The Virginia enterprise., 1910-10-21


energy and ambition, right
ly directed and controlled,
is given opportunities to make himself
a power in two of the three great
branches Of the gigantic and constant
~ growing telephone industry. These
are the plant department (Which in
stalls the telephone equipment ard
keeps it in good working order) aud
the commercial department (Which
gets the business for the telephones,
hunting it 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-
tion with the people you wish to talk
with at any hour of the day or night.
But it is also true that the boy who
has had full college course, or at
least year or two at college, stands a
better change of advancement in the
traffic department than the boy who
enters it minus such a preliminary ed
;ucational training
You see, about the first actual posi-
tion for boy in the traffic department
Is an executive one-that of assistant
manager of an exchange, or central
Off1ce-and if for no other reason than
that he is 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 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 goes In jiffy. And not only back
to school, but away back into the very
primary grade for a 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 a time to get a general knowledge
Of the construction Of telephones.
All this learned, he will next take a
course under an able instructor in what
is known as traffic inspection. It is in
:eresting 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, or
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-
had anything to do with the message.
then with all the data in front of him,
he fixes the responsibility. The girls
involved can't get away from him, be-
cause, so complete is the organization
and system that every detail comes
under the eye of this phone detective.
Parenthetically let it be said, always
believe Central when she says the line
is busy; for, in all cases she has
to make out card showing all the
details, and is under the vigilant eye
of woman supervisor who constantly
PAGES back and forth behind every
string of nine girls, and naturally,
therefore, doesn't like busy lines any
more than you do.
His education finished, your boy is
made assistant manager of an ex-
change, or central Office, at salary of
$40 to $35 a week. Traffic telephone
work in large cities is generally di-
vided into three shifts, two Of them
working during the day and the early
night hours when the service is in
greatest demand, and the other in the
less arduous hours of night and early
morning. So, the new assistant man
ayers work at first will probably be
on the easy night shift. But ultimate
ly, if he is ambitious and progressive,
he will be assistant manager in one
of the large exchanges where there
are three or four hundred girl opera
tors.
Then he becomes manager Of a
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