Long ago, when Skypes and Webiers still did not go on the ground, to connect with the beloved (or necessary) man, a specially trained good angel was required. Or not so much good how tired ... but invariably patient and polite
Who caught even at least the eighties in the conscious age, this does not need to explain what Vysotsky sings in the song about "zero-seven": "Girl, Hello! What is your name? Tom! Seventy-second! Waiting, the breath is taking! " But here is curious: why, in fact, by typing the numbers of the intercity, any subscriber did the female voice? Why was it a "girl", "young lady", that is, not a telephonist, but a telephone place? It turns out that this profession has a curious story ...Work - semiconductor
January 25, 1878. Bella has opened the first telephone station. It was served manually. The employee should have answered the call - and connect subscribers using a special plug. For this work, we decided to recruit young guys. Well, yes, they have power, dexterity, reaction, technical seducker - and the work was not the lungs: Know the swing there, here among steel wires, turn off. And yet, from those who wanted to settle the telephonist, there was no postboy - here you are also a technical toy, and the feeling of power, and at the same time anonymity.
The work is heavy, interesting - however, employees have learned in the middle of all this to have a struggle, beer and snakes with chewable paper. And yet - the disconnection of calls, the connection of the subscriber is not with any one or himself ... and cho, the fun!
The journalist Herbert Casson described the problem:
"The boys operators turned out to be a complete failure. Their mistakes and sins would be enough for a whole volume. They rejuvenated the distribution shield, swear and released jokes to subscribers, confused wires and were constantly unchanged as accepted ... and nothing was impossible to do anything with them. "
But something should be done!
Search a woman
September 1, 1878. The first girl, 18-year-old Emma Mills Natt comes to work in the Boston telephone company. And after a few hours - the second in the history of the telephone line, her sister Stella. "Baryshni" showed themselves much better: they were not Hamili, they were replied politely, they coped wheezing.
With the fact that the severity of work is not doing anywhere. Six days a week at 11 o'clock, an hour to 600 calls. Take, reply, find the right socket, connect - on everything about all 8 seconds. It took good health, high growth (in order to reach up to the top) - and excellent stress resistance. As it looked in practice, the workers themselves describe.
Dorothy Johnson, a telephone that became writer:
"In hard days, the cables were mad at a constantly confused ball. Half calories was sure that we were incompetent or hated them personally. And we embarrassed the wires, they gained the numbers, I am going to remember, I wanted the 44th to reach 170-k or 170-L?! Return and write up - no, the client will solve that you dull ... stay on the verge of hysterics. Each dreamed of shouting once: "Yes, you're all to hell!", Pull all the wires and proudly remove, spitting on this chaos. But no one did that. We felt huge responsibility for our corner of the world. After all, these are we are his vertors, each of the girls alone with a distribution shield. "
Heather Lamb, 17-year-old telephonist, in an interview with writer and journalist Louis Terekel:
"Each has its own number. My - 407. The number put on your cards, and in case the error is always visible who is to blame. You are only a tool. Your business is to dial the number. Yes, and you yourself are a number. Girls sit side by side: no more than 15 centimeters between me and the neighbor. Constantly pushing your elbows, especially if the left-hander nearby. In winter, everything is constantly sharpened - too because of the crampedness. Only one sneezes - tomorrow everyone has already become infected and blowing around. And the hands don't even get tired like lips! You have to speak six hours without a breather! "
At the same time, the "ladies" managed to sympathize and sympathize with their capricious subscribers, although it was prohibited by the rules. The same Heather tells:
"At our disposal six to seven phrases:" Good morning, what can I help you? "," Good afternoon "," Good evening "," What number do you need? "," Repeat, be kind "," you cause you such -To or such something. Will you pay? "," It will cost the dollar twenty cents. " That's all you can say. In conversations with the client it is impossible to join. If he is upset, unless you can see: "I am very sorry that you have trouble," but not more. For a conversation with the client - reprimand. But if a person has trouble or just a bad mood, I want to somehow support him, at least ask: "What is with you?". And so you do not feel that you do something necessary to people ... "
Competition - Progress Engine
The most funny thing is that the heroic story was repeated in the form ... well, maybe not farce, but irony.
March 10, 1889. Elmon Jource receives a patent for an automatic telephone exchange, becomes the "father of PBX" and opens, in fact, a new era in connection. But it was just the owner of the funeral bureau in Kansas City! What was the unexpected talent in the American "Bezenchuk"?
And the thing was that the telephonist at the station worked his wife's wife. And any call of the "young lady who received her, I need a funeral bureau!" Of course, I switched to my spouse. So I did not lose the jib of such a resentment. And gave a terrible oath to save society from this evil - cunning telephonist. And I made a breakthrough and in the technique, and in my career - founding the company Strowger Automatic Telephone.
Something where the PBX, worked with the stub, work now. However, in some way and the telephonist still work! ..;)