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The Kitchen Table

Note to Susanjf - re your 'customer service' comment

15 years ago

I used to work for Pacific Tel!!!! I was a long distance opertor in the Culver City office from 1965 to maybe '68 or '70! Right about the time direct dialing came in.

You are so right about the kooks coming out of the woodwork with the full of the moon.

People used to speak so ugly to operators. I've always blamed movies/tv because they always showed someone making a call snarling at the operator.

And another pet peeve was kids asking us to "check the line" when their friend's number was busy. They knew good and well nothing was wrong, but that the check would make a noise on the line to alert the other kids someone wanted to call.

I had left the telephone company far behind by the time Call Waiting was invented, but I'll bet there were a slew of operators happy to see that come about.

Cheers,

Jann

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Comments (6)

jannie
15 years ago
I remember in the old days when you couldn't dial long distance directly. You has to call the operator to call out of your area. Then she'd place the call and ring you back mAybe 15 minutes later. Speaking of the old days, when I was a kid (1950"s) we had "party lines" where you shared a phone line with several neighbors. If you picked up and someone was already speaking, you'd hang up and try later.
joan_mn
15 years ago
We had a party line when I was a kid, too. Each person had their own distinctive ring. I remember ours was 3 longs and one short.
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Jasdip
15 years ago
Oh I remember the party lines! Ours was one long and 2 short.
jel48
15 years ago
We had a party line too, but I don't recall what our ring was.
notjannaz10
Original Author
15 years ago
I remember party lines. But we were never polite enough to hang up if someone was already talking. We'd listen in!!!
J
joyfulguy
15 years ago
Ours was three shorts and a long - Morse code for "V" ... which was, as begun by Churchill in World War II ... "V" for "Victory"!

Yes ... folks used to listen in.

Dad was calling Mom, years ago, before they were hitched, and Mom said that she could hardly hear (sometimes it became so when there were others on the line) ...

... and Dad said that it was probably because Mrs. XXX was listening ... that she'd better check her soup or it'd boil dry.

There was a snort on the line ... and a click ... so Dad figured that he'd got that one right.

Mrs. XXX had a bit of a reputation for being up on the latest gossip ... ahem, news of the goings-on in the community.

ole joyful

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