Yesterday, we discussed the demise of telephone booths. I was thinking that even in the very small town of Maysville, we had a couple of telephone booths when I was young. But if you’ve read this blog over the years, you know that when we got our first telephone, it had no dial — you just picked it up and the operator answered. Maysville was so small, everyone knew everyone and the operator always called you by name.
Of course as technology advanced, we got modern phones that actually had dials on them, even though our telephone “number” only had two digits. But there was still an operator, and in Maysville she still placed calls for most people. Even when you went to big cities like Oklahoma City, you could dial zero from any phone and talk to an operator.
Well…. that got me to thinking — when was the last time I dialed “zero” on a phone? Would an operator still answer?
When I was little, one of the things we learned was that we could dial 0 to reach an operator. And operators could help with all sorts of stuff — she could tell you the time, call the fired department or police department for you or give you a telephone number.
Just out of curiosity, today I dialed 0 on my iPhone. I got a recording telling me to dial 911 for an emergency and that I could reach “customer service” by dialing 611.
It seems like “0” has gone the way of the horse and buggy — and operator.
— 30 —