Question for former telephone operatiors/workers

[launderess]

Am listening to "Sylvia's Mother" and have a question that was on my mind then and now. Just how does or do telephone operators know a call needs "forty cents more for the next three minutes...".

Know from pay phone usage (are they still around) a computer generated voice would interrupt the call announcing the amount required and time. Did operators receive the information by computer?

 

[ea56]

When I was a telephone operator in the 70's we looked up the toll charges on a roll dex and advised the customer of the charges for the first 3 mins. , and collected this amount. We placed a reminder on the cord pair that connected the call and when the first 3 mins were up we went on the line and said "Your 3 mins are up, please signal when your call is completed". There was a ticket that we opened for each call connected from the switch board. On the card was the number called, the number calling from and there was a stamped face of a clock for the time the call connected. When the call was completed, we then stamped another clock face on the ticket showing the time the call ended. The machine that we used for these clock faces was called a calculograpgh ( not sure if this is the correct spelling). There was one of these machines between each 2 swtich board stations. Each operator was in charge of 8 cord pairs at all times and we had to keep track of the progress of each call. When the light went out on the back cord that indicated that the call had terminated. We then went in on the line, announced, "one moment please for your charges", determined the length of the call using the clock faces and calulated the addtitional charges and collected the toll. Each coin had a distinctive tone that could be heard as the coins dropped and the operator had to pay close attention as the coins dropped in order to be sure the correct toll had been collected. Ma Bell liked it if an operator had a "high toll station preference", meaning an operator that wasn't afraid to pick up the pay phone calls. They were much more labor intensive. I can recall that there was one coin telephone that I would connect calls for to New Hampshire on a regular basis. It must have been the same person calling. They would stay on the calls for 1 to 2 hours and then walk away from the phone and never pay the extra toll, Company policy was that the operator would then have to call back the party they were speaking with and ask if they knew who they had just spoken with in Santa Rosa, Ca. in an attempt to get the call paid for. This particular number NEVER knew who they had been speaking with for up to 2 hrs., so Ma Bell had to eat it. This job required a high level of patience, manual dexterity and attention to details. It was a challenging job and could be fun. When it was busy the time went by fast.

 

[ptcruiser51]

What EA56 Said

It was a royal PITA to handle coin toll calls. Local calls were no problem. A mechanical timer flashed a signal on the board to indicate "5 cents for the next three minutes". You just announced, unplugged and let it go. Seconds later, the signal would be back if they didn't deposit. At this point we could "split the connection" to separate the calling/called party until the deposit was made. If (usually) the calling party didn't have the deposit, we would take down billing to a third number, collect, or credit card and allow the call to advance. We still got beat for 75% of these.

What fun when it was a REALLY long-distance call. Say New Jersey to Hawaii. You'd interrupt after three minutes: "Please deposit $8.35 for the next three minutes". Hahahahaha! The caller would just walk away, and a collection call to the called party would get the same results as above. "Who? What? No speak-a English..."

You had to be lightning fast at calculating overtime. Especially when the operator next to you went on break or clocked-out and left you with 4 or 5 coin calls in progress. Our office had a dozen cord pairs to attend to, as well as (new then) overseas connections. Plus mobile, marine, and aviation calls. At the time, we only did UK, France, Germany and NL. Anything else got shipped-off to Long Lines in NYC.

Typical "initiaton hazing" was to go down to the lounge where we had phones that you could use to call almost anywhere for free. Really! Someone would pick up a phone and dial "O" and and announce "I'm in a ship and I want to call another boat". This brought many of us to tears.

And you wondered why operators were cranky sometimes? God bless you, Lily Tomlin!

 

[wayupnorth]

I worked for the phone company but my mother was one of those operators (she hated it but money was good). She said they took those wind up timers and were told to disconnect the call if they did not make that proper deposit. This was a while ago. Now pay phones are the call centers for the major drug dealers because they cant be traced. Notice if the actual phone number is scraped off a pay phone. Not a good phone to go anywhere near.

 

[ea56]

Charlie,

Speaking of Lily Tomlin, our office had an operator who did a spot on impression of Ernestine. We used to have customers that would dial "O" and ask for Ernestine. During Christmas time I used to answer the CAMA (Centralized Automated Message Accounting) line with' "Merry Christmas from Ma Bell may I have your number please", to the tune of "Deck the Halls". We had customers that wanted the Christmas operator, needless to say PT&T soon put a stop to my merriment, but it was fun while it lasted.

