At a business, a secretary, almost always a woman, would answer the phone for all calls. There were no direct lines into anyone. If you were in she would transfer the call to your office. If you were out she would use this pad to take messages. When you came back in to the office you would always stop at the front desk and you would be handed your messages.
These were great! Instead of having to press a lot of “delete message” buttons on an answering machine or a VM system, you could just sweep these into the waste basket (unread of course) in just a couple of seconds.
You mean wad them up into a ball and shoot some wastebasket hoops. Rookie.