"We want to hire you. You've done well on all our tests and requirements. We don't have any outside positions available at the time. Would you be interested in working in the Directory Assistance office until something comes open? You would have your foot in the door, and be among the first considered when an outside job becomes available."
Of course I did not feel I could turn that down! As my parents had told me, once you get on at the phone company, you're pretty much set for life! The pay was good, the job security was stable, and working there had a certain amount of status attached to it. At least that's what I was told.
Upon the orientation and training portion of my new job, I found that I was one of only four male operators on the floor. Two were in directory assistance, and the other two were in the toll operator section. When I finished training and was put on the phones, I got a lot of looks and comments, not only from some of the female operators, but from customers. I distinctly remember one caller.
"Directory Assistance!" I said, "What city please?"
"I was wanting an operator for a number."
"Yes. This is directory assistance. What city do you want the number in?"
"You're a guy."
"Yes sir."
"Guys aren't operators. Give me a girl operator. What are you? Gay?"
That was just one of many such comments, but I didn't let it phase me. I knew where I was headed and this was just a temporary stepping stone.
By the time I left the office two years later (less temporary than I had thought), there were a dozen or more male operators in the office, and everyone seemed to be pretty used to the idea by then. In a way, I had helped pioneer a new era in the communications industry.
My first outside job was as an installer/repairman in Boone County, WV. It was a long drive from my home in the Saint Albans, WV area, but the pay increase, as well as getting to work outside and in a field I enjoyed made it worth it for a while. After six months, however, I put in for a transfer back closer to home. There was a short waiting period, during which I went back into the operator office, and when the job did come open, I was placed in the line crew in Cross Lanes, WV. The work I did there included exactly what you see in the Norman Rockwell painting pictured at the top of this blog post. The equipment in front of the lineman is called a lasher. It wraps, or lashes, steel wire around the telephone cable and steel strand by which the cable is supported. The lashing wire is what holds it all together. When the lasher reaches the pole, a lineman climbs up and catches off the wire with a temporary clamp, lifts the lasher to the other side of the pole, and terminates the wire on both sides on a permanent clamp, and sends the lasher on its way, pulled along from the ground by other linemen. terminates it on a
In the line crew, we set poles, anchors, and down guys, attached the steel strand, pulled cable by the poles, and lashed it up. That was the most physically demanding job I had with the telephone company, but very rewarding. I was in pretty good shape, felt good, and slept like a baby.
From there, I was trained and moved into maintenance splicing, actually connecting the wires inside the cables and enclosing the splice when there was a damaged cable being replaced. Otherwise I found troubles in the lines and repaired them, restoring service to customers. I eventually learned and worked with digital services, among other things.
When something called "divestiture" came along in 1982-3, the Bells System, run by AT&T, was divided into separate companies. AT&T kept long distance operations, and the local service companies were broken up into individual RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies). C&P Telephone of WV was now part of one of those RBOCs which was renamed Bell Atlantic in 1984. It included the companies in Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, and West Virginia.
In 2000, Bell Atlantic merged with GTE and was renamed Verizon. Just for the record, no one I worked with at the time liked the new name. What did it mean? Where did they get that idea?
All told I spent thirty years in the telecommunications industry and decided it was time to take my retirement and do something else for a change. I think I got out just in time, because soon after, the company was sold to Frontier Communications - at least the landlines part, which I was part of. Pay scales, as well as benefits, job security, and employee morale kind of went downhill after that.
I think the part of my career as a telephone man that I remember most fondly was that of lineman. Those sixteen years were hard work, and sometimes dangerous, but we had good crews and enjoyed what we did, pulling lines across hills and valleys, underground and along highways.
