AT&T’s Hilarious VintageHow Not To Be a Raging DickTelephone Commercials

right smart back in the twentieth one C , when people talked on phones , the old AT&T Corporation produced instructional movies with a mission : to show telephone newbies how not to be motherfucker . The strategy ? Show a lot of footage of manful assholes .

The films—1946 ’s “ Telephone Courtesy ” and 1972 ’s “ How to Lose Your Best Customer”—center around one theme : tender man of affairs shouting at their poor secretaries . Shouting in the rainfall , shouting in hats , shouting and shouting . The lesson here , surprisingly , was n’t “ do nt ’ be an unacceptable prick , bossguy ” but “ do n’t make minor misapprehension at work so that your prick boss is force to berate you into subordination . ” Gender and workplace relations have deepen a bit since then ! But these advertising came out , and , as luck would have it , everyone then was genteel on the phone forever and a day , institute us into the current day . It ’d actually be nice if carrier wave still grow little movies like this—”Don’t Talk to Your Boyfriend on the Subway ” and “ If You take the air into Me While Texting Again I ’m Going to Have a Breakdown ” would both be large if action with interchangeable Hollywood panache . [ AT&T Archive ]

AT&THistoryPhonestelephones