THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607030107
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MY JOB
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 73 lines
NINE HUNDRED times a day his phone rings. Nine hundred times he answers it.
``What city, please?''
Bruce A. Thomas is one of those invisible people - a directory assistance operator at Bell Atlantic.
He's got your number.
Callers from all over the state dial for information and get Thomas.
Sometimes he gets quite an earful.
Like the other day when a man called 411 looking for the number of the Sterling Chemical Company in Charlottesville.
He whistled while he waited.
``Thank you, sir,'' said Thomas, ``Checking for you.''
The man whistled another little ditty.
``Hold for the number.''
``Oh, you can hear people chew,'' said Thomas later. ``And occasionally you can hear a toilet flush.''
Sometimes he'll overhear people arguing. Some even try to engage him in a little small talk before they hang up.
``They'll say, `Oh, I love your accent,' '' said the Norfolk native. ``Or they'll ask me what I look like or if I'm tall or married.''
During the day, most calls are for business numbers. After 5 p.m. most requests are for social calls.
From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., his screen at the Norfolk office of Bell Atlantic flashes up lists of numbers for jewelers, formal-wear shops, steak houses and furniture stores all over the state.
He plugs away at finding a phone number even when chances for success are slim to none.
As in the case of the woman who called looking for a furniture outlet in Kernstown.
``It's called the Furniture Outlet,'' she said.
``Is that the name of it?'' asked Thomas.
``I don't know. It could be called the `something' Furniture Outlet,'' said the caller.
Vague business names or spellings are a challenge. But the biggest problem for a beginner at directory assistance is simply understanding people on the phone.
They mumble, have strange accents, or are drowned out by background noises.
After 18 years on the job, Thomas is used to it.
Thomas is 44. When he started working as an operator, he handled long distance calls, still his favorite.
``I liked it the best because I liked calling all around the world,'' he said. An added thrill was the chance to talk to the rich and famous.
He connected a call for Bruce Springsteen once, and once for Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
Thomas never intended to work for a phone company. He was a psychology major in college and planned to work in a psychiatric institute for children. But the government was cutting funds to health institutions, and a friend's mother mentioned the phone company had openings.
When he began, callers were still surprised when a man answered.
``They'd say, `I think I have the wrong number. I wanted the operator,' and I'd say, `I am the operator,' '' he said.
Thomas sits two to two-and-a-half hours at a stretch on the job. No wonder, then, that he stays pretty active at home.
``I walk, work in the yard,'' he said, describing a vegetable garden in Norfolk's Fairmont Park full of butter beans, tomatoes and peas. He grows azaleas, always plants impatiens in the spring and never likes to talk on the phone.
That's even though he has six, one in every room.
``After you do it all day long, you just want to get to the point and get it over with,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Bruce A. Thomas on the job as directory assistance operator. by CNB