Ma Bell: Pins and Balls and Balls

Attack Plan

 We worked in a pretty stressful, demanding job. There was always something new to learn, something changing, always that customer on the other end of the phone.  Our daily routines were so rigorous, so well monitored by so many people that we had to stay on our toes every day.  There was always a management person going behind you checking your work, looking over your shoulder, or sitting next to you.  And people were incessantly listening to your conversations.  Looking back on that, it was a good thing.  We were putting out quality work.  We were accountable for everything we did, and screwing up was not an option.  The quality product that we delivered then does not exist in current service-oriented jobs.  It just doesn't.

So I worked in this big office with 98% of the people being within the same age group, give or take a year or two.  Overall, we all got along very well, and even though there were many of us, we were pretty close-knit.

Someone came up with the idea of starting a bowling league with groups of four on a team competing against each other.  I signed up even though bowling was one of my weaker sports.  I just thought it would be fun. Our league played once a week at 6 pm at the bowling alley across the street from our office.  Our workday ended at 5 pm.  I drove 25 miles to pick up my kids and bring them back to the bowling alley, barely making it back by six.  They would watch us or play around with some of the other kids there, eat junk, and sometimes play prehistoric video games like pinball.

My team consisted of Carol, Teresa, Jan, and myself.  We were all athletically challenged in bowling except for Teresa, and she was pretty good.  Carol was on the kindergarten level.  She would just get up, roll the ball without aiming, turn her back, and walk away as soon as the ball left her hands.  Always.  It was pretty funny to watch her.  Jan and I were about on a tenth-grade level, we tried our best, but we mostly just sucked.

Some of the guys were pretty good, of course.  They thought nothing about shaming a crappy female bowler.  Yeah, it was funny, but what was not so laughable was our handicap.  They had to bowl their butts off to beat us because our handicap score was so high.  It was really to our advantage to bowl poorly.  The irritating thing was just the "kidding" from the guys, meaning that they laughed when they said things, but we knew, and they knew it was no joke. That's just how guys are.

I don't remember if the bowling alley actually sold beer or not.  I remember people being tipsy, but I remember my team going to a beer store, and we would have to run out to the car to drink it.  Bowling and beer just seem to go together.  It lowers the imbibers' inhibitions, which is needed when one falls, gets a ball stuck on their fingers, or throws the ball in the air for the first 7 feet of the roll.  And it gives you the courage to equally insult your competition if you were playing one of "those guys."

One week I was actually bowling a pretty good game.  I had two strikes in a row, and my boss, Mike, who was on the team playing us, told me if I got another strike, I would get a turkey.  Wow, a turkey; I really wasn't worried about getting a third strike; I wasn't really sure how I rolled the first two.  When my next turn came,  I rolled another strike, and everyone was like, "wow, you got a turkey." Or, "how did you get a turkey?"  I stood around waiting for somebody to bring me my damn turkey, and when nobody showed up with a turkey, I asked Mike when I was going to get it.  He just about fell out of his little plastic bowling chair laughing.  And then he explained that there was not a real turkey involved.  I felt really dumb.

When our bowling league was finished for the season, we all missed the competition and camaraderie and being able to blow off steam.  Some people didn't want to have another league,  but the main problem was that Tim, the guy who did all of the paperwork and money handling, was a new dad and didn't have time to do it, and there were no other volunteers.

Nineteen seventy-six rolled in, and we somehow had decided to have a competitive woman's volleyball team and the men's basketball team. We would play our sister offices scattered throughout Dallas.  There was always competition with the other districts in everything we did.  The nature of the beast to work in the jobs we were in was to be competitive.  All the managers wanted their office to be number one in everything they did.  So, the guys arranged everything, the schedules, the tee shirts we would wear, and even the names. They wanted to be the macho Ballers, which meant that we, the volleyball team, got stuck with being the Ballettes.  Yeah, dumb.  Guys don't really have a lot of imagination at times, and this was one of those times.

