Craig Eley: Some time in late 1962 or early 1963, Michael Siegel walked into an office building in Warren, Pennsylvania.
Siegel was a photographer first, but like a lot of people at this time, he was experimenting with a new technology: tape recorders.
A telephone phone rings, and woman's voice says: "Good Morning, El-Tronics. One moment please."
CE: On this day, Siegel recorded things like a laminator, and typewriters, and something called the Addressograph.
These recordings, the ones you're hearing now, all ended up on an album, The Sounds of the Office, released by Folkways Records in 1964. But there were other sounds that Siegel recorded for that project, interviews that pretty much no one has heard.
I found them in the Folkways archives, where they have been sitting for the last 60 years on reel-to-reel tape.
Michael Siegel: When you interview a person, what do you, uh, want to find out?
Interviewee: Actually, the questions I ask aren't so important because while they're talking, I'm judging them as to presentation, appearance…thinking always in terms of what kind of salesman would they make?
CE: Siegel interviewed people like this woman. She worked at a placement agency helping people find jobs.
MS: Have you found that any approach to people as such is best in this type of work?
Interviewee: Well, um…It sounds a little corny, but I find that I can help people every time I remember how hard it was for me to find a job.
CE: She also had to land accounts, for companies that were hiring workers.
MS: Do you find any difficulty as a woman in contacting your source of jobs?
Interviewee: No. There it's an asset. (laughs) And I play on it naturally because it is. I find that over the telephone I can really be, well, very winning if I want to be.
And, uh, play on being a woman, you know, the mystery of an unknown voice. It very often gets an account.
CE: This voice remains a mystery. Folkways never included human voices on records like this, it wasn't what they were going for. And I couldn't find her name in any of my research.
But Michael Siegel knew that offices were filled with more than machines. They were filled with people.
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MS: What do you like best about your work?
Interviewee: Well, I think what I like best is the, uh, periodic triumphs. It's happened just a few times that I found someone who I really liked, very much, a position that he liked very much, and then everybody was happy all the way around.
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