I 



DEVIATION OF R.IWPOM S.-tMI'LES 89 



more detail. From certain classifications and subdivisions of these 

 supplementary counts, coetlicients or equating factors are tieveloped 

 which are appiieil to the regular counts to develop units. The specu- 

 l.itive tratTic man jxjnders over these and wonders how representative 

 the supplementary counts are of the every day distribution of traffic. 



This sfK'culation leads him also to question the labor values which 

 have been assigned to the different operations and which have been 

 furnished him for the purpose of equating his traffic. He knows that 

 because of the impossibility of making continuous stop watch obser- 

 vations on his operators, he has to accept the results of such observa- 

 tions made on a considerable number of calls handled in a similar 

 manner at some time in the past and probably in some other place, 

 as being representative of the work involved in handling those types 

 of calls at the present time in his office. 



After thus puzzling himself over peg counts and similar records, 

 the traffic man may turn his attention to some of the service problems 

 and begins to scrutinize with considerable skepticism the records 

 which are maintained of this feature of his work. Among the most 

 valuable records of the way in which the service at his office is being 

 handletl, are the records developed as a part of the central office 

 instruction routines. These are observations taken on ten calls 

 handled by each of the operators on the force, periodically. He looks 

 over the latest detail sheets and observes that the results of these tests 

 on two particular operators show that the one he considered a very 

 careful and methodical girl has made a high proportion of mistakes 

 while the operator whom he thinks is the more careless shows an 

 absfjlutely perfect test. Because of his other knowledge he suspects 

 these records and decides to check them up by examining the sum- 

 maries of similar tests taken for some months past. These sum- 

 maries show figures which bear out his original estimate of the ability 

 of the two operators, which relieves his mind but leaves him still 

 puzzled as to why the averaging of a series of figures which are not 

 representative, makes the summary more nearly representative. 



There is another set of figures which the traffic man consults in 

 connection with the quality of the service and which causes him a 

 good deal of worry. These are the figures obtained from central 

 office speed of answer tests, tests of the speed of answer to recall 

 signals, etc. The speed of answer tests, for example, are made by 

 an employee in the central office who causes signals to appear and with 

 a stop watch determines how long it takes the operators to answer 

 each signal. The signals used in making these tests are distributed 

 in all parts of the switchboard and the number of tests made in each 



