WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 521, 2 August 1932, Page 7

WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED

Replacing Old Telephone Numbers. Noticing that many of the business premises in and around Christchurch still had the old manual telephone numbers painted on their walls, a city man pointed out to-day that work could be found for unemployed men in replacing the antiquated numbers with those of the automatic system. There must be at least a hundred such premises in the city, he thought, and with a little “ prospecting ” the managements could be induced, in their own interests, to have the new numbers put up. “ Coming down to work via Papanui Road each morning, I have been -struck with the number of businesses still exhibiting for the public information the old numbers,” he said. ‘‘From th e terminus to the city, there are fifteen businesses with the old numbers up. The proprietors or managers could be easily persuaded that ‘the alteration of the figures would be to their own benefit. There is no use in telling the public your telephone number if it is three years out of date.”

If there were fifteen cases of this nature in Papanui Road, he continued, there must be many more in Christchurch and the suburbs. An enterprising mail with a pot of paint and a brush would find that there w’as plenty of work for him to do.