The Railroad Ran Its Spokane Depot on Too Few Men — and the Crew Broke
One agent and one telegraph operator were expected to staff the Spokane Falls railroad office around the clock. The agent finally asked for a layoff, and the wire operator quit, worn thin, for a farm with lighter work.
Perhaps there is not another railroad office on the line at which the company expects a small force of employees to do so much work, or where the trains arrive and depart at such unreasonable hours, as right here in Spokane Falls. It is required of both the agent and the telegraph operator to be up at all hours of the day and night, and no provisions are made for an assistant. It is more than flesh and blood can stand. The force here has been worked almost to death. The business of the office has doubled and more too within the past three months, and yet no increase is made in the office force.
J. F. McElroy, the pleasant, affable agent, has labored faithfully to perform the duties falling on his shoulders, and has succeeded well. He stood the work as long as possible, and asked for a layoff. This has been granted by the company, but for how long we are unable to say. G. W. Stimmell, late agent at Heron, has been assigned to the agency. Mr. S. is a thorough railroad man, in looks aghast at the vast amount of labor he is expected to perform.
G. W. Calhoun, the gentleman who has handled the wires for months, has grown so thin from constant keying at the key day and night that he has thrown up the situation in disgust, and will take up his home on a farm where the work is far lighter and where a man can have at least one hour in the day to himself. Frank Parker, late of Cabinet, a station east of here, will take Mr. Calhoun's place. It is only just that the company should make some different arrangement with the office at the Falls. There is enough business to keep a dozen operators constantly employed, and it would be to the advantage of the road by expediting business, and would give better satisfaction to the public.
“G. W. Calhoun, the gentleman who has handled the wires for months, has grown so thin from constant keying at the key day and night that he has thrown up the situation in disgust.”
A century and a half before 'burnout' became a management concern, this item describes a two-person railroad office worked around the clock with no relief, and a telegrapher who literally grew thin at the key before quitting for a farm. Substitute 'railroad office' for 'service desk' or 'nursing unit' and the complaint about understaffing that doubles in a quarter is unchanged. The paper's own solution — hire enough people to keep up — is the same argument workers still make.
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