 

[launderess]

calculograpgh

Close enough, I'll give you the "square". *LOL*

Apparently the things are collectors items:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Calculagrap...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Am guessing the last ones used looked like the black thing with revolving numbers shown in this clip.

http://https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculagraph

 

[ea56]

OMG Laundress

that video is exactly what it was like in the 70's when I was an operator in area code 707. The only difference in our office was that the switchboard was higher and we sat on stools that were like bar stools. And the picture of the calculagraph was just like the ones that we used. Boy when it would get busy we would really be slammin those handles on the calculagraph. I forget what the company time frame was for marking the time off but it was a very narrow margin. Afterall, the customer was paying for the time that we billed. We used to place all the LD calls for all the hotels and motels in the area this way, they were all operator assisted and they were all billed manually this was. We would call back the hotel PBX and give them the time and charges so they could bill their guests.
Eddie

 

[tomturbomatic]

I remember the institutional ads for the Bell System that usually ran on the first few pages of magazines like Saturday Evening Post, Look and Life. A memorable one was a city of dark buildings with one lighted window high up in a building and then a paragraph or two below with the message that there was an operator on duty keeping people on the line. Other ads would tell the story of an operator who stayed at her station and helped a town in a flood, blizzard, etc. Then there were the ads showing a phone booth alongside a dark road.

I remember, as a child, pay phone booths made out of wood in older buildings. It was so neat the way that closing the door turned on a light and fan.

I have seen pictures of operators working at large switchboards with a supervisor walking behind them. It looked like an awful job.

 

[rp2813]

It looked like an awful job.

I was lucky. I started out as a service representative in the business office, and as a result was able to go straight into a cakewalk of a management position from there after six years.

 

In the clip above, the scene that gave me a chill was when the one guy was preparing for his tour (they didn't call them shifts -- the Bell System's front line operations were strictly based on a military model) and he checked a sheet posted on the bulletin board to see his schedule, from which he had better not have strayed or that matronly supervisor would have swooped down on him in a flash.

 

The one story I remember about the environment in Operator Services and the strict adherence (another call center term) to one's schedule involved a male employee who urgently needed a health break, aka a "special" but was told he could not leave his position.  He must have been at his breaking point because he stood up and relieved himself all over the switchboard. 

 

[ea56]

Ralph, yes being an operator could be dreadful. But at the time I did it the pay was pretty good and the benefits were very good. Our office referred to shifts as "tricks", I kid you not! There were I believe 11 or 12 different tricks that were available. Each operator filled out a trick preference card, indicating your 1st peference thru your last and this info was fed into the scheduling computer and tricks were assigned by preference and senority, the more service time you had the better your chances were of getting tricks that you wanted. The schedule was posted every 2 weeks and it was up to each operator to write down their tricks for the next 2 weeks in their trick book. My 1st preference was 5pm to 11pm, with a 1/2 hr. break. The company would also pay for a cab ride home if your trick ended at 11pm or later. Naturally, the operators with high senority usually got these tricks, but during the summer they also got 1st preference for vacation, so consequently lower senority operators would get the 5 to 11 tricks during this time. Really, the main reason I left operaror services was due to the screwy scheduling. I just couldn't get used to having a differnent shift everyday, it really upset my biological clock. And as for the "specials", once I put my flag up to be relieved for a special. It was really busy, but I really had to go! A manager came up behind me and put down my flag and told me I didn't need to go. There was a union steward sitting next to me and she said, " Oh yes he does need to go Agnes, and so does everyone else at this board, and your going to relieve all of us one by starting with him, or I'll call a wildcat" With that every operator at this 40 position CAMA board put up their special flags, and we all took a special one by one! I will say one thing though for the Bell System, it made me a better worker for any future jobs that I had. They taught me how to "overlap", or do more than one thing at a time. Very valuable concept to learn, it can make ones work life easier.
[this post was last edited: 10/20/2015-16:15]

 

[rp2813]

Ah, yes, overlapping.  I was terrible at it.  I would "close" by hitting "make busy" on my phone instead.  In the business office, overlapping was pretty much a crucial part of the job if you had to make notes on the customer's account after the contact was over -- even if you immediately received another call.  Anyone who has made a call into the business office and heard tapping on a keyboard before a greeting was exposed to overlapping.  I was all about giving the customer my undivided attention, and not keeping them hanging on the line just so I could make notes without closing.  One of the reasons my first boss in management hired me was because he used to do the same thing.

 

We also had WTS -- waiting to serve.  This was downtime between calls when we were supposed to be doing "batch work" that was handed out to us -- things like making adjustments to accounts for disputed charges (another case of hearing the keyboard before the rep greeted you).  The codes for the adjustments varied, but the system wouldn't let you complete it unless you used an appropriate code.  DAC was the code for Directory Assistance adjustments, but DAK was "denies all knowledge."  Another one was RTP -- refuses to pay -- which was often applied to disputed 900 and 976 charges.

 

My favorite:  SNP -- suspend for nonpayment.  These customers were "on snip."  Ma Bell did have her clever side when it came to acronyms.  Business subscribers had BAGs -- billing account groups.  If they had more than one kind it was -- wait for it -- a mixed BAG.

 

People don't realize how much Ma Bell was responsible for many of the workplace activities that only became commonplace once private businesses had computers at every worker's desk.  That's when things like "multi-tasking" spread to the rest of the world outside of The Phone Company. 

