I had the opportunity to take the Hidden Carbondale tour yesterday (well, I had to pay for it so anyone could have had the opportunity) and while there were a number of interesting things I noted (such as Prairie Farms Cottage Cheese and Wal-Mart's Great Value Cottage Cheese both coming out of the same vat), the most interesting was the Frontier Communications building (the old GTE Building north of the Civic Center.
The building sat empty except for the Marketing Director for the local Frontier office, who gave us the tour and unlike all of the other places we toured, he seemed the only person in the entire building and I believe only a dozen or so people work there. An unused call center sits ready for any telemarketing or similar type of operation to move in and start work. From what I understand, the taller building of the two building complex, sits completely empty of staff, filled with offices and desks no longer used.
The building sat empty except for the Marketing Director for the local Frontier office, who gave us the tour and unlike all of the other places we toured, he seemed the only person in the entire building and I believe only a dozen or so people work there. An unused call center sits ready for any telemarketing or similar type of operation to move in and start work. From what I understand, the taller building of the two building complex, sits completely empty of staff, filled with offices and desks no longer used.
The large building used to be filled mostly with electro-mechanical phone switches...rows and rows of racks with a contact switch for each telephone number in town. Sometime in the late 80s or early 90s all those switches were replaced with computer servers that just took up a small corner of the building. John Green, who was the local honcho at the time, showed me around as they were making the change. I remember when they scrapped out all those wires, racks, and switches.
ReplyDeleteThere also used to be space for telephone operators, but that function was moved to Marion and then North Carolina, I think. Very little demand for live phone operators anymore.
Now just a thin wire for each land line in town. All in one room, which isn't really that big.
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