The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational GuidanceWillison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady
History
The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational Guidance
Willison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady
Women -- Employment -- Canada; Women -- Vocational guidance -- Canada
Skilled operators are often employed in private exchanges and when they
are competent they earn from twelve to fifteen dollars a week or more.
The most important switchboards are in hotels, apartment houses, public
and governmental offices, stores and private offices. The work is often
exacting and in many cases requires executive ability and resourcefulness.
The operator is expected to answer calls, make connections, answer
questions and keep account of the number of calls made. Sometimes important
business depends on the good-will, executive energy, judgment and quick
thought of the girl at the switchboard. A young woman of strong vitality
and good mind--where she has responsibility and can use initiative--finds
this work fascinating. Such a worker sometimes wins important promotion
because she is able to show that she can manage both people and critical
situations and has business and financial judgment.
* * * * *
Telegraphy also offers employment for girls, but not to the same extent
as the telephone exchange. The automatic machine has made a considerable
change in this occupation. The Morse operator is now employed to a much
smaller extent than formerly. There are still a number of men and women
who are Morse operators, but they are being replaced to a certain extent
by girls who operate automatic machines. The machines are extremely
ingenious and do away with the necessity for the operator to understand
or use a code.
Telegraph companies in some cases maintain a school for the instruction of
Morse operators, and girls who enter telegraphy receive a weekly wage while
at the school, as is the case with girls in the telephone school. In some
cases instruction is given during work in the operating room. Schools are
at central points only. If the girl who wants to learn telegraphy lives
in a small town or in the country, she must be taught by the telegraph
operator. A number of girl operators are to be found in country offices.
The writer remembers specially two of these girls. One was in a telegraph
and cable office down by the sea. She had been a telephone operator and
had learned telegraphy from the telegrapher in the same office. The other
girl was in an inland railway office, and had learned from her brother,
who had held the position before her. Both these girls were earning good
salaries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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