May 1, 2005:

The switchboard operator seems irritated. Your childish voice, intimidated in advance by the vision of all adults as authority figures. When you give her the extension you express it as a request, even a plea, rising in pitch as to a question-mark. "Extension three-six-one-oh?" As if worried she'd say no.

Later you learn to give orders. It was only high school. Say it as a command, not mean but businesslike, polite but emphatic. "Three-six-one-oh please." She snaps to it.

The psychology is shot through with the lines dividing people in our society. Class first. She's a switchboard lady, paid by the hour to be polite to people from her very lowly position indeed near the bottom of an elaborate hierarchy of power and privilege. Because you never know who could be calling. She's used to orders and when she hears one her conditioned response is to execute.

Gender second. She's female and by and large more women take orders from men than vice versa, even today, more so then.

As this pattern becomes clear in life you're first disgusted, then amused, then angered. Still, you have to acknowledge its sad and cynical usefulness. So that, when moments of necessity occasion, it's there even today in the bag of handy tools.