Many Reach Out to Put Touch on Someone--and Mom Pays

Margie Blue unplugged her headset, shook her head in amazement and laughed.

It wasn’t the deluge of Mother’s Day callers that astonished the 30-year-old AT&T; operator. It was the children who called long-distance to pay their respects to mom and reversed the charges.

“I’m just surprised that everyone’s calling their mother collect,” Blue said with a chuckle. “My mother would hang up the phone on me. She’d say, ‘Girl, you’re crazy.’ ”

Mother’s Day is the third-busiest holiday of the year for the long-distance phone company, with Christmas and Valentine’s Day finishing first and second, respectively. And on Sunday, AT&T;’s main switching station for the city of Los Angeles was hopping.

“You just have to put your frustration on hold,” said Blue as she disconnected herself from her switchboard to take a break, “and put your temper on more hold.”

AT&T; more than doubled its usual Sunday shift in order to handle the avalanche of long-distance calls, which was estimated at more than 500,000 calls outgoing from Los Angeles and requiring operator assistance. On a typical Sunday, AT&T; operators handle about 14 million interstate calls nationwide. On Mother’s Day, phone company officials estimated that figure would jump to 22.7 million.

Someone on the Line

Chances are that if you made an operator-assisted call from this city on Sunday, you probably spoke with one of the 36 operators in an office perched above the Hollywood Freeway who were diligently trying to break into interminably busy circuits.

And chances also are that if you called your mother collect, you were the subject of a gentle tongue-lashing--after you hung up, of course.

“It’s kind of tacky, I think,” said 32-year-old operator Steve Mettler. “A lot of times, if they’re calling collect, the first thing they say after the charges are accepted is ‘Happy Mother’s Day,’ which amazes me personally.”

And, surprisingly, said AT&T; manager Gay Menifee, “it’s not so much the ladies, but the gentlemen” who call their mothers collect.

Reason for Sadness

But there are some collect calls, Mettler said, that are saddening.

“It’s a shame,” Mettler said, “when people from the County Jail call collect and the mother won’t accept the call. The guy sounds crushed, and he’ll say to me ‘But it’s my own mother.’ And there’s not much I can do except say ‘Please try again later.’ We can’t get personally involved.”

Also troublesome is dealing with the huge number of callers trying to get through on Mother’s Day.

“I’m getting real tired of saying ‘the circuits are busy,’ ” Mettler said jokingly. “People are always saying to me ‘Are you a person or a recording?’ ”

This weekend, however, the phone company was hit with a double whammie. “La Dia de las Madres” (Mexican Mother’s Day) was Friday, and the phone company estimated its operator-assisted calls were up by almost 50,000 calls that day.

“There are many more calls than usual to places like El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua,” said Blue, who has picked up a functional use of Spanish simply from being a long-distance operator. “I do whatever it takes to get the call through,” she said, “sometimes a little Spanish helps out.”

Operators Still Needed

The myriad of long-distance phone companies that offer discount rates--but no human assistance--were also, no doubt, suffering from overloaded circuits on Sunday. But Gilette Barbera, supervisor of AT&T;’s Hollywood switching station and a 23-year veteran of Ma Bell, dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

“You need an operator. What would people do without us? You know how many 90-year-old ladies call? They’re lonely, they need someone to talk to. We give them a few kind words.

“I just had a guy call from LAX,” she recounted. “He couldn’t figure out how to put his credit card in the pay phone. We’re still needed.”