The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-19
. telephone Girls And Their
 Duties
By BETH MILvAINE


 Francisco answers. Or it may be the Bronx or our neighbor next door, but either way, the matter is equally mysterious and wonderful.
 To a stage-hapd behind scenes she is both v0Ic1 and q devterous, uIi- efring pair of arms, making complex connections in the twinkling of an eye And, above all, she is q quick, alert brain, trained to expertness and ex- perienced in the strange human con- tact that is made oyer the humming wires.
 Every healthy, normal girl of six teen is a potential telephone opera tor, providing she has clear eyesight, keen hearing, pleasant voice, and q public school education. Her op- portunity for employment is unlimit- ed. The New York Telephone com 5pany will open fourteen new offices in Brooklyn alone this next year, and every added office means personnel expansion as well.
 Furtherbmore. from 6,500 to 7,5O0 of the 10000 telephone girls employed in New York city leave every year. the greater proportion of this mum Der including girls who have been with the company only short while Gnd those who leave to marry. In any case, the turnover-not particularly large for such vast company of employes-leaves plenty of good jobs for intelligent and ambitious girls.
 A girl who has been accepted by the employment officials and the medical department is then sent to the op- orators training department, where she receives intensive instruction in the theory and praictice of switch board operation. Besides the necessity for teamwork is drilled into her; she learns the value of courtesy she is taught to enunciate properly and speak with distinctness. When the four weeks is over, she is ready to make her unseen public bow and call her first professional Number please?''
 This is a tale that is all beginning, with no end in sight. Every incentive is offered an operator for advance ment. The mushroom spreading of exchanges and the subsequent open ing up of new jobs of all degrees mean promotion for the girl who ! thoroughly knows her own job and has shown the necessary brain development to warrant holding down one higher up.
 A supervisor is an embryo execu- tive. Over every nine operators, on an average, a supervisor is placed, pri- marily to aid and instruct. She her self must be a crackerjack operator; she must know how to handle people, { having herself learned the value of team work and firm good nature in the most trying situations. It is up to her to mould the nervous, inexperienced girl straight from the training school into a first-class operator, both by sugges- tions, actual hep and personal ex- ample. One hour a day she 'sits in" on the switchboard, to keep up to the f minute with the routine and to let her k understudy, the senior operator, gain real experience as supervisor before she herself is called to fill the job in earnest.
 From the sturdy trunk of super < yisordom spread many branches. A , girl may be chosen to become Cen tral office instructor, who specialixes ! in the coaching and training of op- orators. Two are assigned to every < office. Or perhaps she may become 2 an instructor in the training depart ment with the pleasant responsibil- ity of metamorphosing hundreds of good little girls into good little opef- Rtors.
 Or, if she is so inclined, she may slip over into the clerical work in con hection with the traffic department, drawing up working schedules and making out payrolls, for example. In- stead of new material being brought in from the outside, girls are recruited from the central offices whenever practicable, thus keeping open fresh avenues of promotion. Many times an operator or supervisor has studied shorthand and typewriting with no particular end in view except to be prepared when her chance" came. And many times it came, a chance as stenographer in the business end of the company, with a secretaryship and boundless responsibility just around the corner.
 To the position of Assistant Chief Operator is the most direct line from supervisor, however. As such she may be a sort of office manager with the clerical work of the exchange in charge. Or she may be night chief or assistant day chief. In any capacity she is in close touch with the power 'that-be. the chief. operator, with the opportunity of studying her methods and acQuainting herself with the diff faculties and problems that haunt the, daylight hours of an executive manag-' ing from 100 to $50 young people. ! And then, of course. comes the. chief operator herself, the core of the ing spirit of the office, the emb0di- ment of a telephonic success. She has been through the mill. She is a fully developed woman, real leader, keep ing her girls efficient and interested, faithful and happyA-a real executive, empowered with direct authority to settle ad disputes and untangle all problems within her Jurisdiction, who has learned to keep her brain two jumps ahead of her hands. She has the job to which every young girl fresh and bewildered from her training may aspire if she will only keep her eyes on how ahe climbed the ladder, instead of dreaming fond day dreams that were never known to pay for meal.
 Fortunately for our insatiable- ann bitions, we can never touch the sky. The ladder of promotion is like Jacks beaustalk-eyer-reaching. Many mis- eellaneOuS exeeutlYe and BLaI posi- tions tease the chief operator on up, up into stin rarer atmosphere. Infinite opportunities in the expressing person nel work or as training department manager or in the fundamental employ ment division there's no ending.
 Work it takes, yes, and patience. A chief operator wdsn't made in day, Experience, gotten solely from the switchboard and contacts through 1t with the volcanic public and CO., workers, is a weighty consideration but conscious study may change