The centenary
Telefónica’s centenary this year has brought us moments of emotion, emotion, gratitude… 2024 is a unique year, and from this very round anniversary, we look back on the past with pride and imagine the future with enthusiasm.
In this atmosphere of celebration, by chance (although I don’t really believe in coincidences) one day a colleague told me that another colleague had told her that she had a neighbour…, a telephonist, who would like to get to know our current headquarters, Telefónica District.
Julia and Ángeles, ‘telephonists’ for ever.
I immediately saw the opportunity to take advantage of the visit to interview her and immerse ourselves in what Telefónica was like before the turn of the century. From that first call to Julia Gil with my proposal, many others followed. I didn’t find myself in an extelefónica. No. She breathed Telefónica from every pore, as if she were still in this house. Julia did not talk about Telefónica or Telefónica but about ‘my Telefónica’, an important nuance. And not only did she come to talk among colleagues, but in that spirit of collaborating wherever necessary, she made herself available to the external media, including radio and television stations, to answer their questions and concerns.
That’s Julia, forward-looking and prudent at the same time, smiling, positive, affectionate, radiant, respectful, loving… I share our chat here, with her and her friend Ángeles Herrero, whom she encouraged to live this experience together. Angelines (as I soon called her) was also very endearing to me, and she transmitted her telephone spirit, her courage, sense of humour and enormous sympathy.
Portrait of an era, the 1960s
The chat with these ‘two cable girls’, who started in the 1960s, gives us a good portrait of the Telefónica of the last century, and of what it was like to work in that spectacular headquarters at Gran Vía 28, with lifts with buttons, right in the centre of Madrid. A ‘Telefónica’ that ‘sold time’ and served subscribers, and in which the telephone operators, fundamental pillars of a company in expansion and growth, led a change of era.
