By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 07/29/99

SALEM - It has become almost yeah-yeah-yeah tiresome to hear business people describe how technology has "revolutionized the workplace," but the Bell Atlantic directory-assistance office here is one of those places where the boast is particularly true.

Over the past 20 years, computerized systems have slashed the ranks of directory assistance operators, completely changed what they do all day, and even changed the way they need to think on the job.

A generation ago, operators at the other end of 411 talked to people and leafed through paper directories to find numbers. Today, a computer does most or all of the talking, and they tap away at computers to pull up telephone numbers at the rate of four or more a minute for every minute of their 7-hour workday (plus 60 minutes of breaks scheduled with military precision).

"You have no choice - you are working every single second," says Jean Rubino, a 20-year veteran of the telephone company who, it should be emphasized, is no whiner and whose bosses consider her one of their best employees.

If workplace technology has been a creativity-liberating force in many white-collar fields and a labor-saver in many kinds of manufacturing, the picture is decidedly mixed in classic pink-collar occupations like working a telephone.

More than 3 million Americans work at "call centers" such as directory-assistance offices and order-fulfillment shops for mail-order houses, and the number is growing 15 to 30 percent a year, estimates the Incoming Calls Management Institute.

But for many employees, technology has created the electronic version of the Lucy Ricardo candy factory, relentlessly accelerating the pace of work - with bosses able to listen in and punch up their productivity statistics every minute.

"America is now littered with high-tech sweatshops," says Robert Reich, the former US labor secretary who is now a professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University. "People sitting in front of computer consoles with earphones are responding to inquiries and engaging in direct marketing with their every move and utterance monitored, with only a certain number of minutes for bathroom breaks, and with their productivity measured in 15-second increments."

Reich sees a stark contrast in the way technology has changed the work of, for example, telephone operators compared to creative professionals.

"For people who have college degrees and are in jobs that require some analysis, computers have added discretion, and these people can now send their insights to all corners of the world," Reich says.

But at the same time, he notes, technology has been responsible for "shrinking discretion" for many other jobs, "reducing them to fairly narrow, robotlike behaviors with very little responsibility other than to be courteous."

Answering 411 calls for Bell Atlantic is, of course, far from a living hell. Top pay scales reach $37,000 a year, plus regular overtime, and operators' reputations as being "regimented for punctuality," as Rubino puts it, make them often strong candidates to move elsewhere in the company.

Company officials devote obvious attention to things like lighting levels, ergonomic seats and keyboards, and other arrangements to keep workers comfortable. And the Salem office is suffused with a foxhole camaraderie born of operators' common experience of coping with the eternal onslaught of calls.

But Reich's observations clearly apply. Twenty years ago, Bell Atlantic predecessor New England Telephone began moving from having 411 operators in dozens of local offices find numbers in paper directories updated every morning to a computerized system that routes calls from across Massachusetts to the first available operator at a handful of big centers.

Once the operator found the number, she (more than 90 percent of 411 employees are women) hit a key that triggered another pre-recorded voice saying the number.

Three summers ago, the company launched a new automated system featuring computerized recordings asking 411 callers to state the city and listing they seek, now preceded by the mellifluous voice of movie star James Earl Jones saying, "Welcome to Bell Atlantic." Formerly, operators recorded their own greeting each day before sitting at the console.

"The perception is that there's not really an operator on the line, but that's not the case," said Shobie Davis, manager of the Salem site, a 23-year veteran who worked her way up from split shifts taking 411 calls while her children were in school.

What the Nortel-made Automated Directory Assistance Service system does is filter out background noise and excessive pauses or "uhs." The operator hears a three- to five-second message like, "Marlborough Texaco gas station" or "Boston Kerry John."

Any call to 411 from anywhere in the four eastern Massachusetts area codes will be routed to the first available operator at one of seven Bell Atlantic centers in Fall River, Gardner, Greenfield, Malden, Pittsfield, Salem or Wareham.

To further speed response and processing time, operators enter only a four-letter code for the city or town (CAMB for Cambridge or EBOS for East Boston) and the first four letters of the name of the person or business whose number you are seeking.

Normally, that will bring up no more than a screen full of possible matches listed as A, B, C, and so on. The operator enters the letter, says something like "thank you" or "please hold for your number" (company policy is they should say something) and hits another key to have the number read to you. Then it is immediately on to the next call - maybe 1,500 in a workday.

Creativity comes in only if the listing is among a thicket of government agencies, if callers are confused or belligerent, or if there are multiple identical names or various spellings to consider.

One common frustration of 411 operators is they wish more callers understood how the system works. "A lot of people don't follow directions," said Joyce Bezemes, who has done 411 calls for 19 years. "They just come on and blurt everything out."

Many operators also miss a feature of an earlier computerized system that allowed them to search for names phonetically, a big help with a last name like Segal (or Segel or Siegel).

Today, thanks largely to technologies that have cut response times from 30 seconds or more to an average of 15 to 16, Bell Atlantic employs 850 directory assistance operators, half as many as it did as recently as 1992, and probably less than a fifth the number of a generation ago.

While it means callers to 411 are less likely to reach an operator who knows their hometown well, one upside to the move to a statewide system is that it has greatly reduced the number of people who have to work overnight shifts.

From 1 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., every 411 call from throughout Bell Atlantic's New England service area goes to operators at the Fall River center. Salem and other centers close by 8:30 p.m. most nights.

Do operators miss saying, "What city please?" several hundred times a day? Linda Harrison, an Electrical Workers Local 2222 business agent representing 411 operators, said soon after the system was introduced that "it's dehumanized. It's just reducing this to electronic piecework."

But Davis and Rubino say many Bell operators find it a relief, especially during winter cold and flu season. "It saves on your voice by the end of the day," says Rubino.

Peter J. Howe is a business reporter for the Globe. His e-mail address is howe@globe.com.