Spending holidays at the office is not unusual for Suhardiman, Nurlegito, Sudarmaji, Suranto, and Marno. As staff working on the Switchboard of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), they do their work sincerely. They also organize their own work shift during holidays as a precaution if one of them is unable to man the switchboard.
"UGM Switchboard? Can I get the phone number of the UGM written test committee, please?" a caller on a Sunday morning asked.
"Yes, right. It’s 6491808 or 6491919," replied Suranto.
"Thank you," said the caller.
"You are welcome," said Suranto.
Suranto then hung up the phone and waited for another phone call. Not just about phone numbers, the phone callers occasionally asked for information about UGM.
Suranto did not hesitate to provide the requested information as long as he had it. That is the illustration of Suranto’s daily activity as an operator of UGM telephone center. Although he has less time to spend with his family, Suranto with the other operators colleagues still do the work gladly. The five of them persevered with this work.
Coordinator Ign. Purwanto Sulistiyana confirmed the conditions. Operators who have to connect the lines sometimes have trouble due to the limited information they have, particularly about the activities undertaken by UGM faculties or units, such as seminars and workshops. "Faculties which are conducting seminars, for example, should notify us in advance. Without this information, automatically we are unable to give a reply when outsiders call and ask about these activities," he said in the switchboard room on Tuesday(29/6).
For the UGM entrance test, occasionally those staff pay a visit to UGM Directorate of Public Relations or Academic Administration to obtain informative leaflets. With the leaflets in hand, they are pleased to provide the community with information about the students enrollment. "Automatically, the one who calls UGM will be connected to the service desk. For those entrance tests, we sometimes provide the information, particularly around the test day, the workload in the Directorate usually increases, so that the competent authorities cannot manage to pick up the phone. Consequently, sometimes we put the callers through to the PR as well," he said.
To meet such needs, the operators apply three work shifts. Those are: from 6:00 a.m to 2:00 p.m., second shift from 2:00 to 22:00 p.m., and the third shift from 22:00 to 06:00 a.m. THe morning shift is manned by two officers, while the afternoon and night shifts are manned by one person each. Despite the arrangements, they still need to meet the number of worked hours required. "It’s adjusted to the conditions, we tried to adjust with the 24 hours requirement. Unlike other units, although we work on Sundays, the operators do not get compensation for overtime," he said.
Purwanto admitted that they have all UGM phone numbers. By means of a computerized data base, the switchboard can serve those in need of telephone numbers. Even so, sometimes problems appear when some units changed names. The operators were confused because those units did not notify them of the change. "This is the problem as there have been frequent changes in names while the phone numbers remain the same. We have only the old database. Who are we to know if we don’t get notified," said Purwanto.
There are also technicians at the switchboard who handle PABX (telephone center) and telephone networks throughout the UGM. They maintain the Alcatel telephone center that distributes the four-digit UGM phone numbers and the five-digit numbers of newer buildings. "The difficulty is, when put together, trouble occurs. There is also a problem in the four-digit numbers that are widely used in the university and faculties," explained Purwanto.
He said that the damage was because the phone network in the UGM was too old. The damage occurred since 1990. "The PABX network is much damaged. I don’t know if it will be replaced. I heard that PPTIK UGM is currently developing an Internet-based VoIP program.
"I wonder if this program is really up and running, because this program has been very dependent on Internet connection. Hence, if an Internet problem emerges or if it’s down, automatically the telephone network will be affected," he said.
On the repair of the network, the switchboard staff can only wait for further actions as they can not do it by themselves and rely on PPTIK, the unit under which they work. "We heard that this has been mentioned in the budget plans, but until now there is no follow-up," he said.