THE TELEPHONE GIRL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 14

THE TELEPHONE GIRL.

i I r- - MUCH MALIGNED. i l '• /'■ The telephone is an instrument for ■ which no one has a good word to say, writes Frank Maehin in "Katipo." Unfortunately the telephone operator is equally held to blame. The girl at the exchange switchboard is generally regarded as a i\;rt flapper, who, whilst one frets and-'nines at the other end of the wire, passes her time knitting jumpers or enjoying afternoon tea. Ah, that fretting and fuming. Added to ignorance, it is, I think, the chief cause of all our telephone worries. How often is not bad articulation on the part of the subscriber the cause of wrong numbers? " ■*• •"■*•*• -• Suppose for a moment we take n glance at a typical telephone exchange, and see what actually happens. Imagine for yourself a long room around which there is an unbroken line of girls not, us you might suppose, munchia V buns mid reading novelettes, but evcy one with ber head, crowned with a receiving instrument, bent diligently over a \ switchboard. Notice the panels in front of each operator, pierced in orderly lines : by hundreds of holes no larger than the top of a pencil. Study the dizzy pat-tern-weaving, criss-crossing of the multi- ■ Coloured wires to which the plugs are attached. Watch the deft play of the girl's hands as she moves the plugs and ■witches into place. Listen to the slow murmur of voices carrying messages to and from all parts of the country. Take a nearer view. Concentrate your attention with a slow-motion moving picture effect on the operation of put-ting-through a simple local call. As with the eonjurorj- the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. A tiny lamp, a mere glow-worm of a light, shines from out pf the rows of similar lamps in front of the operator. In a fraction of a second (ho has moved over a small switch that enables her to speak, inserted a wired plug in the subscriber's number and echoed the time-worn phrase, "Number, please!" On being informed, she repeats it. takes up the plug at the other end of the wire, and from out of the myriad of numbered holes above her head finds the number. There is no hesitation, no miscalculating: the action is almost mechanical. Having found (he number, ihe tests it to make sure it is not engaged; moves back a switch to ring the number wanted and bangs home; the plug. Should the number be engaged she informs the subscriber of the fact, and asks, "Shall I call you?" If the reply is "Yes," she has to write out a ticket, and whenever opportunity offers try that number again. When a call is ended she has to pull out the plugs and at the same time press down a little button that registers it. Multiply that operation by the 200 unit calls per hour required by the Post Office, and you have some slight idea of the duties the telephone girl is called upon to perform. That does not, of course, take into account the dozens_,of ".No replies," junction and trunk calls— nil requiring special attention —and other little hitches thnt occur during the day's work. - • Then there are sections of the exchange whore only call-box, receiving or trunk business is handled; and any telephone girl will tell you that the average cull-box subscriber is the most irritating nuisance of all. He—or it may be she— ; approaches the instrument as though afraid it might go off at any moment, forgets his number, puts the pennies in , the box before it is necessary. \\i at the end of all that you do not think the telephone girl and the teleplione service are doserving of every svmpatuy—then you yourself deserve none