We had a great turn out of females wanting to participate in the volleyball team.  The guys had a good showing considering there were just not that many guys in the office.  They were technically a minority, guys working in a non-traditional job in the phone company.  Ma Bell had been in trouble with the Federal EEOC in the early seventies, and now everyone was strictly labeled. If you were declared in one of the minority categories, it gave you some benefits that non-minorities didn't have.  For instance, if a promotion came up, the slot might be designated for a white male.  Other people could be more qualified, but the position would be held open for a white guy unless there were no candidates available.  The same practice existed for transfers of occupational people as well.  You might have to sit stuck in a job until a quota was filled, and you could move on.  That's why we only had a few guys in the office; they were quota fillers.

I believe we had one practice session before our first game.  We were there several hours, and I just remember it being hot in the gym.  It was winter, but winter in Dallas is not like winter in New York.  It was almost unbearable.

We had some strong players on the volleyball team, athletic, aggressive, and sturdy.  And then we had the girlie girls.  You know the type, afraid of the ball, not very coordinated, cute, and not wanting to mess their hair up or sweat.  Everyone would get to play, so we just had to fix the order of rotation to provide a weak girl, a tough girl, a weak girl, you get the picture.

As I remember it, Teresa, Margaret, Johnnie, Carol, Nancy, and I were the rough players.  We would jump, dive, run, and leap to make up for someone not as athletically inclined.  We were the powerhouses, the hard servers,  the ones who would set the ball up to get it over the net.  We were there to win.

We played nine people to a court in the rotation.  That's a lot of bodies in a small area to try to avoid when they were just content to look cute.  We attempted to work around them, trying to prevent collisions and injuries.

Our very first game was against the Midtown office.  They had a powerhouse server that stunned our whole team.  People were just letting the balls hit the ground to avoid the power of the serves.  The server's name was Denise; she was their only dynamic player but only when she served.  She scored probably 10 points in a row before my team could snap out of their fear and try and return the serves.  If she wasn't serving, they were nothing.  All we had to do was get her out of the server's box one way or another.  Fortunately, her power had started to decrease after serving so many times, and we were able to make a comeback.

Now the ball was ours, and we started racking up the points and quickly overcame them.  When she would serve again, she would score a point or two, but now we knew how to react to make them lose the serve.

We won that game, barely, but in my opinion, it caused a little friction between our office and theirs.  We frequently had dealings with our other offices, and the volleyball game would come up.  I think it is fair to say that we were hardcore rivals.  News of that competition spread to all of the other districts that would be playing against us. North district, which was us, and Midtown were the ones to beat.

We played our season out against the other competitors and won every game except the last one.  That put us in a runoff game with Midtown.  That was an evening game, and there was a large group of onlookers, family, and friends, and members of the other teams we had beaten came out to watch that last game.  I guess it was like The Phone Company Olympics.

I remember it was a hard-fought game.  We played 3 games to break a tie.  We had worked all day, and now we were physically working our tails off that night.  In the last game, I was on the front row by the net.  Whoever served the ball hit a netball, a very powerful netball.  The ball flew in the net, bounced out with tremendous speed and power, and hit me in the face at the bridge of my nose.  It knocked me off my feet; I remember it hurt so bad it was all I could do to keep from crying.  I couldn't see; I just sat on the floor with my hands over my face until the intense pain subsided.  I wouldn't let anyone touch me or help me up.  I thought I might be bleeding, but I couldn't feel anything but the burning and throbbing of my nose.

A time-out was called.  I staggered to my feet and asked Teresa if my nose was bleeding; she said no.  Someone brought me some wet paper towels, and I wiped the tears off of my face.  I walked back to my position, nodded my head at the referee, and the game continued.

I honestly don't remember who won that game.  I was acutely aware of the pain I was in, but I played my little heart out.  A couple of days later, the corners of my eyes were bruised, and the bridge of my nose was a purple-blue color.  Thank goodness for makeup.  I found out sometime down the road that I had broken my nose that day.  My first of three times.

That was the only year that we had any sports competitions with our sister offices.  I'm not sure why.  I don't remember how the male basketball team fared in their play.  My story is about the ladies. They will have to write their own story.

I recall reading a few years ago that the power server from the Midtown team had died.  Denise, girl, wherever you are, you had a killer serve.