f central-office
equipments about fourteen years ago, a switchboard was installed with
mechanical visual signals and answering-jacks on a flat-top board, and
an arrangement of operators such that the signal of any call was
extremely prominent and in easy reach of each one of four or possibly
five operators. Associated with the line signals within the reach of
such a group was an auxiliary lamp signal which would light when a call
was made by any of the lines so terminating. It was found that with this
arrangement the calls were answered in a strictly even manner, special
rushes being cared for by the joint efforts of the group rather than
serving to swamp the operator who happened to be in charge of the
particular section affected by the rush.

This principle has been tried out in so many ways that it is astonishing
that it is not recognized as being a vital one. The whole matter is
accomplished by impressing upon each operator that her duty is, _not_ to
answer the calls of a specific number of lines before her, but to
answer, with such promptness as is possible, _any call which is within
the reach of her answering equipment_.

=Observation of Service.= All that is required to be known concerning
the form of address and courtesy may be learned by a close observation
of the operators' work by the chief operators and monitors, and by the
use of listening circuits permanently connected to the operators' sets.
It is naturally necessary that the use of these listening circuits by
the chief operator or her assistants must not be known to the operators
at the times of use, even though they may know of the existence of such
facilities.

With a well-designed and properly maintained automatic equipment, the
eight elements of good manual service reduce themselves to only one or
two. Freedom from failure by busy lines and failure to answer are
service-qualities independent of the kind of switching apparatus. Too
great a percentage of busy calls for a given line indicates that the
telephone facilities for calls incoming to that subscriber are
inadequate. The best condition would be for each subscriber to have
lines enough so that none of them ever would be found busy. This is the
condition the telephone company tries to establish between its various
offices.

In manual practice it is possible to keep such records as will enable
the traffic department to know when the lines to a subscriber are
insufficient for the traffic trying