Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Workforce composition

Is it just me, or is the workforce composition changing rapidly? We have a lot of older people who're staying on because they're close to retirement and don't want to rock the boat and we have young folks who're here for a year or two max before they leave. The ones in the middle are disappearing. I'm not sure how sustainable this is, but I guess we'll find out.

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| 2553 views | | 37 replies (last July 10, 2024) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1tpogKrX

37 replies (most recent on top)

@1jsq+1tpogKrX

50 is old huh?

I don’t know what department you are in, but I am willing to bet it’s not a highly technical one.

To all my other 50 plus colleagues we should all retire immediately because this poster obviously can outwork us all. /s

Many who post on this site have no idea of the real AT&T, its complexity or the many people with vast amounts of experience who consistently do good work to keep things running. We are often the ones trying to mentor the younger generation in the business. There are bad apples at every age group, and you should be able to see that.

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Post ID: @2zme+1tpogKrX

Retirement Eligible and hanging on for a package like a lot of older gents

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Post ID: @2iqk+1tpogKrX

I run into this a lot, there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance at play when people hear tech salaries or stock market gains.
I think it’s a defense mechanism to disbelieve what people are saying when they hear about these big salaries or huge gains and net-worths so they don’t have to confront their own career short comings and accept that they squandered their career/life.

I was in a previous discussion about pay in general in tech companies and pointed out that Meta starts most developers at $250k and they simply refused to believe it until I pulled out the docs (available online via levels.fyi) that state it as well as their pay bands going upwards of $1m a year.

No one wants to believe they’re in the wrong field or that they made a poor investment, it’s the same mental gymnastics you see with people holding a down stock position swearing it’s “gonna go up soon” who refuse to sell, sunk cost fallacy I suppose.

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Post ID: @1lvf+1tpogKrX
Hey 1qzx+1tpogKrX dude. Looks like we have warren Buffet on this forum.

If you had listened to Buffet years ago you wouldn’t still be huffing copium holding T stock and maybe wouldn’t be so bitter and cheering for Stank.

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Post ID: @1xyf+1tpogKrX

Seems like a lot of “management” don’t know how to use the internal tools everyone has access to, including mypeopledata where you can literally look up the salary bands of every single position & title the company has.

Figures.

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Post ID: @1kbp+1tpogKrX
Lead Member Technical Staff pay band:

$171,600 - $214,500 - $257,400

Just because lower management gets paid dog-water doesn’t mean technical employees do.

:)

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Post ID: @1kcn+1tpogKrX
Something doesn't add up. Why would you stay here with so many other high paying options available to you at all of these hip places to work with superior pay and benefits? Also, you've stated that you're young and haven't been here all that long. You're not making $200K as an individual contributor. Get the F outta here with that BS son.

Lead Member Technical Staff pay band:
$171,600 - $214,500 - $257,400

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Post ID: @1kau+1tpogKrX

Hey 1qzx+1tpogKrX dude. Looks like we have warren Buffet on this forum.

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Post ID: @1sfk+1tpogKrX

The ideal composition is India, Mexico and Slovakia. The age doesn’t matter as we’ll churn them faster then we change our underwear.

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Post ID: @1ccv+1tpogKrX

" I got really into investing early and put over half of my $200k a year salary into various investments."

^^^^This is the angry young guy that posts a lot ^^^^^^^^^^

Always complaining about the older workers, tooting his own ho-n about how great he is, how impressive his skill set is, how he'll do whatever he wants to because he's not worried about keeping this miserable job.

Something doesn't add up.

Why would you stay here with so many other high paying options available to you at all of these hip places to work with superior pay and benefits?

Also, you've stated that you're young and haven't been here all that long. You're not making $200K as an individual contributor. Get the F outta here with that BS son.

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Post ID: @1lav+1tpogKrX

"..give me a package to leave."

I am really tired of the use of "package" in this context. There are no "packages".

There is severance, and that's it.

And that could be changed at any time.

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Post ID: @1qsi+1tpogKrX
Since they took retirement medical, I’m “working” until I’m 65.
Or when they give me a package to leave. Whichever comes first.

