We Haven't Had A Telephone Thread For A Long Time

[rp2813]

I was never an Operator.  I came in "off the street" as they used to say, as a Service Representative.  That was back when service was the top priority, not sales (see today's news story about AT&T being fined $150M for "cramming" on cellular accounts).

 

I only heard the horror stories about the workplace environment in Operator Services.  The best story was the one about a male Operator who requested a "health break" but was denied.  He took his revenge by standing up and pissing all over his board.

 

Management was a different world entirely.  In most cases, supervision was very much hands-off.  While in some management roles I found myself working past Midnight on rare occasions, if averaged out over my entire management career, there were relatively few days where I put in a full eight hours.  As long as my work was done, that was all that mattered. 

 

I was never much of a union person until I started working at The Phone Company.  As a Service Rep I quickly began to appreciate why labor unions came into existence.  Without them, Ma Bell would have literally worked her people on the front lines to death.

 

[ea56]

I forgot to mention in my previous post about bathroom breaks, or "specials" as Ma Bell referred to them. There was a sign that hung in the front of the room, if it was on green go, then no one else was on a special and you could then unplug from the board, turn the sign to red stop, sign out with your name and operator number, time out and take your special. When you returned, you signed back in with the current time. If the management felt that you were taking too many "specials", you would be called into the ATOM's (Assistant Traffic Office Manager) office and be reminded that the company provided you with two 15 min. breaks and a 30 min lunch and you should be taking care of your biological needs during these times, or perhaps they would need to revise your work hours to more closely coincide with your biological needs. Being called to the ATOM's office was like going to the wardens office, because you could have a cigerette, and since everybody smoked in those days this was at least a fringe benefit. I kid you not about this! If you were on the CAMA board you put up a red flag at your position and someone from DA would plug into your position so you go take your special. Once I put up my flag and it was really busy, the supervisor took down my flag and said I didn't need to go. A union steward was sitting next to me and she said yes I did, and so did everyone else too, and Agnes,(that was the supv's name) your going to see that everybody gets relieved, one at a time, or I'll call a wild cat strike! This actually happened.[this post was last edited: 10/9/2014-17:58]

 

[sudsmaster]

The only phone company instructional film worth watching...

 

[washerboy]

exchanges

Does anyone remember when we had a word exchange (not sure what we called it back then) Ours was Skyline3-7220, others in town were Mohawk, Locust, seems like my grandmothers was Sunset, several others but I cannot remember..anyway does anyone know where that came from...my partner is 5 years older than I, he grew up in New Mexico..he says he never heard of such.

 

[ea56]

I remember the word prefix's very well. They were known as exchanges. In Richomnd there was Beacon and Capital, in Berkeley it was Landscape. In the San Francisco Bay Area the prefix's became numeric in late 1962 if I remember correctly. Area codes came in in 1963 along with zip codes for the mail. People were very unhappy about this at the time as I recall. In some towns in more rural locations if you were calling a number in the same exchange as yours you only had to dial the last 5 numbers. Before customers direct dialed long distance, they dialed 113 for the long distance operator. If you pay attention to old movies you'll notice characters dialing only 3 numbers to place a long distance call.

 

[wayupnorth]

Cool clip Sudsmaster, like my earlier post, they didnt care. Now they are scrambling because people are leaving in droves and new ones are not there. All those posts about operators and the crap they went thru is very true. My ex operator mother told me all about it many years ago. She hated the job but the money was too good to just leave. Yes, washerboy, the first 2 letters of a word ended up as the first 2 numbers of the 3 in local. Like your Skyline ended up being a 75?-???? and an area code before it. But, I had a decent job there at the phone company and really loved it. Not everyone is bad there anymore, they certainly know better now.

 

[rp2813]

Exchange Names

At the house we had until I was 6, our exchange was AXminster.  The house we moved to in 1960 was in the adjacent exchange, which was CYpress, and as a result our number had to change.  That same number is still in service at that same physical address 54 years later.

 

Before our local exchanges went to seven alpha-numeric characters, which was ahead of my time, there were only two exchanges in town, Ballard and Columbia.  Those exchanges had anywhere from one to four digits assigned to the line numbers.  IIRC from a local 1945 directory, my aunt & uncle's number was Columbia 128.  I think people in Ballard probably had to go through the operator to reach Columbia, and vice versa, but direct dialing within an exchange may have been possible -- for those who had telephone sets with a dial.

