AT&T Archives: Careers - Toll Operator

Toll Operators handled, specifically, payphone calls (where the operator would tell you how many coins to put in), collect calls, time and charges questions, 3rd-party billings, and other "problem" calls. This recruiting film does its best to make the job sound exciting.

While these recruiting films always have male and female narrators, implying that the job is fine for either, in actuality, operator jobs were often women for an unexpected reason — their average size. Like most large companies, the Bell System did extensive ergonomic research when designing specialized workstations, and those of the operator were no different. Since operator positions traditionally belonged to women, they used women for the ergonomic scale. So smaller men had no problem using the special stations, anecdotally, any person over 5'10 got uncomfortable quickly.

Like most operator jobs, the Toll Operator is almost a thing of the past. Most people who had this position eventually went to work for PBX (private branch exchanges) — i.e. handling calls through a switchboard in a large building, company, or hotel.

Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

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