And no doubt they'll look at this and say "we'll just reduce our severance" and that will be the solution to get those old f@rts to leave that we don't want.

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Post ID: @1vqc+1tpogKrX

I work on our outages and what I’ve noticed is that when there are major network outages with all hands on deck, you never see a young employee leading or even contributing to restoration.

It’s always the old guys with all the experience that save the day.

What happens in a few years when those guys are gone?

There is no one left to take their place…

ATT turned its back on its employees and in return has left itself extremely vulnerable.

We are sc--wed.

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Post ID: @1hbo+1tpogKrX

"Cutting Retiree medical is keeping old workers on the job"

Bingo! The rule of unintended consequences.
It was a cruel move anyway to give people one year to readjust their entire retirement to try and get in a position to retire so Iam glad it is having the exact opposite affect now. The company is losing millions because of that move. Many more people would have retired and be off the books now if Stank would have kept this benefit in place or given several years warning that it was going to happen. But the Stank is always right . . . a legend in his own mind.

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Post ID: @1fbe+1tpogKrX
Saving, investment, NVDA, selling T company match buying stocks that actually go up. Crypto. Stock options. I got really into investing early and put over half of my $200k a year salary into various investments.

More on this, I follow a simple rule.
ALWAYS SELL T
I maxed my 401k the day I started, always took the company match and dumped it immediately, bought tech, cyclicals, oil, depends on the market at the time but stayed agile.
Sold when I was up a lot went cash before the market crashed due to inflation.
Bought back in on lows in 2022 and 2023, rode this wave up.
Held NVDA, MSFT, AAPL.

Bought into crypto early-ish.

Put more money into taxable brokerage accounts after taxes from each check, if I make $10k 5-6 of that goes into savings and investments.

You do that all over a period of time, it all adds up.
I live very frugal, have an affordable modest home, and live in a LCOL area.

I never buy new cars only used, I don’t wear crazy designer clothes, and I keep my cell phones for years.

I live like I did in college just as I do today with $1M in the bank and I work my a-s off to keep the capital flowing in so I can keep building.

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Post ID: @1xow+1tpogKrX

if age was an issue you wouldn't you start at the c-suite level wouldn't that make more logic

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Post ID: @1ryf+1tpogKrX

Yo, how do you have 1 million in stock in your early 30s?? Working at T??

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Post ID: @1efl+1tpogKrX

Pauline Medrano, the Dallas County Treasurer, is curious what the “coffee swipes” are because AT&T promised to shift to 4 days a week to drive the Dallas economic recovery and now it sounds like the AT&T workforce isn’t sticking around for lunch or happy hours. Might have to reconsider tax breaks.

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Post ID: @1xnp+1tpogKrX

We don’t need young talent we just need talent period. I would love to know what most of you consider old.

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Post ID: @1ndk+1tpogKrX
Ironic that your post contains a description of the real problem. As the company shrinks, the only way for people to promote is to wait for someone to retire. As the employees close to retirement stay longer, there is no way for the younger employees to grow her career. So, they have to leave in order to keep growing. The only people you'll retain are the people waiting for retirement, the people who are less competitive in their careers, and the extremely patient people. None of those are a recipe for innovation and growth.<<

Somehow, we all faced that same situation decades ago yet got where we are. Want me to play the world's smallest violin for them?

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Post ID: @lmy+1tpogKrX

Young people aren’t afraid to push back against unreasonable authority or take a short term loss to be happier and better off in the long run.

Good luck with these initiatives and “attracting young people” no one I talk to in my field wants to work here.

I’m in my early 30’s have $1m in stock and told them to buzz off and just been coffee badging once in awhile. If I get fired, I could care less, I got money, I’ll be fine and find something else. I know what my skills are worth, Stankey and co can fu-k right off with their mandates and bullsh-t.

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Post ID: @wbt+1tpogKrX
We need a younger workforce. AT&T is too geriatric.

RTO isn’t going to accomplish that, you know that right?

