“Ten TEN – Does That RING A BELL”

Oct 10th “Ten TEN – Does That RING A BELL”

“Ten TEN” or if you see it this way, “1010” would that start to ring a BELL?

You may not be old enough to remember, but “1010 Pine” was the tallest building in the downtown area, also the TELEPHONE building! Every family that owned a telephone, knew that was the building to arrange your service requirements with, and that was the building to check out if you wanted to work for the Telephone Company!

When I was finishing the Summer School program to earn extra credits, so that I would graduate sooner, in order to get a job, my MOM told me, that a friend of hers works there, to check it out. So we went to “1010 Pine Street” and found the employment office.

Since, I only needed four more credits to graduate and SCHOOL would be starting up in a month – they said, that they did not want to hire someone that would quit in thirty days, to go back to School – especially since their training program is at least thirty days and during that time, they are paying me full pay, to be in their learning program.

I made a promise to the recruiter – that I would get the credits I needed on my own time, and at a later date – I will not quit to go back to school!

I did complete all of their qualifying tests that they gave me – in order for them to know just exactly where I would fit in. The TESTS indicated that I would be able to do the math work that the OPERATOR’s do when they have callers, that are making Long Distance Calls from a coin operated phone booth. This is when the money has to be deposited – before the call is completed and you do have to have a good ear – to know the correct sound of each coin before they are allowed to talk.

And of course, you must be able to quickly figure the time and charges for all calls, those at the coin operated-box, you need to collect the balance of the “over-time charges” and besides that – all most all calls that were made -back then – the caller would dial the OPERATOR as they were requiring toll charges to be added to their bill or they paid at a coin-phone!

So now that I am hired, I have to get a “Workers Permit” since I am not eighteen years old. I felt so good to be able to have a job and start learning on the job, and starting off as a “TELEPHONE” operator!

Within the first weeks of being on the job – they took these Polaroid Photos of us six, in our class. They do not tell in advance that on such a date, that they will taking you picture – so you see what I did look like, on that day for work!

On this day, for the PHOTO taking session – the Instructor was not too familiar with the camera taking process, I was the first in line to practice on. The above PHOTO was not what she wanted, and started to throw it away. I quickly ask if I could have it- as she was trashing it anyway, and I was the only one, that has a memory of that day with this PHOTO was taken.

A year or two later and having a good working record – I ask , if I could take PHOTOS of everyone at the switchboard – to just have for a memory. I was told that no one is allowed to take PHOTOS of the switchboard – to prevent the wrong people from getting information that was to be secure at all times.

BUT, then one day I was allowed to take PHOTOS under the guidelines that needed to be followed. So I thought that as a very good employee – I would follow their instructions, I brought my camera in – and took some PHOTOS and am ever so glad, that I was allowed to!

You can see how old this picture is by the date – and that “Assistant” was a favorite – and will have to see if I can remember name, later.

Today with “cell phones” there is not a need for an “OPERATOR” – as everyone that has a “cell phone” is their own “OPERATOR” when it comes to making calls, and calls to all over the world, but – back then, when I was a young girl, that was the place to work! D.V.