This could be an interesting thread. I’ll start. I knew this Company was in trouble when: as a field tech I was unable to order batteries for my test equipment, or procure basic items like drop and drop clamps and station protectors.
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The quarterly rotation of 1st level managers that want the technician to train them on the equipment we install indicates confusion and instability with leadership positions. Why can’t we get a manager that knows more than his spreadsheet tells him? I realize they don’t have technical skills or college, but at least a gram of common sense might help.
And yet legacy T was on verge of bankruptcy when SBC bought it...
I knew it was in trouble when the started spewing indoctrination garbage. It exist to make money, PERIOD!
Leave the social engineering at home!
Before the merger, SBC's Revenue/employee was around $25,000, while AT&T's was around $250,000 Revenue/employee. SBC was the worst performer in the group of eight that I studied.
I knew we were done, when the new AT&T (aka, SBC) acquired my company, BellSouth. BellSouth was at least 10 years ahead of SBC in terms of technology, policy, practices..everything actually. Instead of learning what worked at BellSouth, we were forced to take giant leaps backwards to comply with SBC directives and business practices.
Agree with others that it was when SBC bought AT&T in 2006. I was at AT&T (L2 “B-band” individual contributor). It was like they took the worst policies of each company and put them together to make the new employee handbook. I used to get paid NOT to carry medical insurance thru AT&T (I was under spouse’s plan). I ended up losing a week of vacation for a period of time before getting it back by hitting the updated service anniversary. Product-wise, we had CallVantage for VoIP, which I thought was a better product than Vonage. AT&T was also laying more fiber for backhaul at that time as well, at least on the East coast. After the merger, it all just...stopped. And it’s really gone downhill from there.
I agree with comments about Ameritech. I was there, big Ed blamed his top officers for failing to do proper due diligence and pushed them out. That was the rise of Randy... he was treasurer at the time. For those of you that believe he doesn’t have ops experience, they did move him to chief marketing officer for ~2-3 months before making him CFO.... (yes, this meant as a joke...) he has always believed that people are fungicidal - meaning you simply delete/ replace with lower cost people and companies will still buy from AT&T due to the power of the brand. He never learned the lesson that no company has ever cut their way to growth. To gloss over the lack of organic growth he pursued reckless path of buying companies.... the approach has always been the same, hollow out the acquired companies from the inside to prop up earnings per share.
Regardless of when, it was all created by poor management. Hourly had zero to do with direction, funding or any other turn in the road. These people are not leaders, they are narcissists. Their only successes in life will be demanding their employees accept that 2+2=5
When they started freezing budgets and I had to go out and buy my own pens to use at work.
Failed T-Mobile merger $4B break-up fee and no one involved lost their job! Randy survived with just a slap-on-the-wrist... if that! Just add that fee to the company debt!
Ameritch was a joke. Ed bought it without doing the due diligence. The PUCs ate our lunch shortly after the purchase because of the service issues. Anyone remember the expose when that tv station started following those techs? Ed tried to sue the executives because he bought a pig in a poke. Had to divert capital money to try and put the fires out.
I knew we were in trouble when management made us bring our own toilet paper.
I hired on in '97 (SWBT) and stock split while I was in training. I hasn't done a thing since. So, seems the company starting going down hill when they hired me. It's my fault. I'm sorry. If i can hang on two more years I'll take the money and run. Things should improve then.
What the hell is this bizarro world? This company is thru and thru SBC. There was nothing acquired of AT&T other than its brand. Majority of the people (what was left of them was jettisoned). Calling this an AT&T ran company (not SBC) is “alternative” facts.
Post ID: @qnn+15xcqBTE says.......“I don't get all the love for SBC - Stephenson is an SBC guy”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. He was not a SBC guy. When Ed retired, he picked the wrong guy to take his place, and Randy was not SBC.....100% know that’s a fact, Jack!
Jepping, or returning a job for any number of reasons, is something we never did at Ameritech. Unless the customer wasn’t home, and inside work needed to be done. It is a daily theme here at the Deathstar. They send you out with a gun without ammunition, and then wonder why you didn’t bag a deer.
Jep means to cancel work
What does it mean to jep the job? I'm not a field guy so there's probably no reason for me to ever know that. From the context I guess it means either to half-a– it or fake it.
If that's the case, then 90% of upper management jeps their jobs.
When people steal toilet paper from the restrooms.
DTV hasn't ordered coax since December. When we get LNBs for the dishes, its 3 or 4 for the week versus 16 to 20 we used to get. Need a replacement HR24 or H25? Nope. Haven't been in supply since March. So yes, we Jep a lot of jobs for no equipment lately.
I thought customers do not see us as AT&T anymore...WarnerMedia, right? Talk about sinking out of the dock!
Leadership from the failed phone company AT&T got their tentacles into the Mobility business, after being acquired by SBC in 2005.
All of the failures in the decade and a half since are directly correlated.
Agree that first bad sign was when SBC bought AT&T and implemented a reverse acquisition to implement AT&T people, processes and tooling. SBC used to be able to actually grow revenue, that ended immediately after the T merger. Yes, randy was COO at the time and he made the decisions around merger implementation....
When Ralph De La Vega left this company. And they put Donovan and Stankey in his place.
I don't get all the love for SBC - Stephenson is an SBC guy. All that's going on now is an extension of SCB buying up the other bells and trashing them. AT&T is SBC for all practical purposes.
We purchased Time Warner.
HUGE mistake.
When SBC bought AT&T. AT&T did a nice job of smoke and mirrors on SBC. Everything, all systems, all processes were broken. You could not get a contract out, you could not place an order. T billing was a mess, and you could not find a sole to fix it anything. (Has anything changed since?) Gosh, I miss the SBC Days!!
Ed, you were a great guy. You tried hard. What made you pick Randy?
- when Ed walked off and let T run the show, instead of SBC. T was on its deathbed, SBC bought it. They should have known then that obviously T does not know how to run a business. And they still don't. 13 years of executive incompetence finally 'pays off'. All self-inflicted.
They couldn’t bring a cloud product to the market place. Although the break up fee for failed t-mobile merger ranks as the stupidest.
Speaking of Ameritech. The stock used to split and the company would rent Six Flags in Illinois for the Employees and family. Never see anything remotely close to that again.
Not exactly what the OP wanted, but I knew there trouble the moment the rumor of AT&T buying DIRECTV was confirmed and I would become part of the deathstar spiral of despair.
When SBC bought Ameritech.
Budget ran out in Oct and supplies couldn't be ordered damn near every year.
Jep the job...and make $$$$ for not doing anything due to lack of supplies.
And drive around for a few hours "looking" for channel units, smart jacks, etc.
All profit.
Smile and wave.....