My dad worked for the literal “phone company”, back when it was one company.
My sister in law worked for the phone company too, as an operator. My brother “met” her through her assisting him making calls, he had to do some detective work to find out who she was and get someone to actually introduce them so he could ask her out.
For a couple of years in college I ran the switchboard for the dorms with the trunk system- plugging cords in to manually place calls for people on campus. We had to dial long distance calls for the students too. Replaced it with a PBX board right after I left.
Would that be Ma Bell? General Telephone had a small portion of Southern California, too. Very small. Ma Bell could not be considered a monopoly then.