Everyone under 30 is ignoring the mandates and coffee badging just enough to stay off the reports, or quitting.

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Post ID: @avn+1tpogKrX

We need a younger workforce. AT&T is too geriatric.

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Post ID: @dlx+1tpogKrX

Them boomers have to stick around once everyone leaves or get laid off. How am I supposed to get the yellow pages book?

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Post ID: @cic+1tpogKrX
“Ironic that your post contains a description of the real problem. As the company shrinks, the only way for people to promote is to wait for someone to retire. As the employees close to retirement stay longer, there is no way for the younger employees to grow her career. So, they have to leave in order to keep growing. The only people you'll retain are the people waiting for retirement, the people who are less competitive in their careers, and the extremely patient people. None of those are a recipe for innovation and growth.”

There are ways around this, like more competitive compensation packages for the talented young people, NOT making people move cross country, offering remote work, etc etc etc.
Google doesn’t tend to have this problem, Netflix doesn’t tend to have this problem, Nvidia doesn’t tend to have this problem, lots of companies don’t have this problem but they pay more, offer EXTREMELY lucrative salaries and compensation packages (and their stock goes up, that probably helps) and take care of their employees.

Instead, we spent billions on d-mb sh-t like HBO and DTV and now instead of trying to recruit smart talented young people (as Stankey says) we’re doing things that will drive away smart talented young people and make older people who have less options miserable.

The C-suite are habitual short term thinkers who only see T cutting it’s way to success, they’re the lowest tier of executives I’ve ever seen and I honestly think their only concern is pumping the stock price up in the short term so they can exercise their RSU’s / options dump the stock and bounce.

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Post ID: @gif+1tpogKrX
Cutting Retiree medical is keeping old workers on the job

And the Stink and that evil HR person who left never saw this as the result... Another failure.

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Post ID: @imh+1tpogKrX
Since they took retirement medical, I’m “working” until I’m 65.

Or when they give me a package to leave. Whichever comes first.

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Post ID: @mdj+1tpogKrX

It's not the people....Innovation and growth requires big dollars and funding. This company is not interested in spend those dollars to innovate. If your young get out as fast as possible. Even take a pay cut to find a growth sector. Everything we are doing at T is a commodity.

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Post ID: @puv+1tpogKrX

Ironic that your post contains a description of the real problem. As the company shrinks, the only way for people to promote is to wait for someone to retire. As the employees close to retirement stay longer, there is no way for the younger employees to grow her career. So, they have to leave in order to keep growing. The only people you'll retain are the people waiting for retirement, the people who are less competitive in their careers, and the extremely patient people. None of those are a recipe for innovation and growth.

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Post ID: @fvj+1tpogKrX

I'm a middle person. Cya! Happy 9th of July! Good luck!

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Post ID: @szh+1tpogKrX

Since they took retirement medical, I’m “working” until I’m 65.

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Post ID: @rwj+1tpogKrX

Well said!

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Post ID: @ahs+1tpogKrX

Cutting Retiree medical is keeping old workers on the job

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Post ID: @ulv+1tpogKrX

Young people have options, they’re far from retirements and their skills tend to be relevant to the current job market.

Older people tend to have less options, they’re more entrenched with the company, have more obligations where they live and technology fields tend to be ageist making it even harder for them to find a job.
They also just want retirement, it’s a hard sell for a company to hire someone they know will retire in a few years unless they have extremely valuable skills and experience (some definitely do!)

It’s just different stages in life, what Stankey and co I think have underestimated is the willingness of young people to swap jobs and take a short term loss for a long term gain in quality of life, and with a bit of work (especially once the economy picks back up) they can often find higher paying more prestigious jobs elsewhere using the padding T gives to their résumé.

You’re probably going to see more of this as young people get more offers and the economy & job market pick back up and I suspect T will roll back some of their initiatives in 2025/2026 as they struggle to retain & find talent that isn’t the bottom of the barrel.

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Post ID: @anx+1tpogKrX

I see that too…..sad!!!

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Post ID: @pgc+1tpogKrX

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