 

Ma Bell was also "texting" many decades before anyone even conceived of the cell phone.   With some necessary exceptions, all notations were done with no vowels allowed.  The term "time is money" couldn't apply more to any other business.  We were told that every keystroke we took had a charge associated with it, and even when everything was written on paper the telco language was rife with abbreviations and acronyms in order to save time.  A notation might have gone something like (always in upper case) RP WP CR BLL @ APL TMO -- Responsible party will pay current bill at approved payment location tomorrow.

 

I wish some of this had transferred over to the modern practice of texting.  I'd love to be able to type "yda" instead of "yesterday," tda "instead of "today," and  "tmo" instead of "tomorrow"  and know the recipient would understand.

 

Bottom line Eddie, is that I do feel the same way about having worked for Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T.  It was a unique experience in a business culture unlike any other.  We were advised in initial training that we'd never be the same again, and that was so true!

 

 

 

[tomturbomatic]

I am truly and humbly blessed that I have never had a job where I could not go to the bathroom when I needed to go. I still think of elementary school teachers having to be in that classroom all of those hours and the rare cases when someone was put in charge to take names of anyone who talked while the teacher had to leave the room.

 

[launderess]

Multi-Tasking!

Now understand everything!

Back when Verizon was still called "NYNEX" answered an open call advertisement to take a telephone operator exam at their Sixth Avenue offices. IIRC you had to sign up some how or be prequalified as the thing was given in shifts.

Any way this bright young thing finishing up college thought, what the heck always wanted to be a telephone operator and it could be the start of steady gig...

At the appointed time arrived at the offices and our group was ushered into a large auditorium. Rather like high school with the "every other seat, every other row" bit. After introductions and a brief chat about how the exam was to go the thing was handed out along with pencils. That is when all heck broke lose! *LOL*

We were told to begin and so one did; after a bit a voice would announce "STOP". Then came instructions "Go to page..... and begin...". I'm like what on earth is this sort of mess? Soon as one settled into the new bit that darn voice again yelled "STOP"! Then instructed " go back to page... and complete..." Long story short this sort of thing went on throughout the entire exam period. Barely had one gotten settled into one set of questions then you'd be instructed to "stop" and go forward or backward.

At the end we passed our papers down and awaited results.

If the place held 500 only ten or so names were called to be seen for further interviews. The rest of us were thanked for our time and given the bum's rush...

[this post was last edited: 10/20/2015-17:31]

 

[launderess]

I still think of elementary school teachers ...

Oh there are worse jobs than that love for lack of powder room breaks.

One of the chief qualifications of a good operating room nurse is good bowel and bladder control. Once an operation is underway it isn't easy to swap nurses out the sterile area for another. In fact this now applies to the various technicians who have replaced nurses for scrubbing as well. It also applies obviously to the surgeons and other doctors.

In fact you are hearing more and more of nurses on the floors and units complaining they do not get adequate rest room breaks. UTIs are sadly becoming a workplace hazard for nurses from having to "hold" things for so long.

 

[lordkenmore]

Bathroom breaks for elementary teachers

Well, at least elementary school teachers had a desk to sit at. Perhaps it would be possible to relieve oneself into an old coffee can, while discreetly screened off by the desk. LOL

 

[lordkenmore]

>UTIs are sadly becoming a workplace hazard for nurses from having to "hold" things for so long.

I've heard of it being a problem for others as well at companies that are less than generous with break policies...

One huge problem in my area is with one bus service. The last I heard, the only break time the drivers get is whatever time is left at the end of the route. So if the next departure time for the driver is 4:00, and he or she arrives at 3:45, he or she has 15 minutes off. If he or she arrives at 3:59:58, he or she has 2 seconds. Years back, this was not a problem due to the schedules. But the schedules have changed, and so the layover time has shortened. One driver told me about a route she considered taking, but refused when she realized that it would keep her in the driver's seat for 8 hours straight. I have often wondered about this, because (apart from bathroom breaks), it seems like basic safety to have drivers stop driving for a few minutes every so often. At least, they made a point of that when I was in driver's training.

 

[lordkenmore]

>I still think of elementary school teachers having to be in that classroom all of those hours and the rare cases when someone was put in charge to take names of anyone who talked while the teacher had to leave the room.

Sad thought about the changing of times... I'm sure a class being too noisy when a teacher leaves for a minute is still a concern; however, in this era of school shootings, it's far from the worst thing that could happen in an elementary school classroom.

 

[rp2813]

That Operator test wasn't much different from the Service Representative test.  Not only were we told to go back to a previous question, but were additionally told to erase our original answer and change it to something else.

 

I did pass, and was offered a job on the spot.  The rest is, at this juncture, history.

 

[wayupnorth]

All the phone company tests are set up the same way, with a proctor and stop watch, STOP! My mother got out of there before the breakup and I got there as Verizon came in. I absolutely loved my job there, but the last in are the first to go with the unions. So these people that stayed way past retirement age that are milking it and are hogging the places a younger person could use could care less about mentoring a younger person that would do a much better job than they do. Been in the layoff system, not my first rodeo.