The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1928-11-08
YOUR TELEPHONE is
SOMETHING WORTH
LEARNING ABOUT

W Uit printing UtloW d part VI al
address by Miss Van Ert. general traf-
fic supervisor of the Illinois Telephone
association at Springfield. The article
which was published in the Public
Service magazine is educational in
everyday details of the telephone, as
we'll as, giving useful information to
the daily users of this service. A
reading of this article will undoubtedly
help folks to be more courteous and
reasonable in their relation to the
telephone service, while at the same
time enlightening themselves.
To so many people telephone
means little except small instru-
ment on the desk or on the wall. They
know little of either its origin or its
makeup A telephone, to them, is
something like Topsy in Uncle Toms
Cabin. 1t is something that jus
growed." Few people have any clear
idea of what happens when they lift
up their receiver and ask central for
a number. Central is there; she has
always been there, and we have be-
come so accustomed to taking it for
granted that she will be there that
we think very little about it. Ger
tainly very few people stop to remem-
Der that they, themselves, are one of
the most important factors in this
matter of telephone service.
Telephone service is unique among
public services in that the user, him
self, must participate in the actual
service operations. You must lift up
your number, or at offices having ma
chine switching you must dial it, and
your intelligent cooperation is essen
tial if we are to render you high
grade of telephone service.
How then can we expect your intel
ligent cooperation unless you know
something of the processes involved
in giving telephone service? The
more you know about your telephone
and how to use it efficiently, the bet
ter we can serve you.
We want you to know the truth
about your telephone and your tele-
phone company. 1t is within your
power, through making yourself ac-
quainted with the actual facts re-
garding telephony, and through
realizing that YOU ere co-operatUr
in this matter of giving telephone
service, to increase the value of the
telephone, both to yourself and to
others.
For centuries back men have tried
in one way and another to bridge
distance, to find some means of
communicating with other men. One
Of the first known methods was the
use of smoke signals by day and fire
signals by night. Imagine trying to
carry on the complicated processes of
present day business with smoke sig
mails. Think Of that some time when
you lift your receiver, ask for num-
Der you want, and then in a very few
minutes find yourself in communica-
ton with the party you want, whether
he is three or 5000 miles away.
Another of mans crude efforts to
find some satisfactory means of
communication was through the use
of the carrier pigeon. What if you
had to depend on that system when
you have to get hold man in New
York OF San Francisco right away in
order to close a deal?
Yet today we are so used to almost
communication that we
feel bitterly misused if it takes us
more than few seconds to get our
message through. What if every time
some lovelorn youth wanted to call
ups his fair ladylove and make sure
she hadn't yet changed her mind;
what if he had to mount Old Dobbin
and ride over to find out? Truly, it
has remained for America to lead the
way in communication as she has in
everything else. In the last 25 years
America has done more toward devel
oping satisfactory means of COM
than the rest of the world
has done in the last % centuries.
As telephone operators, we are in
a position to know quite lot about
what the average person does and
does not know about using the tele-
phone | notice that H. L. Mencken
has done a nice piece of calculating
and has figured out that he will have
to spend at least 10000 years in
purgatory as his personal punishment
For the amount of profanity he has
1sed because of being annoyed while
using the telephone. Well, Mr..
Mencken has one advantage over the
operators; we don't allow them to
swear. But if H. L. Mencken, with his
turbulent disposition, was telephone
operator, it would be interesting in
deed to see what he would figure he
had coming to him in the hereafter.
Telephone operators could give Ber-
nard Shaw, H. l.. Mencken, or Ibsen,
himself, some interesting pointers on
human nature any day Of the week.
For instance, there is the man who
grabs his receiver off the hook and
mumbles number at the operator
without taking the trouble to remove
his nice big black cigar. once heard
of man who had a very valuable
private secretary He valued her