Answering the call with a smile

A good day for campus phone operator Margarita Adona is when she can offer help to a caller

By JOSHUA BACON

One woman handles more than 2,000 phone calls per week at Fresno State.
“Good morning. Fresno State,” she says each time.

Working 40 hours per week, campus operator Margarita Adona transfers calls to different departments. Answering those calls may seem redundant, but Adona wouldn’t want it any other way.

“The day goes by really fast when it’s busy,” Adona said.

Sitting in her cubicle in the Thomas Administration Building with her headset on, Adona takes calls and transfers them to the appropriate number. This often takes a few seconds to look up the number in the Fresno State directory.

Sometimes there are more calls made to Fresno State than she can handle, since Adona can only take calls one at a time. Adona said 70 percent of the calls made to Fresno State are answered; the other 30 percent are from callers who hang up after discovering the line is busy.

The calls Adona does answer are mostly from people who don’t know they are calling the campus operator. They start asking questions and Adona just listens to figure out the department the caller needs to be transferred to.

Adona said she receives the most calls at the beginning of each semester, when students need information about admissions and financial aid. The end of the semester is also a busy time for her.

Then there are times when the phone doesn’t ring, at which Adona helps with clerical tasks, such as sorting mail or—not surprisingly—answering calls for University Communications.

She said her work rarely gets slow, though.

For Adona, the most rewarding part of being the campus operator is helping students find the information they need.

“It’s when first-time freshman and first-time students call in and they don’t know where to go,” Adona said.

The worst that can happen, Adona said, is when she can’t transfer students to the right place. She said some students who call and ask for a professor, but there is no number available because the professor is either new or part-time.

“That’s the most frustrating part for me,” Adona said.

Although most of Adona’s job involves a phone, she didn’t enjoy talking on the phone when she was younger. Adona was born in Mexico and is self-conscious of her English, especially when it is her second language. She worries about being unable to express herself.

Adona said during the 11 months she has been the campus operator, her work and confidence have been improving.

This year, she has had to deal with technical difficulties.

The phone problems Fresno State dealt with earlier this semester made her job difficult.

“Many times my phone would be down and would lose all those calls,” Adona said. Sometimes this would last for 30 minutes to an hour. When she could get phone calls, there would be times she couldn’t transfer them because other lines on campus were down.

But whatever situation she might face, Adona will continue to answer the call.