In Paris, placing a telephone call is often a deeply traumatic experience. Parisian operators (les telephonistes) are not the sweet-voiced type that U.S. subscribers have come to expect. Les telephonistes harangue callers with invective, cut them off constantly, allow ringing signals to keep blasting even after parties are connected, often forget entirely about completing a call or calling back. Long-suffering Paris subscribers were taking dubious consolation last week in the news that the terrible-tempered telephone girls are probably in worse shape than the targets of their abuse. After 24 months of studying some 120 operators on and off their jobs,...
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