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

the Immaculate floors of the oper-
ating room, the big switchboards
shining as clean as a piano in a we'll
kept house. She noticed the arrange
ments of the lighting, the ventila-
ton, and in fact, there were very
| few details that escaped her notice.
She had not been investigating con-
ditions in public schools for several
months without knowing what to
look for.
heard her say: 'Mr. Kellen, I
am real pleased to see how splendid
ly you keep your operating room;
but / am more pleased to observe
the kind of girls that you hire to
work at your boards. doubt if there
is an industrial concern in this city
that has a more intelligent looking
lot of young women than this COM
pany. l never saw employees appar-
emily more conscientious and earn
est in their efforts to do their work
we'll. The discipline is admirable. I
am sure that if the people of this
city could see this operating room
today as l see it, their entire con-
ception of telephone service would
undergo a complete change l must
confess that l had absolutely no idea
of "central'' until now.
Mr.. Kellen, what you need is
publicity. What you need is to get
every subscriber in this city to come
into this room as have this morn
ing, and see the operators actually
at work. At least, get the biggest,
best, influential people here and let
them start wave of sympathy and
sentiment for the girls who are try
ing so hard and faithfully to give
the people of this city good tele-
phone service.
81 think your company is to be
complimented and especially, your
girls. I, for one, owe them an apol-
ogy for things that l have said in
the past, and you certainly have my
that from now on my re-
lations with my telephone operator
will be vastly improved.
But Mrs. Perron wasn't through
with us telephone operators when
she left the exchange that day. Mrs.
E. Payson Smith made the next step
possible and you may be assured that
she didn't do it kindly.
To make long story short, she
got all her clubwomen together and
they had rousing meeting. The in
tention of the meeting, when the
women gathered, was far from kind
ly toward the telephone operator, in
fact, the ladies were assembled at
Mrs. Smiths request to tell how
saucy, lazy, and generally undesir-
able the poor telephone operator
was. The meeting took place at the
club rooms of the New Century Club
and the time was half past three in
the afternoon, about three days af-
ter Mrs. Perron had visited the ex-
change.
In the meantime, Mrs. Perron, OF
course, had heard about the intend
ed meeting and she had picked out q
dozen of her best insurgent allies
and had them visit the exchange.
Mr.. kellen with two or three assist
ants showed them through the oper-
ating rooms.
Instead of visiting the telephone
exchange and trying to get to the
real truth of the matter, Mrs. E.
Payson Smith visited number Of
ladies with short tempers and long
grievances. These ladies were al
most as uncomprehending and as I'M
reasonable as Mrs. E. Payson, when
it came to things telephone. They
with real feminine spite,
a chance to revenge themselves upon
IhCll OIu LclcpAOAc w
orator.
Ladies'" began Mrs. E. Payson
Smith after she called the meeting
to order as president of the club, 81
have communicated with most of you
regarding the object Of
this meeting. The shameful tele-
phone service we are all getting, is
a disgrace to this city. 1t is time
should be done, and, al
usual, it rests with the ladies OF this
club to do it. The telephone COM
pany is charging us high rates for
Highland it is giving
us, ah-nothing for our money, but
and, ah--insults. 1t en-
ploys a cheap, incompetent class of
girls whom it allows to annoy and
insult us. We wait minutes at a
time for Central to answer-then We
hear the operators giggling and
among themselves. It is