Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

The fact that it would take me a 20 years at my current salary to earn what Randy will get for 1 year as a retiree after all the c-ap he’s pulled? Yeah. I”d say it’s just a job. They make me go back to an office? Yeah. I’m done. I’m already underpaid for my educations and experience. I’ll just take it elsewhere. Just sifting through what’s out there and seeing who is interested.

Hey HR Attorney,

You can use weasel words and call it a force reduction, severance, whatever you want, but in plain English, it's a layoff, period.

And nothing you mention in your post caused it.

It's decades of arrogance and greed at the senior exec level. T has a very long history of blown corporate acquisitions.

Old history but remember the $14B purchase of McCaw cellular? Their TDMA tech was obsolete but the geniuses in charge bought anyway. Then the geniuses at SBC and Bellsouth bought the steaming pile for $37B.

Lots of other old legacy purchases that tanked as well. Never made money with NCR and sold it for a loss.

But let's skip to recent history.

The failed T-Mobile acquisition comes first. Merger fails to win approval and T writes a check for $3B and gives up wireless spectrum worth another $3B. An also ran is transformed into a viable competitor. With the Sprint merger, they are a shark circling the severely wounded T carcass. Everybody involved with this fiasco should have been fired, including Stephenson.

$600K to Michael Cohen? I'll never believe this wasn't approved by Stephenson. According to the COBC, he should have been fired. Others were.

DirecTV. Endlessly rehashed here. As much as this company -loves- consultants, you can't tell me they didn't ask them and you can't tell me the consultants didn't advise that streaming media would severely damage linear TV and introduce price pressure. And people were getting tired of paying insane prices for linear TV. And the execs bought DTV anyway. Paid way more than it was worth just as cord cutting accelerated. I'll bet the DTV ownership wet their pants when T execs gave them their price. Couldn't sign fast enough and laughed all the way to the bank with their big fat checks.

Warner Media. Here's a great idea. Let's buy a media company and restrict access to all the great movies, television shows and everything this company has produced for decades to a few ill defined and barely functional streaming apps. Genius, but then again, Stankey, a career telco guy, knows more about media than Jeff Bewkes, a career media guy.

So T is $180B in debt after this drunken spending orgy.

At least half of the profit, possibly 60% or more, goes to dividend payments. There is a nationwide 5G buildout that needs to be done including new mid and mm band wireless spectrum builds plus fiber to support the bandwidth. The fiber footprint is minimal. Pulling media distribution back is just dumb and funding for new media projects has to come from somewhere.

So ask yourself HR Attorney, how did the office gossip affect these major business decisions? Perhaps if Stephenson, Stankey and the other execs and the BoD hadn't made these terribly stupid decisions, the employees wouldn't be spreading so much gossip? Ever think about that?

Please don't feel that way. People that were let go are given a lifeboat and 6 month of water and food but those who were spared are still on the Titanic that could sink any day. By that time there would be neither lifeboat nor food.

This is directed to several of the earlier commenters - especially the first one. Yes, it's a business. We all get that. But if AT&T is primarily a business, why is the company shoving SJW BS down everyone's throats on a regular basis? The answer? Because it's not just a business, but also a propaganda machine whose executives like to feel better about themselves by exhibiting their wokeness. If they spent more time and effort on running the company, we wouldn't be experiencing falling revenue quarter after quarter and trying to make up for it by cutting expenses, i.e., employees.

So get off your low horse.

Voluntary offers don’t work. People don’t take them unless they sweeten the pot and you can forget that. Y’all would rather stay and complain. If the shoe fits you have to wear it. Life ain’t fair.

People are justified in complaining. Nobody learns from history including the overpaid executives of multinational companies like AT&T. Its happened before and its the same story. Companies get big and bloated and build 26 levels of executives and senior vp and managers between market directors and the managers and people actually getting things done. Most of Executive level jobs shouldn’t even exists because they don’t actually do anything and how many “big picture” people do you need anyway. In 2017 ATT won the contract for FIRSTNET and gets $6.5Billion Dollar influx from the government to “build” a network for first responders. This is a 25 year contract. In reality most places get nothing but special SIM class devices that give them priority on the existing Mobility network. This is fine but its certainly not “building a new network” for first net. If mobility sites go down then guess what, so does firstnet in most places because its the same radio network. Even with this huge influx of money AT&T has continued to surplus thousands of people since 2017 all while the CEO who made the bad deals to buy Direct TV and the horribly failed T-Mobile deal cost the company horribly. He finally gets slapped on the hand but gets to sit on the side line and advise and now Stinky is the CEO. They claimed this new reorg was going to get rid of the excess executives but from what I see thats not the case at all. Just like before they just shuffle the executives around and create new job titles for them. The working class managers that make the network operate and fix it when its broken, are tired of executives pouring water down their backs and being told its just raining. Despite the bad decisions by executive management and the waist, Mobility has remained profitable and carried everything else yet they keep surplussing people. I think being upset is justified.