 

I remember taking another aunt to The Phone Store to order service back around 1980.  She and my uncle would come out from Chicago for the winter and rent a furnished apartment.  When the representative asked her for a local contact number, she provided my parents':  CYpress 5- 1304.  The representative had no concept of the configuration she was reciting and told her it wasn't a valid number.  I let her repeat it a few times just for the novelty, then finally translated it into "295-" for him.

 

Here's a picture of my very early issue 1950 model 500 with original number card for the line here, and a link to an on-line document containing U.S. exchange names:

 

 

http://ourwebhome.com/TENP/Recommended.html

 

[ea56]

Seeing Ralph's model 500 telephone brings back memories of when I got my very first telephone in 1971 when I was 20 yrs. old. It cost $10.00 to have one black phone installed anywhere in my cottage that wanted. I was advised by an older customer of mine that I should request the phone to be installed somewhere that would be difficult for the installer, then they would suggest that instead of my desired location they would provide a 20 ft. cord at no charge. Once you had the 20 ft, cord you would have credit on your acct. for this extra charge accessory and never have to pay for it again. In the daya before cordless phones this gave one some mobility during long phone calls. I did this and used this credit until 1983. For those of use old enough to remember, the phone system used to charge extra for everything. A colored phone was extra, even a coiled receiver cord was extra at one time too. I can remember that Macy's used to sell plastic covers that you could put over your black phone in order to have that prized colored phone. And since person to person calls we free if you didn't reach your party my family used to place person to person calls for" Sir Francis Drake" to relatives homes after we had visited and gone home so they would know that we had arrived home safely. Long Distance calls were very expensive in the 50's and 60's.

 

[nurdlinger]

When I was a kid in 1950s Detroit, there was service which allowed you a fixed number of local calls a month, I think the number was 90 and if you exceeded it the extra calls were proportionately quite expensive. So periodically when somebody got poor for a while and wanted to conserve their calls, a signal would be arranged between them and my parents: one ring, call Susie back. Two rings, call some other one, etc. It was workable for small sample sizes but we kids resented having to wait for the 3rd or 4th ring to answer a call.

 

[ovrphil]

Nurdlinger - we are close in age, but I don't remember this arrangement...but it sounds familiar, if that makes sense. Long distance calls were expensive. Weekends, we could talk longer...I talked three hours to some friends after 9PM, but Sundays were perfect. I remember talking to the operators - man, ancient history.

Ralph(rpg2813) that's the phone my parent's had for eons in our Berkley house. And we had the exchange of
LIncoln...so everyone referred to their phone number by saying (even TV ads did this, too):

Call LI1-2475 or later, we learned to just say 541-2475. When area codes became necessary, we had to mention area code (313)541-2475. Then, more area codes necessitated changing our old area code from (313) to the present one for that area, 248.

Moldy-oldy days that I miss.

 

[michaelman2]

Phil, I am not sure if you grew up in the Atlanta area...but for years Atlanta and the metro area had the largest non-toll area in the country.   Meaning you could call from Macon (80 miles south of Atlanta) to Marietta (23 miles north of Atlanta) with no toll.......The metro area was 404...this was a huge area....then the 770 area code came into play I think in the 1980s.....I had moved by then my parents however still lived in the area...and they still have the same number from 52 years ago...

 

 

[mathewhebailey0]

Japan phone calls,etc.

I wonder if Japan's telephone systems were like from early 20th century to present in sounds,etc. & if the electromechanical switching systems to present were Strowger,crossbar or anything else. Plus any telephone recordings,etc. involving loss in
phone communication,etc. the instant the atomic bombs were detonated in Nagasaki & Hiroshima as well as the tsunami & earthquake. I suppose when the bombs detonated,the telephone recordings if any exist, probably at the time were grooved disc or magnetic wire recordings not erased by the EMP magnetic fields the bombs might have generated,plus Japanese phone/phone system sounds/ recordings between then & present.

 

[ovrphil]

Mike :

No, I grew up in the metro Detroit area(when Detroit was a real city), and moved here 19 years ago. That's the first thing I noticed about this area, it has a HUGE coverage area. I love the change from the compartmentalized area codes of Detroit - they made more money by making more area codes and charging for outside area code 313 calls. Atlanta is a dream, by contrast.

