On the
other hand, it is only natural that such rapid and yet subtle activity
under such high tension, where especially the quick localization of
the correct hole is a difficult and yet indispensable part, can be
carried out only by a relatively small number of human nervous
systems. The inability to keep attention at such a high point for a
long while, or to perform such rapid movements, or to retain the
numbers correctly, does not lead to fatal accidents like those in the
case of the unfit motormen, but it does lead to fatigue and finally to
a nervous breakdown of the employees and to confusion in the service.
The result is that the company is continually obliged to dismiss a
considerable proportion of those who have entered the service and who
have spent some months in going through the training school of the
company. As one single company, the Bell Telephone Company, employs
16,000 operators, the problem is an expansive one, and it has bearing
on the health of the employees as well as on the patience of the
subscribers. But above all it refers to the economic interests of the
company, inasmuch as every girl who satisfies the entrance conditions
of hearing and sight, of school education and general personal
appearance, receives some salary throughout the months of training in
the telephone school. Since during the first half-year, in which the
employee still works entirely under supervision, more than a third of
those who had originally entered leave, partly on account of
unfitness, and inability, partly on account of over-fatigue or similar
reasons, the economic disadvantage to the company is evidently a very
great one.
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