This lay-off is the direct result of years of failed leadership decisions, for those of you impacted I know it’s personal. Just realize there was nothing you could have done different... you were just in the wrong place. When sales people who were over quota are laid off, you know it was not based on performance.

I sat by and watched while the company made so many bad decisions, but I came to work with a positive attitude and brought great results and made customers happy in an environment where we are slow to adapt with limited resources . Got laid off on Friday and have hardly slept since then. I know it will be better and I will move on to bigger and better things , but the emotional drain this lay-off has done to me hurts . Feels bad man. Thanks for listening internet friends . Good post OP.

To the people saying it’s just a job, this is just business. We know that! We get that! But this is a place to share information and yes... emotions. Many of us have many years with the company. We worked at SBC, BellSouth, PacBell and Ameritech. We were here and part of history when we opened up our markets and began long distance. It was a triumph. We worked hard and gave untold hours. We are closer to the end of our careers than the beginning. This stings. It hurts. We’ve watched for years as the company transformed into an outsourcing company and we saw our friends and coworkers disappear. And now in the middle of a pandemic, we are the ones disappearing. Yes there’s life after AT&T, but this has been our lives. We’ve earned the right to be angry. This will pass and we will move on, but in the mean time, people need to let it out and not hold in how upset they are.

There seems to be an agenda to discredit posts by calling the OP a "troll" or "whining." This/these individuals must be making a very good amount of money to see themselves above the common employee or they must perceive themselves as high horses.

There seems to be an agenda to discredit posts by calling the OP a "troll" or "whining." This/these individuals must be making a very good amount of money to see themselves above the common employee or they must perceive themselves as high horses.

T should have started this massive reduction fiasco by polling every single employee in every area of the business by asking who would be willing to volunteer to leave with a severance package of course! After those numbers are determined, then proceed with the involuntary if necessary. I’m willing to leave, but our organization was not touched, don’t even think it was under consideration even though Mcelfresh said every business unit would be affected. I also know many IT people mostly techs that are willing to leave and weren’t asked to volunteer. I’d rather leave than have a younger person be forced out involuntarily, problem is T hasn’t asked and that’s too bad!

Big companies should have a greater responsibility to their employees, their community and the country. To do this in the middle of a pandemic is all the worse. We aren’t replaced by robots, but the treat workers as if we are. We are replaced by outsourcing, without any guarantee those jobs go to American citizens. In fact the opposite is true. We are allowing corporations to treat us as commodities and they are choosing to find cheaper products elsewhere and nobody is doing a damned thing. It’s happening too much and T is just one example of a corrupt system that leaves too many behind.

Att will have hard time attracting decent talent going forward

Remember this is business. It ain’t personal. Take the severance, leave the canole.

It is a contract. If u like your job, you leave. If they don't need you, they will fire you. Don't take things personal.

Historically businesses that treat their employees poorly don’t do well in the end. The only winners are the few at the top. Not customers, employees or shareholders.

@1×as. Exactly it's a business. So act like one. Dont pontificate. Show some level of professionalism and decency even when laying off people. That's what many people are upset about when you have these million dollar earning execs sending email after email about social issues when people are getting fired. Act like a business. Dont act like you care.

Not lack of compassion so much as sour grapes. I’ve given many many years of hard work and dedication to this company. I’ve always given 100%. Working ethically, never calling in sick, etc. I always thought that meant something. Spoiler alert! It DOESN’T!!! I want to retire when I’m ready to go. Not because they’re throwing me out. Can you really blame me or anybody else if there’s some negativity!!???

@1xqs+15Tpprdh - well when they give the impression that you have to work your but off and more hours to keep your job you really have no choice. so when you invested all that time and treasure you expect some appreciation it is ONLY HUMAN. remember corporations are people now according campaign contributions laws. what we have in this country is no corporate governance and only a bunch of greedy douche bags as ceos and on the board who think they can talk in public raping an pillaging everything and everybody.

As above poster noted, IT's JUST A JOB, please repeat that to yourself 1000x , its a BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT , you do work and they pay you... if you give "more" shame on YOU for being a s—er.. and anytime some corporate drone talks about the AT&T family or TEAM or whatever corporate flowery language sounds nice, just remember ThOSE ARE HALLOW WORDS. They mean nothing. AT&T is a business, your employment is governed by a simple contract within the regulatory framework of your state and/or union. That's it.. plain in simple. a business arrangement. I can understand sometimes we fall prey to the social circle of work and the people with work with, but don't think any of that matters. Unless your job title has a capital C followed by two letters , your disposable an aren't in charge of anything

@1bvi. Yes everyone knows that. It's a contract and they can let go anytime. But people are p-ss-d off at the higher ups who have no transparency, grace during a layoff. If you are going to cut me go for it. But be a little more honest, open and transparent. Stop with your lecture about things you dont care. For instance about equality and diversity. I dont need a million dollar exec teaching me how I should conduct myself. Have some empathy when you lay off people and let others in the group know. Those are small things.