In the time since, I've gone through one box of the tapes, which contained such things as a concert and a live performance of "George Washington Slept Here" done at some sort of amateur performance hall, with the name of a school mentioned on the labels on the outside of the individual tape's box.
I just moved on to the second box, and the first tape I opened had the following labels on it:
Again, this is the sort of thing I could sort of make out in the initial eBay ad which led me to buy the boxes. And I was not let down. What is contained here is some sort of training tape, either for A T & T operators, or, more likely, those who would be supervising them. It contains 60 apparently real calls for all sorts of service on phones, phone lines and phone wires, etc., from back in those days (in this case, 1962) when the phone company was not only a monopoly, but also owned your phone equipment, and was obliged to keep it in good working order.
Based on the labels (above) and the opening introduction, it sounds like these calls were being presented to supervisors (or those in training), for them to score the calls in some way, reflecting what was and wasn't done correctly.
This is probably a bit tedious to listen to in one, 61 minute blast, but it is an fascinating trip back into the days when you could make a phone call to get something fixed or replaced, and have the company on the other end of the line immediately make a sincere effort to not only acknowledge your feelings, but to find out what would be the very quickest moment at which you would be available for them to help you.
A few of the calls indicate that this quickness of response was not always what really happened, but it sounds like most of the time, the system worked.
Download: A T & T - Plant Observers Training Tape
Play:
No way these are "real" calls. Maybe they are reenactments, but not actual live calls, for sure. If you can't tell, by the way they read the lines, then the call where the guy slams the phone down (he lost a dime at a pay-phone), you can hear the slamming of the phone! That could not be picked up over the line, it would simply be silence, the instant the button is pushed down to disconnect the call. It's all very hilarious. They probably used this tape for prepping the poor new hires at telephone repair central.
ReplyDeleteI love these Corporate or Industrial-type recordings. They often allow the listener a window into the world of that business or professional. Sometimes, they're even funny, albeit unintentionally.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bob!