Mustn't "Own" Their Engines

1901

The railroad engineer who "owns" his engine is not in favor with his superiors. Complaints about trivial matters are likely to be made against him and soon he finds himself without a berth. The phrase "owning an engine" does not mean that the engineer has acquired title to his iron horse. The expression is used of a man who has been with a certain engine so long that he becomes a part of it. He knows its every peculiarity, he feels its every protest against a heavy load, and he nurses it and coddles it as if it were his child. He dislikes to run the engine at top speed for fear something will happen to it, and in consequence his train is frequently behind time. He takes a grade at half the rate he should, and he runs cautiously down hill. In a word, he "owns" his engine.

Of course this is all very nice and idyllic, and it is the kind of thing a person likes to read about in stories of the railroad. But plain, practical rail road men look at it differently. They argue that the best engineer is the man who never fails to run his train according to his running time, the man who is never behind and seldom ahead. So it comes about that the engineer who makes a master of that which should be his servant wonders who has a grudge against him. But it isn't a grudge; it's business. — New York Mail and Express.

Comment: I've been thinking about this article for a couple of days. It's a real mindworm! Think of any equipment that you operate, and how you may "coddle" it so it will keep going. My first thought would be that's exactly what you want. But according to this article, just let it rip! And don't worry whether it will stand the test of time.

Growth of the Telephone in Thirty Years

1906

By John Vaughn

"Hello, Central," was first heard in 1878. Today the exchanges are numbered by the thousand, the telephones by the million. Various industries, unknown thirty years ago, but now sources of employment to many thousands of workers, depend entirely on the telephone for support. Numerous factories making lead sheathing, dynamos, motors, generators, batteries, office equipment, cables, and many other appliances, would have to close down and thus throw their operatives into idleness and misery if the telephone bell should cease to ring. The Bell Companies employ over 87,000 persons and, it may be added, pay them well. Many of these employes have families to maintain; others support their parents, or aid younger brothers and sisters. It is safe to say that 200,000 people look to the telephone for their daily bread. These figures may be supplemented by the number of telephones in use, (5,698,000), by the number of miles of wire (6,043,000), in the Bell lines, and by the number of conversations (4,479,500,000), electrically conveyed in 1905. The network of wire connects more than 33,000 cities, towns, villages and hamlets.

Such tremendous growth as these statistics show would imply not only steadily increasing appreciation of the telephone, but would also suggest improved instruments, more skillful operators, and better service. There would be no flattery in such suggestion. Electrical science has undergone radical reformation since 1876. Telephony has raised the utilization of electricity to the height of a profession. Of course such advances have not been won without cost. Fortunes were spent in experiment and investigation before a dollar came back. Communication by the first telephone was limited to a few thousand feet. Now, conversation can be carried on by persons 1,600 miles apart. Tomorrow long-distance lines will span the continent; and the day after oceanic telephony will be a commonplace of mercantile routine. But science and money had to collaborate for years before they could work the trade of enabling Boston and Omaha to talk together. — From the "Thirtieth Anniversary of a Great Invention," in Scribner.

The Telephone — The Operator Wants to Connect You

1907

What It Means When the Operator Announces "Line Busy."

It is easier for an operator to establish a connection than reply, "Line busy." Recollection of this simple fact may perhaps smooth out the asperities of a state of mind evoked by a hasty conclusion that the operator simply is shirking.

Follow a call into the main exchange, for example. You ask for a certain number. The operator immediately informs you the line is busy. How does she know? Simply by a little admonitory click in the receiver when she tries to "plug in" on the line asked for. She cannot tell you who is talking on the line, how long it has been in use or how long it is likely to be "busy." All the information she possesses is a click, but it is sufficient to advise her that some one of the 150 other operators in the exchange had a prior call from or to that number. Had the line been clear the effort to complete the connection would have been no greater than that required to get the click; hence the task of informing a caller that the line is busy is just so much extra labor — in fact, it involves a double burden, as the subscriber will usually repeat the call until he is able to transact his business.

Obviously, therefore, the desire of the operator is to establish the connection when it is first called for. She has no motive in doing otherwise. — Telephone Talk.

Professor Teaches Telephone Girls to Smile, Speak Pleasantly

1902

Telephone Girl's Smile

Chicago telephone girls are learning the art of sending smiles over the wires. It is true only a few of the young women at "Central" have been initiated into the mysteries as yet, but it is beginning, says the Chicago Record-Herald.

