How may I direct your call?
When phone operators first started
they were young men and boys. However, the phone industry decided that they
need a change as boys were rude and impatient and they were unaccepted. So Alexander Graham Bell wanted to hire
well-spoken women to become operators.
Emma Nutt was hired on September 1, 1878 to be the first woman operator.
Her sister, Stella Nutt was hired several hours later.
Customers were so pleased by the soothing manner and voice
of the women that in 1879 Michigan hired more women including Misses Bessie
Snow Balance, Emma Landon, Carrie Boldt, and Minnie Schumann. Men were soon
replaced by women and phone operators was a female dominate work place until the
1970’s.
Being an operator was not an easy job as you had to wear
heavy headsets and coordinate lots of wires. Many switchboards had to handle
200 phone lines. Many of the early switchboards were standing up for several
hours at a time. Operators worked under strict rules and the managers were not
easy. Like school children, the operators had to ask permission to get water or
to use the bathroom. Operators were also punished very harshly for any
infractions of the rules, including being one minute late. Many women were
punished by being forced to sit in a room by themselves. It was very
humiliating for grown women to be treated that way.
Being an operator was not easy but these women were true
American pioneers. They helped pave the road for women in the workforce. They
proved that they could handle a tough job and do it with grace and confidence.
Phones have come a long way from those early days. In the beginning
you had to contact the operator to make any call as phones did not have dialers.
Then you had only a certain number of long distance lines so many times you had
to call the operator and then the operator would call you back when a line was
available.
Craig Eisner, directory of SBC Operator Services for
Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, stated “Operators were a critical link in the lines
of telephone communications for years and years. They were often the conduit
for information, delivering news about everything from newborn babies to
significant world happenings, such as wars and election.”
Operators played the key role in our communication conduit
and even with the changes through time they still provide the same role today. With
new technology we no longer need to have an operator to connect you with every
call you make but still today you can
dial “0” for an operator who can assist you in connecting to your party.
Originally operators were called for emergencies and they
tried to help you while trying to connect you with emergency services. Today we
have separated the phone operator and 911 emergency operators. With today’s
technology we have replaced the grace and human touch with a cold computer.
While the computer operator helps in directing phone traffic, it lacks the
human touch. Operators and receptionist
gave customers someone to talk to and to answer your questions.
In today’s business world we use operators from answering
phones to making out bound calls. We have companies that are nothing but call
centers. Their only job is to give and receive information from customers. They
sit around and have to listen and talk to people all day. Sometimes they need
to listen to people vent about their problems. Being an operator is not always
an easy job but without operators we would not have anyone help direct us.
Take time to thank all those live human operators that help
us every day. Thank you Emma for being one of the pioneers as an operator and
as a woman.
Coriander Bats 2011
