
by another speaker. here in Boston, a
little while ago. who said that the tele-
!
daily lives that we regard 1t. and all con-
nected with It, as we would part of our
! household.
when a man complains that the
bacon Is not quite right and the eggs
are done too much,' be said chat the
coffee is too strong and the mullins are
| too cold, 1t is sure sign that generally
his breakfast is just TO his liking His
wife, or the cook, or whoever it may be-,
has set a standard which he takes so
much as a matter of course that he says
nothing about 1t until, because of some
mshap-perhaps because he himself is
| late in coming to the table and has
kept things waiting until they are cold
breakfast is not quite as good as usual
| 1t takes a philosopher to look at 1t that
way, l know, but really. isn't 1t true
that such occasional fault finding is the
surest token of a generally satisfactory
| state of affairs?
THAT, 1t seems to me, IS one way of
regarding complaints about the tele-
phone service. We have all had trouble
| with the telephone I have sand you
| have, and everybody has. We all know
| how exasperating 1t can be. But isn't
the fault that annoys us so once in a
great while evidence that the service is
pretty good most of the time, so that
when there is little mole hill 1t looks
| almost like q mountain
/ Last year more than 10000 100000 con-
| versations passed through the offices of
the Bell system. How many OF these
gave ground for fault finding nobody has
| figured out. But those who have such
matters in charge here in Boston, which
has the reputation of being the most
| critical of all cities, say that their at
tention is drawn to what the telephone
user considers a defect in the service
about once In $4,000 Conversations
Partly becauses telephones users are
becoming better acquainted with the
working of the service. and partly as
the result of constant mechanical i'm
provements and the, painstaking train
ing of employees, these proportions. are
growing smaller. all. the time If the
public doesn't understand the difficulty
| of "Central's" work, the telephone
manager does. Formerly girls could
be trained at switchboard in an ex-
change. by observation and by practice
on lines that We're not very busy Now
the traffic In conversation has become
so heavy that in large cities the Bell
companies are opening schools for oper-
ators where, under skilled instructors,
a girl learns all the In and outs of the
| work at dummy swtchboards. her
teachers representing the public. before