There was a time when it was considered necessary to train people on how to use a dial telephone (the serious instruction part begins at about the 9:24 mark).
I remember using dial telephones. And, just like George Carlin, when I dialed each individual digit in somebody's number, I'd frequently let my finger take a free ride as the dial returned to its original position.
I worked at a place that took the dials off their phones so you couldn't dial out.
ReplyDeleteIf you clicked the hang-up button you could dial the phone. You hit it as many times as the number you wanted to dial. Sort of a poor man's Morse code.
I never let my finger ride the dial. I had a sort of phobia about it, that I would somehow mess up the number.
ReplyDeleteTHE telephone booth at Harry Potter world has a rotary dial phone; I had to teach my daughter how it works; (spoiler: it gives a message that the Ministry of Magic is closed)
ReplyDeleteDuring my first trip into Salmon, Idaho, back in 1991 or so, I found out that they had just updated their telephone service from a manual system ("Number please!") to a push button system. There never was a dial phone in the county.
ReplyDeleteLook on a map where Salmon, Idaho, is, and you'll see why that change happened so late.
Tom: The Ministry of Magic is closed again? Must be the pandemic.
ReplyDeleteJeff: That sounds like a pretty wild and wooly place!
It's the public entrance, so maybe it is pandemic related.
DeleteSteve: From personal experience, I'd say your fear was justified. I managed to mess up a call or two doing that.
ReplyDeleteMan, I avoided putting my finger in those dials as much as possible, especially public phones. I'd use a pen/pencil or put my hand flat on the machine and use leverage with the edge of my finger only to dial, now you've reminded me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked for Dept Social Security there were 2 phones on the desk, red and grey. External and internal. You'd brace yourself when the red phone rang, 'Where's my f-in check, you lazy a-hole? I'm coming down there to get you...'
I was a teenager dealing with WW2 generation folks. People get sentimental about that generation, but I saw them at their worst.
Bruce: That sounds like hazardous duty, dealing with a bunch of crabby old folks who want their money NOW!
ReplyDeleteThere were grifters, but also innocent folks messed around by the system - I'd take time to help these and get in trouble with the boss for 'wasting' time on cases, even when the Dept itself was to blame (typist 'coding error' - misspelling their name on records).
ReplyDeleteI saw that the problem is bureaucracy itself, creating problems which needed to be fixed by more bureaucracy - 'the government should allocate more resources' to fix the problems it created - this was inescapable logic to my colleagues, and there was no easy alternative for delivering state pensions and welfare which apparently are guaranteed in Australia's Constitution.
Computers have removed a lot of the human error from the system now, but created a need for more and more data, until we're all just cogs in the machine. And then Skynet becomes self-aware, right? :-)
PS- A misspelled name, what's the big deal right? They'd get sent someone else's checks and cash them, then the federal fraud squad came knocking on their door. All because of a Dept typist's error.
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