Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1907-09-28
"CentraIn and Her Work.

The telephone company is engaged
IN what has become one of the most
important Of public services. Its pur-
pose is to put people into communica-
ton with each other in the quickest
way possible and to maintain COM
munlcation without interruption.
Above all it endeavors to perform this
tunction-always performed under eN-
acting conditions and frequently in
the face of considerable difficulties
with unfailing courtesy.
The New England company, having
provided a most efficient plant for the
needs of each individual community,
trains its operators painstakingly be-
fore 1t allows them to handle the pub
hes business, and supervises their
work closely after they are assigned
to the regular switchboards of its ex-
changes. Applicants for positions as
operators must meet high personal
standards before they are accepted
even as students The care with which
the raw material, so to speak, is Sc
lected appears in the fact that only 60
percent of the applicants who present
themselves are finally employed. One
of the advantages of the training sys-
TEN is that it enables a young woman
who finds her ideas about the work to
nave been wrong to withdraw without
waste of time or embarrassment, and
allows the company to determine pref
ty definitely the ultimate fitness of the
candidate ha nj Of al
phone users have been entrusted to
her.
AS students the operators are taught
to do their work intellisently as we'll
as with mechanical precision. They
are given practice in the actual oper-
alton of the switchboard, special ap.
paratus being provided for that pur-
pose, and are educated to meet the
almost lnconceivably varied situations
likely to arise when they become the
composite young person known as
Central" They learn not by rote
alone, but by observation and expert.
ence as well, their teachers taking the
place of the public for the time being,
and presenting, so far as they can, the
public's various phases. Even the
most skilful training cannot, OF
course, Immediately make a beginner
as efficient as an experienced hand 1t
does insure uniformity of meth
DDS however and equips the novice to
become an adept much sooner than
she otherwise could. 1t makes her
self-reliant and enables her to deal
Understandings with the emergencies
constantly arising in the work of the
exchange.
The discipline of the central office is
strict, but every employee is treated
with the utmost consideration. The
amount of work each operator has to
do is determined with great care that
no one shall be overloaded and there
by affect unfavorably the quality OF
the service Besides the chief opera
tor there are supervisors, their num-
Der depending upon the size of the
exchange, who keep the work of op-
orators under constant observation,
see that it is done in accordance with
the rules adopted by the company as
necessary to good service, and act as
mentors in cases Of difficulty.
The New England company takes
great pride in it's operating force. 1t
believes that in no industry is there to
be found a more efficient, earnest,
faithful set of employes-faithful
alike to the company and to the pub
lie to which the company is RESPONSE
BILE. The work of the telephone oper-
ator has taken no mean place among
the professions of women, and it Is
a source of great satisfaction that the
publio's appreciation of "Contrnl's"
character, and the greater considera-
ton which follows better acquaintance
and understanding, are more general
and more apparent each year.