ate branch-exchange operator are no less
important with respect to outgoing calls. It is the duty of the operator
to obtain connections through the city exchange for the private branch
subscriber, who merely asks for a certain connection and hangs up his
receiver to await her call when she shall have obtained it. This saving
of time of busy people by having the branch-exchange operator make their
calls for them has one attending disadvantage, which is that the person
in the city exchange who is called does not, when he answers his
telephone, find the real party with whom he is to converse, but has to
wait until that party responds to the private branch operator's call.
This is akin to asking a person to call at one's office and then being
out when he gets there. This drawback is greatly accentuated where both
the parties that are to be involved in the connection are people high in
authority in certain establishments at private branch exchanges. Some
business houses have made the rule that the private branch operator
shall not connect with their lines until she has actually heard the
voice of the proper party at the other end. When two subscribers in two
different private branch exchanges where this rule is enforced, attempt
to get into communication with each other, the possibilities of trouble
are obvious.

All that may be said on this matter is that the person who calls another
by telephone should extend that person the same courtesies that he would
had he called him in person to his office; and that a person who is
called by telephone by another should meet him with the same
consideration as if he had received a personal call at his office or
home. The arbitrary ruling made by some corporations and persons, which
results always in the "other fellow's" doing the waiting, is not
ethically correct nor is it good policy.

=Private Branch Switchboards.= Private branch switchboards may be of
common-battery or magneto types regardless of whether they work in
conjunction with main office equipments having common-battery or magneto
equipments. Usually a magneto private branch exchange works in
conjunction with a magneto main office, but this is not always true.
There are cases where the private branch equipment of modern
common-battery type works in conjunction with main office equipment of
the magneto type; and in some of these cases the private branch exchange
has a much larger number of subscribers than the main office. T