Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1879 — Trials of a Telegraph Operator. [ARTICLE]

Trials of a Telegraph Operator.

New telegraph operators have to undergo a reception which borders on the treatment known to college Freshmen as hazing. The Operator thus describes it: The new man walks into an office full of strange faces, not a friendly hand to shake, with nothing to recommend him but his ability as an operator and his implicit confidence in that ability for his only encouragement. He approaches the manager’s desk, and, after five or ten minutes, the manager condescends to glance upward, and, in a tone full of thunder, bluntly inquires, “Well, sir, what is it?” The “freshman” states his business, and the manager proposes to give him a trial. Accordingly he is assigned to an instrument and told that he is to “ receive a special.” His feelings at this juncture are about the same as those supposed to be experienced by a man who is about to be hanged. Nervously grasping the pen, he begins to copy. The perspiration trickles down his hand, which makes that member adhere to the blank, his pen sticks fast, the ink is the thickest ever encountered, and there is nothing left for him but so break. Casting a guilty glance about him to see if anyone is looking, he reaches for the key and explains to the sender that he is a new man—“ please take it steady” —but this only makes matters worse. The sender begins to “ whoop ’em up,” and, as the cold chills run down his spinal column, the “ freshman’s” pen indites characters upon the blank resembling the Chinese hieroglyphics on a tea box. This torture usually occupies about half an hour, when the welcome “ n m ” (no more) falls soothingly upon his ear. HeHbreatbes a sigh of relief and looks about him. Behind him stand half a dozen Operators, with grinning countenances. In a moment light begins to dawn upon the “ freshman ” he is the victim of a joke. A glance in another direction discloses the fact that the most rapid sender in the office had been transmitting to him from the columns of a daily paper for the amusement of the “ boys.” If he accepts the situation as a joke he is initiated, but, if he becomes angered, he is still a “ freshman.”