In the early 1960s I lived in a small rural town that actually had one of these switchboards. I remember sitting in the operator’s office to eat during a high school lunch break. For the most part, she just sat there waiting for someone to ring her up. I guess she got kinda lonely, so she welcomed our company.

The switchboard, for all practical purposes, resided in her front room. But, within a year or so she was out of a job, as next door they built a 40 × 40 ft windowless building and filled it with very noisy switching equipment. She was thrown out of a job due to automation. I suspect she felt much like people today who are losing their jobs to AI, they dream of the good-old days when your telephone was tied to a wall.