The smiles reach the subscribers in the form of ecstatic thrills. Under their magnetic influence men are transformed into superior beings, for when was man ever proof against the smile of a pretty woman? No matter how cross or worried or hurried the caller may be, the modern young goddess, whose fillet clasps her scalp instead of encircling her brow, immediately puts him under a spell by smiling at him over the wire. The curmudgeon is transformed from an ugly bear into a placid human being. The man with worries forgets them while basking in the radiance thrown about him by electrical magic. The hustler who ordinarily works under 400 pounds pressure lingers at the telephone as long as the smile diffuses its delicious sensations, and he even cries for more.

"How absurd!" Doubtless that is what some readers are saying. Several of the telephone girls made the same remark when Professor George A. Vinton, teacher of expression, unfolded the new art to them. They also added:

"The idea of our grinning into the transmitters! Why, it is foolish, and will make us a laughing stock."

"Now, my dear girls," said the professor in his suavest tone, "let me assure you, out of my long experience, that you are mistaken. If you wish to be treated pleasantly by other persons you must be pleasant to them. Furthermore, my dears, you are never so lovely as when you are smiling. You cannot smile without having a kindly feeling, and if you speak while smiling you cannot keep that feeling out of the tones of your voice. If you are cross you may be sure your tones will irritate the man at the other end of the wire. If you are pleasant your tones will soothe him, and you cannot be pleasant without looking pleasant. Now, Miss Jones, just try it once; please do. Put on your sweetest smile in answering that subscriber who has just called. Ah, that's it. Now, didn't you observe a change in his manner when he spoke after you smiled?"

Miss Jones answered affirmatively, and the professor beamed even more cheerily than before. But the art of smiling over the telephone wires is only a part of the instruction Professor Vinton is giving a class of girls at "central." He is teaching what he believes to be the most effective, correct and pleasant manner of using the English language. He is training them in the art of articulation and expression — to enunciate words distinctly and to use tones of the greatest carrying power. "Articulation is the diamond of uttered speech, but expression is almost as important. To get the full force of language the expression should be suited to the words. Listen to anyone reading poetry. It is jingle, jingle, jingle, and half the meaning of the lines lost. You can tell to what denomination a minister belongs by the mannerism of his voice. Few lawyers know how to read aloud effectively. At the woman's club the speakers use breathy voices that cannot be understood 15 feet away. Children are graduated from the high schools with foreign accents and abominable English. It is a shameful condition of affairs, but it can be remedied if the school authorities will only make the effort.

"In Germany children are taught the phonetics of their language. Something of the same sort is done in some of the schools of this country, but for the most part it is a bluff. Clean, clear articulation should be taught in the public schools of Chicago. Who ever saw a school child in this city use any but the most stilted expression? There are elocutionists who profess to train the voice for speaking, but they generally make the mistake of running to form, of teaching the use of rolling, sonorous tones at the expense of expression. As a matter of fact, the conversational tone, made in the front of the mouth, is the most effective.

"I am teaching the telephone girl a low, gentle, modulated tone of voice that will reach subscribers much more distinctly than loud, rough tones. The direction to smile is only carrying out the idea of expression. The man at the other end knows instinctively from the tone of the voice, without seeing the girl, that she is smiling. He is soothed instead of irritated, the girl is saved many gruff retorts, and the service is bettered for all concerned."

Using The Telephone – Some of the Travails of "Hello Girls" (Operators)

1878

They All Carry Hard Questions to 'Hello' Girl

Do you know how to use a telephone?

It would seem that everyone knows how to manage a small instrument so much in service as the telephone, but the central girls are of the opinion that there are several who have but a small conception of what a telephone is for.

Information, the young lady who tells you what others want, is probably the most unfortunate of these "hello girls" so far as being subject to the inexperienced patrons is concerned. One girl who had sat in information's chair declared she was tired of having the lady at No. — ask her what her washwoman's phone number was. The gentleman at some other number is forever demanding to know what was the matter with his phone, declaring that he could hardly hear.

About the time she gets through answering his question, a lady from another part of the city wants to know when her train leaves and just how many steps it is to the depot. Hundreds of others will ask other people's phone numbers instead of looking in the phone book, or ask for street addresses. Some inquire of people who never exist — "hello" girls say.

Then at the close of a hard day's work, information has all her troubles topped by a growled request that should have been submitted to an attorney or a doctor.

Telephone girls would endorse the opening of a school to teach people the use of a phone, what to ask information for, how to get the best service, and how to make life itself half enjoyable for the operators.

—The Ada Weekly News, Ada, OK, Oct. 27, 1921, p. 11.