
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 21, 1991                   TAG: 9103210118
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Short

C&P DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE CENTER TO OPEN IN PULASKI WITH 28 OPERATORS

Twenty-eight newly trained telephone operators began helping callers from Washington on Monday when the C&P Telephone Co. opened its directory assistance center on East Main Street.

Another 10 workers were starting their two-week training course this week, said local Manager Jim Griffith.

The center will be in full swing by mid-May with 100 operators, he said. The company receieved 1,800 job applications for the positions, all of which have been filled, Griffith said.

"Part of the reason we put it out here was because we knew people needed jobs," Griffith said. C&P revealed plans for the center in January 1990, just weeks before AT&T announced a plant shutdown that eventually cost the New River Valley 1,000 jobs.

The C&P operators will start at $5.68 an hour and after four years can earn a maximum of $12.12 an hour, he said.

The center is open five days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. For now, the operators are handling 12,000 calls a day, but eventually the workload will increase, Griffith said.

The office is strictly for directory assistance calls and cannot take applications for employment, bill payments, or questions about telephone service.

C&P has scheduled an open house for the center on April 21, when Pulaski residents can tour the center and see first-hand some of the telephone company's technology, Griffith said.

The Pulaski operator services center is one of seven in Virginia, and the second to open in Southwest Virginia in the past two years. The other is in Norton.

by CNB