TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Working TSPS in 1983

Working TSPS in 1983

Bill Hendley (wh3786@swbell.net)
Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:07:51 -0500

I worked TSPS in 1983 during the work stoppage just prior to
divestiture. Although there may have been other reasons I have long
since forgotten, we had to prepare mark sense cards under the
following circumstances:

Emergency calls to the police/fire/ambulance. This was pre ubiquitous
911 and we had to have a record of how we disposed of the call. As an
aside, we had to first look up the number of the local police
department based on the caller's NPA-NXX in a card index flip file, in
our case in El Monte TSPS II that was most often the Los Angeles
Police Department dispatch number in Van Nuys. Before any of you say
" Van Nuys and El Monte are 25 miles apart", generally -- in Pacific at
least -- a TSPS office did not handle calls from the area in which it
was physically located. You cannot believe the horror and frustration
we felt when we were placed in queue because the LAPD center was
overloaded could not process the call. Many times we could hear
yelling, screaming, "he's got a knife/gun, don't hit me, etc."

Certain calls from hotels/motels which did not have automated HOBIC (hotel
billing) equipment ...

Calls which we completed when an error code illuminated a button on the
console indicating that AMA had not engaged for whatever reason ...

I think some international calls ...

Bill Hendley

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