DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
SECRETARY ELIZABETH DOLE speaks with
a caller on DOT'S Auto Safety Hotline, a free
consumer service for the public to report auto
safety problems and receive information on
recalls and the results of government crash
tests on new cars. The Auto Safety Hotline
telephone number is (800) 424-9393. The hotline
is in service from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on
weekdays.
Faircloth 9 To 2
In last week's issue, we in
correctly reported that D.M.
"Lauch" Faircloth carried ten
of the 11 county precincts. Of
ficial returns released on
Thursday indicate that
Faircloth won in nine of the 11
precincts.
Former Charlotte Mayor H.
Eddie Knox carried both the
Grapevine and Mars Hill
precincts.
The News Record regrets
this error.
Principal's Award
Wachovia Bank and Trust
Company and the North
Carolina Dept. of Public In
struction will sponsor a
statewide program to
recognize outstanding high
school principals. Announce
ment of the award was made
last week at a meeting of the
state board in Winston Salem
The Wachovia High School
Principal's Award will be
presented annually to two high
school principals chosen from
among eight regional winners.
Each winner will receive a
11,000 cash award and the
school they administer will
also receive a $1,000 award to
be used for academic equip
ment purchases. The regional
winners will also receive a
1750 award for their school.
The Department of Public
Instruction will administer the
program. The eight district
winners will be reveiwed by a
statewide committee in the
fall. The winners will be an
nounced in November.
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It Would Please Utilities , Customers Too
P Old -Time Phone Central May Return
?
By BORIS WEINTRAUB
National Geographic
News Service
WASHINGTON - Once
there was a time when
Americans picked up their
telephones, turned the crank,
and shouted, "Hello,
Central?"
Early telephone operators
really were central to the life
of their communities. They
knew how to track down so
meone who had left the office
to go to the store. They knew
callers' voices and how to
reach someone without
bothering with numbers. They
were used to dealing with the
questions of where the fire
was, what the weather was
like, and how the mayor was
feeling.
But then telephone service
became more common, and
infinitely more complex. As
automation took hold to deal
with the vastly increased
number of telephone calls, the
telephone operator became
less central, and the service
she gave became far less per
sonal.
Change in the Wind?
Now, in an age of automa
tion and divestiture, the voice
of the telephone operator may
be heard more often in our
land. That would please
customers, who prefer a
human voice to a synthesized
one; it would please
operators, who say they want
to use their own initiative and
give better service; and it
would please the telephone
companies, which could reap
additional revenue by pro
viding additional services.
There is nothing definite
about any of this. Spokesmen
for local operating companies
and for AT&T Communica
tions, the long-distance arm of
the shrunken Bell System
since the January 1 breakup,
say only that the changes are
under consideration. But some
experiments have been tried,
and they have been promising.
One change would enable
long-distance operators to go
beyond simply making a con
nection, to suggesting another
call when an initial call could
not be completed,
ing another attempt later.
Local companies ar? ??*f
i?g whether their directory
assistance operators should
make wake-up calls or calls to
check in on the elderly .
Such services would go a
long way toward assuaging
complaints of unionized
operators that they are
limited to providing only rote
responses to customers, and
are forced by work practices
to cut short the amount of tune
they can spend with
customers.
Rovs Came Ft?1
The earliest telephone
operators were young boys^.
when William J. Pel,sf"*
died in Maiden, Mass., in 1959
at the age of 98, ob.tuan?
called him "reputedly the
world's first telephone
operator." He was wa king
down a Boston street at the
age of 17 when he saw a boy
wanted" sign, walked into the
Telephone Despatch Co., and
was hired. . ..
But young boys, who handl
ed a variety of office chores in
addition to making connec
tions for owners of the earliest
telephones, proved to be too
rowdy, and sometimes too
crude, for the job. Phone com
pany officials soon turned to
voung women instead.
Historians still debate
whether the first female
telephone operator was Em_
ma Nutt of the New England
Bell Telephone Co., or
Margaret Kennedy of the New
York Telephone Co.
Whoever was irst, she was
quickly followed by millions of
s.sters, daughters, and grand
daughters. Telephone
operating became almost ex
clusively a female occupation
-even today, after more than
a decade since the Bell System
began hiring male operator^
more than 91 percent of the
operator force is female
and Americans became used
to hearing a female voice res
pond when they shouted,
"Hello, Central?"
The growth of telephone ser
vice began to overwhelm the
operator and her cord swit
chboard The writer of a 1?41
book on the role of the
telephone described how com
pleting a call from Maine to
California required the ser
vices of eight different
operators.
Automated equipment,
beginning with dial
telephones, began to limit the
need for operators, and the
rise of computers in the last
few decades has cut the need
even more. A survey by the
Communications Workers of
America found that the
number of operators dropped
from 244,190 in 1950 to 128,214
in I960, a 47-percent decline.
Overall Employment Up
This decline came at a time
when overall industry employ
ment increased by 61 percent,
when the number of local calls
quadrupled, when the number
of toll calls went up 15 times.
Along with the decline in
numbers has come a decrease
in the amount of time spent
with the customer. Agnes Kel
ly, a directory-assistance
operator in Pleasantville,
N.J., an operator since 1947,
remembers spending three or
four minutes with a customer
when she had to rely on a col
lection of phone books.
Today, the average
directory-assistance operator,
sitting at a computer terminal
and searching for one amoung
the 1.1 million phone numbers
in the 609 area code, spends
only 29 seconds with a
customer, and new audio
response equipment now be
ing installed will make it less.
The limited "AWT," for
"average work time," has led
to continuous contention bet
ween labor and management.
Some operators have been
fired because their AWT was
too high, though most have
later been reinstated. Ann
Crump, a former operator
who heads a CWA local in
Milwaukee and organizes na
tional conferences for
operators, says the system
"puts a great deal of stress on
the operators."
"They are not allowed to do
anything but sit at the job,"
says Crump. "They're not
allowed to get up and walk
around, sneeze, or whatever.
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And there is not a second bet
ween calls; as soon as they're
finished with one call, another
is there automatically.
Operators take pride in their
ability to give service, but the
companies don't enable them
to do so."
On the other hand, James
W. Carrigan, New Jersey Bell
spokesman, says his firm is
out "to process the most calls
with the least number of
operators to minimize the
cost." The shorter the AWT,
the more calls that can be
handled, and what customers
want is a fast, accurate 1
response, he says.
Tennessee Experiment i
Still, the coining of competi
tion in the industry has led to
studies of new ways to utilize
operators, especially since
AT4T Communications' com
petitors have no operators. A
Tennessee experiment gave
operators the chance to spend
more time with long-distance
customers If an operator
thought it necessary.
Everyone was pleased, and
the company picked up an ad
ditional $2 million in revenue.
"Our over-arching goal is
customer satisfaction," says
Bob Beck, vice president for
operator services at ATAT
Communications. "Efficiency
is important, but at times we
must go beyond that to tee
what a customer needs We
want to draw upon an operator
more, and change the way we
measure the Job to induce call
compietion. There's leas rote
reliance on methods and pro
cedures. It may be essential to
deviate from practice in order
to complete a call."
This attitude is not univer
sal, and many union officials
take a wait-and-see attitude.
But if operators are given a
more important role, says
James Irvine, CWA vice presi
dent for long-distance
operators, "We would be with
them 100 percent. That would
be great."
Hayes Run
WHEN SPRING is over,
Madison County hopes its
streams will show more
sparkle and less debris. That's
the reason for a countywide
cleanup now under way. It's
also the reason this sign was
pasted beside Hayes Run on
Hayes Run Road. Ponder
Chapel is in the background.
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