Mid Week At Work. Elevator Operators

Elevators were at one time fairly complicated to operate, and had to be precisely stopped by an operator at the designated floor in order to keep there being a gap between the elevator and the floor. But that hasn't been the case for a really long time, and already was not by the time these photographs were taken.

In movies, anyhow, elevator operators call out things on various floors, if the elevator is in a commercial retail building.  That trope is so common, there must have been some truth to it.

Indeed, a female operator (by at least the 1940s the role seems to have been filled by women and men) is the subject of a movie, that move being The Apartment, in which Miss Kubelik is the object of the illicit desire of a collection of men employed by an insurance company.  The film is not only a great one simply because the story is good, but for looking at occupations, it does a nice job of looking at corporate employee life of the late 50s and early 60s, and occupations of that era.

Are there elevator operators now?  I've never seen one anywhere.