The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-12-03

| was met in the front office by
Miss Gertrude Abt, who has been
with the telephone company for many
years, proving most faithful and eff
ficient. Miss Abt directed me to the
office of the manager, Mr.. J. T. Peel,
who kindly conducted me through the
plant.
The general offices, the construc-
ton department and the frame room
were all interesting, as the power
back of any large movement must be.
To one to whom machinery is sealed
book, the intricacy of the thousands
of wires and the great frame and
motors, stand for confusion. But if
to the lay mind they represent moth
ing but an electrical tangle, it does
not require much in the way of inn
agination to understand how each one
of these separate wires is correlative
to other wires, and how intricate a
task it must be to prevent wire
troubles, even in ordinary times.
Miss Claudia Jernigan, a bright
Pensacola girl, who has been chief
operator for the past two years, told
me in most interesting way Of Cen
trail and the storm Miss Jernigan
assures me that it is not dangerous
at the switchboard in thunder
storm, as the wires are we'll ground
ed, but she acknowledges that it is
bit exciting to see the lightning
play hide and seek, up and down the
switchboard During the July storm
Miss Jernigan says that the girls
remained at their posts until practi-
cally every phone had been put out
of commission, which was about two
o'clock in the afternoon. Then they
Immediately set to work checking the
lines out of order, as registered on
the switchboard.
When one talks to Miss Jernigan
about the telephone exchange, one
does not get haphazard information,
badly stated. Instead one talks to a
young woman with face aglow with
interest, who believes not only in her
work, but in her co-workers. One
feels very sure of this last.
If the switchboard seems inordi-
nately puzzling, and Central sudden
ly takes the guise of a witch who
understands the public through some
strange art that has been devised by
her necromancy-these arts are all
no tonly on the tips of Central's fin
gers, but right on the tip of Miss
Jernigan's tongue. And she can tell
one about them in so interesting a
way, that it seems a child might I'M
| derstand. Miss Jernigan says II
takes only about two weeks to learn
| the switchboard. And Immediately
how high ones estimate of Central
rises. How simple it sounds wher
! Miss Jernigan tells one about it, ex-
! planning INFINITELY and clearly, but
technically, how an operator operates
And all the time the little rec
lights are flashing, flashing, flashing
along the board, and dozen or more
girls are saying, in carefully modu.
| lated voices, Number! Number 2
And suddenly how big they grow
How wonderful they seem, these
young, young girls, who have take1
the great motive power of the eartt
in their slender hands, and with theil
fresh young voices are squirting tn,
world to action.
Central's day is eight hours, ont
hour of which is given for lunch o.
rest and she has besides this fifteel
minutes relief, before the lunch pc
Rod.
In a normally busy day of sever
working hours, she averages mort
!Ethan five hundred calls an hour, o
more than three thousand calls day
Three thousand times Central say
Number" or BUSY" or some one o
the other stereotyped phrases tina
are given her to say. She must no
converse with you over the phone
this is forbidden. If you ask hc~
question, and she answers you in
set phrase, that phrase has bee,
written out for her like a text in
copy book, not because the telephon
company believes in red tape NOR
than any other business, not only be
cause discipline must be maintained
not only because the public is hard t
please, but mainly because the pub
lie makes it hard for Central, an
thereby renders the service the NOR
ineffective, if she shows her huma
side over the telephone.
That is why the head operator hs
to be such technical young person
That is one of the reasons for her OF
servation sheet, where she has Sc
down carefully prepared lists of whs
Central must and must not do, an
must and must not say. That
why she has on her desk a mets
headpiece and a receiver, which 81
puts on ever so often, and '1istens In
to check Central at her work. N,
because she does not trust Centrs
| loac not holfcun IN hoY. h,1f hnoo,JE