While down memory lane:
You just picked up the phone and some aged Druid connected you to the appropriate extension.
Hee, hee...not always. I've just remembered going to a red box and picking up the receiver to ask for the number of a girl in London that I was totally besotted with. The number was repeated rather mechanically by a young female voice, then suddenly she said. "Is that you Rivets?" Well, something like that.
I was numbed. The tall blond operator and I were having an affair. I can't remember what I did, but I'm sure I didn't make the call.
As an aside. She was in an ordinary looking house next to the post office. Outside was a pair of red boxes. The local barber was a funny little fellow, liked a bit of smut while he was cutting one's hair. He also liked to talk dirty to the female operators. One night, one of them simply opened the blinds and saw him drooling into the phone. He went before the magistrates, which in a small town was probably bad enough, but he also had a HUGE wife, who had been seriously humiliated. He was a tad more subdued after that.