It was a favorite sport in the days when telcos had outside representatives (bill collectors) to send a new person in that job to go to a bookie place or other place taking bets over the telephone and have him (they were almost always male) demand that they pay their bill (always in the thousands of dollars) immediately or their service would be cut off.
The first time or two it would happen at such a place the armed gatekeeper would meet them at the door and relay their request to the head man. The head man would have the guard bring the outside rep to him and demand what was going on (bookie joints always paid their bills in full and on time). The outside rep was shaking as he came before the boss after passing through all the armed goons and wondered if he would get out alive.
The boss would see this, and realize what was being done to the new guy. Often he would turn to an aide and tell him to give the outside rep the money in cash.
After this had happened a couple of times, and the boss knew what was going on, he still might go through the same rigamarole, doing his part in the initiation of the new outside rep.
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com