securing promotion, but go where you will, you will find malcontents who are unworthy of promotion, who are earning all that their services are worth, and who cry "Favoritism" when others are promoted. On the whole, I believe—and scores of telephone operators have expressed the same opinion to me—that the lot of the telephone girl is far more comfortable than that of the average salesgirl or stenographer. Certainly it is more desirable for the girl of natural refinement and reserve who dreads personal contact with all sorts of men and women.
Naturally, the telephone company would like to hold its best operators in its own exchanges, but business diplomacy demands that it furnish private exchanges with experts when the request for such workers is made. Thus the traffic department always has on file a list of skilled operators who are willing to accept positions in private exchanges. Banks, brokerage concerns, publication houses, department stores, wholesale establishments, hotels, apartment houses and almost any frm with big interests, require capable operators and pay from fifteen dollars a week up for the service. The salary depends upon the girl. Unfortunately, there are girls in search of pin-money who accept small wages. There are incompetents willing to work for almost any price in the hopes that even though
