Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1913-12-02

SUBSCRIBERS IN some exchange OutSld
of your own. In that case, two op
orators handle the call. The opera
tor who answers your telephone an,
receives your number must TRANSMIT
that number to an operator in tn
exchange you are calling. The op
orator in the distant exchange estab
fishes the connection desired or re
ports line busy Countless time
subscribers scold their answering op
orators for giving false report
when seven times out of ten, even
there is an operating mistake, tn
failure is due to an operator in thu
distant exchange. So the subscrib
err is scolding the wrong girl and
according to the rules of the service
she must not answer back, or explain
her side of the case.'
why, Mr.. Kellen, 1 am afraid
am guilty in this respect. | never
knew that two operators were neces-
sary to handle a call to another ex-
change"
Did you ever stop to think, Mrs.
Perron, how unreasonable we are in
using the telephone? We are per-
fectly content to wait in line at the
bank or at the ticket window at the
theater; we wait patiently for wait
ers to serve us at the cafe. When
we take the receiver off the tele-
phone, however, we expect an in
answer. AS matter of
record, our operators answer calls at
an average of less than three Sec
onds; yet one of the most frequent
causes of complaint is the slowness
of Central to answer the telephone.
occasionally, the operator causes
some of our subscribers to wait more
than three seconds, possibly, in ex-
IRENE cases, as much as 80 seconds,
but 30-second wait is almost sure
to bring it's complaint. Yet the du-
ties of the operator in answering her
are not unlike the duties
Of the man at the ticket window. OF
course, an operator must answer
more than one subscriber. There
are times when half a dozen sub
scribers desire numbers at the same
time and some of them have to wait
while the first ones are answered.
These things cannot be helped.
THE whole trouble, Mrs. Perron,
is that people have not enough i'm
agination to realize-or probably
should say, visualize, the girl at the
switchboard.
Instead of forming a mental
picture of young woman, busily
and conscientiously answering calls
with nimble fingers, they seem to
get picture Of a giggling, gum
chewing, careless girl, neglectful,
possibly lazy.
"As a matter of fact, Mrs. Perron,
you would be surprised to know how
many ladies in this town imagine
Central is a young woman sitting in
a comfortable chair, eating candy or
reading a book. This is not an eX-
aggeration; it is an actual fact that
they have no better conception of
Central than that! You know some
Of you ladies'" said Mr.. Kellen with
a smile. "have not very compre-
hensive imagination when it comes
to practical affairs"
why, in the name of common
asked Mrs. Perron, earnestly,
doesn't the telephone company tell
it's subscribers some of these things"
"Ah, Mrs. Perron, that's just what
am getting at. The telephone COM
pany can tell it's subscribers nothing
simply because the
is an interested party. If
we should attempt a discussion in
print regarding the duties of the tel
ephone girl, it would be accepted as
literature. written for
the benefit of the company. The only
way we can convince people is to
bring them to our switchboards and
show them the girls at
work. We are very glad to do this,
but, do you know?-it is extremely
difficult to get our subscribers to Wis
t central, and, especially those
whom we are most anxious to get"
Charlie Kellen knew the telephone
business from the ground up and he
vas thoroughly in sympathy with
he trials and tribulations of the op-
orator.
Mrs. Perron was probably one of
The most intelligent subscribers that
ne had ever had a chance to talk to
80 earnestly, and as he progressed,
ne grew more and more enthusiastic.
Mrs. Perron grew more and more in
.ereSted and Svmnathetic Finally