Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1910-10-26

81 tnouSdnd oolldr6 year.
g BY c. w. JENNINGS. s
NSsSsssssssSsssss sssssSsSsSSSSSSSsssA
~ N the two articles in this
NTA series Immediately preced-
NAM u ing today's, have told
&NN how a boy Of application,
energy and ambition, right
ly directed and controlled,
Is given opportunities to make himself
power in two of the three great
branches of the gigantic and constant
ly growing telephone industry These
are the plant department (Which in.
stalls the telephone equipment and
keeps 1t in good working order) and
the commercial department (Which
gets the business for the telephones,
hunting 1t out and making the con-
tracts therefor).
In either of these branches It is not
essential that boy should start to
work with more than a rudimentary
education back. of him. and many of
the big" men in these branches Of
telephony today never saw the inside
OF college classroom. The same Is
true of some of the men who are high
executives in the third great branch.
the traffic, which actually operates the
telephone system, making the connec-
ton with the people you wish to talk
with at any hour of the day or night
But 1t is also true that the boy who
has had full college course, or at
least year or two ut college, stands a
better change of advancement in the
traffic department than the boy who
enters 1t minus such preliminary ed
ucational training.
You see, about the first actual posi-.
ton for boy in the traffic department
is an executive one-that of assistant
manager of an exchange, or central
off1ce-and II for no other reason than
that he 10 al few years older than the
boy who has not gone to college. he is
usually preferred for beginner In this
department. AS a general rule, you
know, no boy under twenty-one is very
often trusted with executive power.
Then, too, the more education one has,
the better one is fitted for executive
positions; and where a boy is made
an executive almost from the begin.
ming he has, other things being equal,
counts much in his favor in the race
up the traffic department ladder.
But whether or not the boy who be-
comes connected with the traffic de.
partment has been to college, the
minute he has been employed by a
traffic department head, back to school
he gons in a jiffy. And not only back
to school. but away back into the very
primary grade for stay lasting from
six months to year. However, there
will be this difference between his
former and his present schooling: He
will be paid fifteen dollars week all
the time he is student. AS the young
man is to be directly over an army of
central girls, he must know all about
how their work is done. So he is
taught the use of the various parts OF
the operating equipment in the ex.
change, or central office. the telephone
geography of the region in which his
work will be done. how the girls han
die the details of their work; and also
he will go into the plant department
for time to get general knowledge
of the construction of telephones
All this learned, he will next take q
course under an able instructor in what
is known as traffic inspection. It is in
teresting work, this traffic inspecting
You know, that sometimes, when the
central girl has told you that the line
was busy" and "still busy again and
again, or you thought you had waited
five minutes before getting central, OF
somebody else from another line broke
in on your conversation, you have got
on your ear and howled for the man
ager.
Well, part of you boys work in his
first position in the traffic department
work is to attend to Just those com
plants. He gets all the testimony you
have to offer, and then runs down the
transaction, discovering even the re
hottest connection of every girl thai
had anything to do with the message
then with all the data in front of him
he fixes the responsibility. The girl.
involved can't get away from him, be
and svstem that every detail coma,
mndor Tho ave If tb,s 'nbona doteo.,,a
parentbat,cal,v Lot Il be cold a,w.,,,
ha,,eve Central when she CIV. tho I;n,
Is busy; for, in all cases she ha!
to make out card showing all tn.