The Spirit of Service:
At its peak, the Bell System employed a million people. Our job was providing telephone service and keeping it working. We believed we were providing a public service. Telephone service was vitally important to the well-being of our Customers: calling the fire department, an ambulance, or the police, for example.
A painting of Angus MacDonald hung in many Bell System buildings. It showed him patrolling the telephone lines during a blizzard in New England. Wearing snowshoes, MacDonald knocked the snow off the lines so they would not break under the weight of snow and ice. The painting was titled “The Spirit of Service.”
Most of us, maybe all of us, aspired to be our own versions of Angus MacDonald. Many of us worked with a person, who, on a particular day, in a particular situation, was just that: an “Angus MacDonald.” I don’t remember ever being taught this value, this cultural norm. Instead, it was inspired by listening to the stories that co-workers told about each other.
It’s quite remarkable: a million otherwise ordinary people all over the country, on occasion, doing extraordinary things to provide telephone service.
The Story’s Context:
The Cumberland District was part of the Western Maryland Division of The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of Maryland, “C&P.” It covered Maryland’s two western-most counties, Allegany and Garrett.
Personal Note: Early in my career, my “impossible dream” aspiration was to become Division Manager — Western Maryland: 4th level when I was 2nd … office in my hometown … responsible for my beloved part of Maryland.
Allegany and Garrett counties are bounded on the north by the Mason-Dixon Line and Pennsylvania, on the south and west by the North Branch of the Potomac River and West Virginia , and on the east by Sideling Hill. Its 1,100 square miles are a mountainous and sparsely populated part of Maryland. Today, the population is about 100,000, a population density of about 91 compared to 611 for all of Maryland.
In the mid-1970’s, I was a twenty-something 2nd level outside plant engineer and then network operations manager working in the Cumberland District.
The Cumberland District had 15 central offices. Allegany County had 8: Cresaptown, two in Cumberland (the county seat), Flintstone, Frostburg, Lonaconing, Mount Savage, and Oldtown. Garrett County had 7: Accident, Bittinger, Friendsville, Grantsville, Kitzmiller, Oakland (the county seat), and Thayerville.
(Note for Telecom Aficionados: Kitzmiller is a very a small town on the North Branch of the Potomac River. Kitzmiller and its surround were served by a 600-line class 5 end office with a 355 CDO (Community Dial Office) step-by-step electromechanical switching system. Kitzmiller homed on a class 4/5 toll center in Oakland. Long distance calls from a class 5 office were routed to a class 4 office and then on through the network to their final destination.)
(Personal Note: Oakland also had a step-by-step switching system which my Dad helped put in service in the early 1950’s. My team replaced Oakland’s and Frostburg’s “steppers” with #2B Electronic Switching Systems (ESS) in October 1977 and December 1977, respectively. Daughter Emily was born in November. It was a busy three months.)
In my era, one of my 1st level central office foremen, Harry, and 4 technicians were responsible for all the central offices in Garrett County. Only Oakland had full-time on-site technicians, and then only from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Kitizmiller and the other CDOs were handled by 2 mobile technicians.
When there was a fault in these small unmanned CDOs, it triggered a major alarm for serious problems and a minor alarm for lower priority problems. The alarm lit a lamp on the first two operator positions on a remote switchboard where operators were otherwise handling calls requiring human assistance. An operator saw the lamp and called the right person to respond to problem. The only available information was the name of the central office and whether the alarm was major (a red lamp) or minor (a yellow lamp).
The Story:
On Harry’s wedding day, the red lamp lit for Kitzmiller. That was the day he … and his bride … became Angus MacDonald’s.
At the time Harry, was not yet a foreman. He was the only mobile technician for all of Garrett County. Harry was a big, strawberry blond, taciturn guy, quite technically competent and a good supervisor. Like my father-in-law, Harry was drafted into the Army late in World War II and was on a troopship headed across the Pacific to be part of the invasion of Japan when, thankfully, the war ended. But I diverge.
Harry was called at home to dispatch to Kitzmiller to find and fix the problem causing the major alarm. He told the dispatcher that it would take a little longer than normal for him to arrive at Kitzmiller. This probably annoyed the dispatcher, even more because Harry didn’t explain why he would be delayed. The dispatcher had little choice but to wait for Harry to arrive because the only alternative was to dispatch a mobile technician from the Allegany County, at least 1.5 hours away.
What Harry didn’t say was that he was on his way to his (relatively late in life) wedding, which was to be a small, quick ceremony in Oakland.
Immediately after the wedding, Harry arrived at Kitzmiller and quickly fixed the problem while his brand-new bride waited outside in the car. They then went on their way for their road trip honeymoon.
Imagine that. Starting your marriage with a work interruption within an hour of your wedding. Putting your personal life on hold for a little while on perhaps one of the most important days of your life so that you could help ensure Customer service.
My Advice:
I cannot remember specifically who told me the story, but it wasn’t Harry. As was the case with many Spirit of Service stories, they were told among co-workers about each other, around the coffee pot in the breakroom … at retirement, promotion, and going-away parties … or at funeral wakes.
Stories were how the Spirit of Service culture and values were set, shared, and celebrated. These stories weren’t selected by management. Instead, they emerged from the collective, informal wisdom of the team. Further, these stories were not about distant super-heroes. They were about co-workers who you knew well, often neighbors, friends, and family. They were about “ordinary” people, just like you or me, who did remarkable things. Just like you or I could when an opportunity presented itself.
If you want to assess the culture in your team, listen to the stories told about Customer service. Some will unfortunately and inevitably be toxic. Some will poke good-natured fun at mistakes. But hopefully most will be about “ordinary” people rising to the extraordinary to protect and deliver Customer service.
As a leader, you can explicitly sanction and acknowledge the importance of storytelling, a powerful tool for inculcating values. Set the example by telling or re-telling stories about co-workers that model the culture you want. And solicit stories from others.
The erosion of employee loyalty to organizations is partly the result of organizations not seeing the often “invisible” extraordinary acts of employee loyalty and/or not adequately recognizing the value of this loyalty. As companies have increasingly treated employees as expendable, so have employees treated their employers as expendable. Not good for anyone: communities, employees, Customers, or shareowners. Return your employees’ loyalty to Customers and your business with your loyalty and your business’s loyalty to them.
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