Originally Posted by cherylynne
Originally Posted by np3
My mom was a phone operator and she got me a job with AT&T as a long distance operator. I was 18 at the time. Did it while I was in college. That was back in the days when you had a big board in front of you and you had these cords to pick up calls when the lights appeared. One cord to answer and one to dial out. Totally cool!!
I was a telephone operator, too. I was hired as a temp, but I worked for almost 4 years while I went to college. I made $78.00 a week and I was able to pay for my whole college tuition and books when I worked full time each summer.
The more calls you could get up, the faster the hours passed. We collected the money for the first three minutes, timed the call and collected the overtime. The coins were identified by the sound they made as the dropped into the telephone. We would make connections for emergency calls, announce person to person calls and ask for acceptance of collect calls. I don't think that the young adults of today even know there was such a thing as these different kinds of calls. That's OK, because I would never of dreamed of using texting, call waiting or apps.
This brings back so many memories. Forgot about the sound of the coins until you mentioned it.