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Show j of 5 per cent of 200,000, the number of I calls is 10,000, meaning 1000 per hour ! of a ten-hour day. Reducing this to j terms of labor; it means that the com-I com-I pany hires and pays sis telephone oper- ators whose only "duty is to answer re-I re-I quests for correct time. If a girl re-i re-i ceives $75 per month, that means the company is paying out monthly $450 for this service. wThe unusual part of this is the fact that the most of calls for time of day come in at the- 'peak load hours. That is to say, when the trunk lines are busiest with commercial matters. Chiefly, Chief-ly, I will say, the requasts are from per sons of immature yearsj perhaps school children. ' ' Referring to the alarm clock calls, Mr. Cockrell declared the local exchange ex-change records 1000 of these every day. This service will go with the " correct time5' requests. i FORBIDS OPERATORS FROM TELUi TIE Telephone Company Adopts Conservation Plan; Curtails Cur-tails Needless Service. Gratuitous service being out of harmony har-mony with policies of conservation, the American Telephone & Telegraph company com-pany will decline to act as an alarm clock for folks who want to arise at an early hour. Also if you wish to know the correct time and your watch is not hitting on all eight cylinders, don't resort to the telephone to ask central. She will not tell you. Instead, she will sweetly say: ' ' We are not permitted to give the time. ' ' It won 't do you any good to get mad, either, for the rules of the company demand de-mand that central remains obdurate. "Do you know how much this gratuitous gratui-tous service costs the company in Salt Lake daily!" W. C. Cockrell, division traffic superintendent of the telephone company, asked. "The Salt Lake exchange handles daily between 170,000 and 200,000 calls. Of these between 4 and 8 per cent are requests for the time of day. On a basis |