http://www.123rf.com/photo_12012828_this-is-an-antique-old-fashioned-black-telephone-switchboard-with-plugs-connectors-buttons-and-switc.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_switchboard
I brought these here because they were a huge part of my early working life. In an office they would simply be known as switchboards often abbreviated to 'boards'. As far as I know the technical name for them was PBX (private branch exchange). The biggest multi person boards were called 1A Lamp you would find them in the GPO, later to become BT. Large companies and local authority offices also used 1A lamp boards.. PBX 10 x 50 or double the size with say a maximum of two operators would be the usual kind of system in most small to medium offices.
I started work as a junior, the lowliest position in office work. It was my job to make tea, run errands, do the filing, take the blame and operate the roneo, anyone else remember them? A roneo was a kind of printer you typed whatever onto a prepared, kind of grease proofed plastic sheet, attached the sheet to the roneo and ran off as many copies as necessary. As a junior I would also if I was lucky get to type anything the secretaries would let me,
Junior was a time honoured position, most secretaries even if they went to college started off shadowing more senior staff. Today the position is possibly filled by interns working for nothing and if it is its a disgrace.
I didn't mind being a junior. I liked running errands it got me out of the office, making tea was easy and I could make mistakes in my typing, if I had done so in later years I have no doubt I would have been sacked, even I would sack me! And I loved the switchboard.
I really did love those big old beasts of machines, if you pulled the cords right there was a very satisfactory twang if you were in a bad mood, and it was amazingly easy to listen into the telephone calls if anything exciting was happening which unfortunately in my experience never was. You know what kind of excitement would there be? The occasional office affair, well yes, but they’d hardly need to make phone calls would they besides everyone knew the old switchboards could be leaky things with anything personal.
No one stays office junior for ever you either leave and get a senior job or you stayed and got a promotion the problem with staying was there are relatively few jobs in small to medium companies where being promoted feels any different. I changed jobs often for a couple of years and then settled for routine.
Anyoldhow it seems looking back as though one day there were these wonderful highly polished wooden machines with long cords that sprang back and forth and made music and the next there was a much smaller plastic box with no character and the cords had been replaced by switches.
The new boards were actually not much different to the lovely old ones, they were just smaller but there was one advantage, if it could be called that, people could now make their own calls, dialing nine would get them an outside line and off they would go.
I don’t recall caring or even noticing when the old PBXs went. I was probably too full of shit to admit missing them but looking back? I loved those machines and I missed the humanity of them but mostly I think I missed the feel of the hub of the office
If you wanted an ‘outside line’ you asked the board. If you wanted someone called you asked the board and if you wanted to gossip you stood at the switchboard and chatted in low voices picking up, dropping and rejoining a conversation whenever the board stayed quiet! The switchboard was kind of where the whole office came together. I miss them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_switchboard
I brought these here because they were a huge part of my early working life. In an office they would simply be known as switchboards often abbreviated to 'boards'. As far as I know the technical name for them was PBX (private branch exchange). The biggest multi person boards were called 1A Lamp you would find them in the GPO, later to become BT. Large companies and local authority offices also used 1A lamp boards.. PBX 10 x 50 or double the size with say a maximum of two operators would be the usual kind of system in most small to medium offices.
I started work as a junior, the lowliest position in office work. It was my job to make tea, run errands, do the filing, take the blame and operate the roneo, anyone else remember them? A roneo was a kind of printer you typed whatever onto a prepared, kind of grease proofed plastic sheet, attached the sheet to the roneo and ran off as many copies as necessary. As a junior I would also if I was lucky get to type anything the secretaries would let me,
Junior was a time honoured position, most secretaries even if they went to college started off shadowing more senior staff. Today the position is possibly filled by interns working for nothing and if it is its a disgrace.
I didn't mind being a junior. I liked running errands it got me out of the office, making tea was easy and I could make mistakes in my typing, if I had done so in later years I have no doubt I would have been sacked, even I would sack me! And I loved the switchboard.
I really did love those big old beasts of machines, if you pulled the cords right there was a very satisfactory twang if you were in a bad mood, and it was amazingly easy to listen into the telephone calls if anything exciting was happening which unfortunately in my experience never was. You know what kind of excitement would there be? The occasional office affair, well yes, but they’d hardly need to make phone calls would they besides everyone knew the old switchboards could be leaky things with anything personal.
No one stays office junior for ever you either leave and get a senior job or you stayed and got a promotion the problem with staying was there are relatively few jobs in small to medium companies where being promoted feels any different. I changed jobs often for a couple of years and then settled for routine.
Anyoldhow it seems looking back as though one day there were these wonderful highly polished wooden machines with long cords that sprang back and forth and made music and the next there was a much smaller plastic box with no character and the cords had been replaced by switches.
The new boards were actually not much different to the lovely old ones, they were just smaller but there was one advantage, if it could be called that, people could now make their own calls, dialing nine would get them an outside line and off they would go.
I don’t recall caring or even noticing when the old PBXs went. I was probably too full of shit to admit missing them but looking back? I loved those machines and I missed the humanity of them but mostly I think I missed the feel of the hub of the office
If you wanted an ‘outside line’ you asked the board. If you wanted someone called you asked the board and if you wanted to gossip you stood at the switchboard and chatted in low voices picking up, dropping and rejoining a conversation whenever the board stayed quiet! The switchboard was kind of where the whole office came together. I miss them
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