 

[a440]

Mike I remember when I moved to Atlanta in 1987 I was amazed at who I could call and it was not "long distance"!  In fact I would tell friends  and family during this period from other states and countries and they did not believe me.  So funny to think about it all now.

About the long distance call hacks!  I was guilty for my pranks on "Bell South" or whomever.  I would call collect and when the person would answer I would yell, "I made it all right"!  And that was the end of the conversation.  Of course you could not do this from a home phone.  You could only do it from a Payphone.    

Life was so fun back when.

B

 

[rp2813]

To Henry Dreyfuss -- Thanks for everything -- Julie Newmar

LOL Phil --  Everybody had a black 500 "for eons" back then.  The phone was like a member of the family, it was such a fixture.  The same instrument carried the good and the bad, with news of events happy and sad, often for upwards of 20 years without any need for servicing.

 

Seeing as how there are likely millions of old phone sets still in service across the nation, after 20 years these phones were just barely broken in.

 

I have phone sets that are older types, but the 500 model has become my runaway favorite.  It has been suggested as the greatest piece of 20th century industrial design, and I agree 100%.

 

 

 

[gusherb]

Funny about that huge local calling area. Around here in area code 219 if you call any area past about 20 miles but still well within the 219 area code its considered long distance. I find that perplexing. And if you dial any number within 219 that isn't within the "local" calling area or isn't Ma Bells (GTE serviced the more rural areas just east of here) you must dial the area code with it or get the recording telling you to do so.

Chicago had another interesting system that I still haven't quite grasped yet, metered local calling with distance based rates. Add to that you also had a local call alottment before those distance based rates kicked in. This is ALL they offered in 2003 when my mother first opened up a business in the city of Chicago and all they had for a long while til somewhere after 2010.

 

[ovrphil]

rp2813 - my neighbor and childhood friend's dad worked for Michigan Bell and got all the newest phones as or typically before they were made available to the public. He said they gave the phones to the employees like him to test(beta testing?). You couldn't order those phones, which were Princess Rotary, touchtone later, and other versions. We trudged along with our black frumpy-looking, dial phone(500) until my mom caved and bought the touchtone/pushbutton version of that same design, in an almond.

And to just frame your comment: "The same instrument carried the good and the bad, with news of events happy and sad", our model 500 carried news of my mom's dad choosing suicide(cancer of the bladder)in 1955. That evening around supper time is frozen along with what comes to mind when I see a model 500, black-colored phone.

Ghusherb: it was similar around the Detroit area later in the 80's and 90's(we left in 1996). You know the feeling you get that something feels like a "racket". After coming to Atlanta, what a relief to be free from the web of Michigan Bell calling rules, rates and restrictions. We told our families and friends what a huge area the 404 and 770 area covered, without dialing a 1. Then, 678 came along and some things have changed.

 

[a440]

Phil you must have moved to the Atlanta after December 1995.  Until then our only area code was 404.  

It is wild how "Bell South" varied from state to state.  I remember having a map of the 404 Calling Area that actually came with my phone bill.  I want to say in 1988.  Georgia Bell was very proud of the Vast 404 Calling Area.  

I grew up in New Orleans and lived in Missouri, New York, and Tennessee and was amazed at the calling area when I moved to Atlanta in late 1987.  Wonder if Georgia had certain laws to restrict Bell South from being such jerks and limiting the calling area?  

 

 

[michaelman2]

Brent,

 

I am not sure if there were restrictions placed on Southern Bell regarding that very large 404 calling area.   When I was a kid I remember my parents talking about the  large  calling area with  friends  that lived in other states.   I believe Touch Tone service became available in the late 1960s,  Near my home is a former Southern Bell building.   I believe it is still owned by a telephone company.   This thing is like a fortress, and I have not been inside in at least 30+ years.  When I did tour it, it looked and sounded like a large switching station.   I do not know if it still operates as such?

 

[ovrphil]

Brent - I moved here in December 1995. I never heard of 770 area codes, when I first came here, even in 1996, til later.

Mike - I remember my neighbor getting the touch-dial phones in 1963, but before public release later that year. They were always getting these new phones before anyone could have them installed, as they were employees who were chosen to test the new technology for a few months before publicly available. Nice.