I swear, everybody here seems profoundly unhappy. I feel bad for all of you. I work at AT&T and I know it's not the best place to work, but I can't wrap my head around the level of vitriol I read here. I'm not going to ask you why are you still here, I know everybody has their reasons, but I do hope that if you are stuck here, you are taking steps to take care of your mental health. So much hatred and negativity never did anybody any good.
21 replies (most recent on top)
If you are so happy..why are you on this website? Feeling unsure?
I realize complaining won't help but once in a whole you just gotta let it out. Artificial intelligence is not logic perfected. Many jobs require a brain and experience. Too many orders going into the bit bucket and billing is a hot mess.
I have been an employee since the early 90’s. I started with Ameritech where I felt I was part of the team. The campus was great and the work was satisfying. There was much teamwork and we all were engaged with a leadership team that really listened to the technical staff and set goals we all bought into. There were 4 levels of leadership! Then came SBC with Ed, and most of the Ameritech team took the parachutes. Then came ATT and Big Ed was the man again and he understood the company as it was!! He was not a future thinker but a good leader. With all of this came 4 more levels of leadership!!! This was a mistake as many of them had reached their highest level of incompetence. Look at Mcelfrish , he is not an innovator and God knows his 9 direct reports know even less. Knowing this all I and you can do is do our best every day. We have had the benefits of working from home. Contrary to what summers stated, working at home did and still does work. There are those that take advantage of this benefit and most of the time they are the ones that are the complainers. Our leadership today is struggling and huge and costly mistakes by Randy has but us in a huge ho-e. Not sure Stanley can lead us out of it!! But I do know that if we the workers do our best every day we will Make it through the this mess. Complaining on this site can not possibly generate satisfaction!! It just can’t and if your unhappy at work you are most likely unhappy away from work.. I no am not a troll nor am I in a leadership position but I am a worker that pays my way through a good days work EVERYDAY!!!
So much unhappiness is because the entire leadership core is Horrible. That trickles down to the next levels which eventually get to the individual contributors. I have never seen so ph--king much ineptness at Associate Director and Manager level in my entire career. The last 2 managers I've had knew NOTHING of my job role or functions yet they pretended to "manage". How can you manage something you know nothing about?! Apparently it's the AT&T way to promote the most inept, incompetent, lazy people in favor of the most talented and deserving.
And skill and ability mean absolutely NOTHING here! I was on a conference call discussing an area I had 10 years' experience in, won an award for, and a di--head named Earl Gamble, who was the manager's "pet" running the show, started laughing at me when I was asked to describe my background in the subject and 10 years' hard experience in. It didn't mean sh*t to him or managers on the call that I had more experience than they did or could answer questions the "trainers" on the call couldn't.
I had to correct the trainers several times. The result: these POS acted like they knew everything simply because they were in higher positions.
So ph--k this POS of a company. They waste so much talent it's seriously unbelievable.
Any one on this site that complains 24x7 is most likely miserable in their home life as well. I have been with Ameritech, the SBC and now AT&T. I meet the modified rule of 75 and like my job! Anyone that can work from home and get a very good at check has it very good in todays horrible economy!! Work from home does NOT mean you wear pajamas, do home chores or anything other then work! Be responsible to your company in doing your job. Do I personally think that the leadership team is competent and doing a great job?!?!? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Ameritech leadership was focused at all levels. The manager, directors and VP’s knew the business and how to reward those that were succeeding and eliminate the slackers. There was not 9 levels of leadership today!!! That is unreal! Now for incompetence it’s at every level! We see Stanley’s mistakes as he is under a microscope. But is he doing a better job than Randy? The jury is still out on that. The next several layers of leadership are where the trouble starts! Mcelfresh is a nice guy but is lost. Look at the non innovative reports he has!!! All 11 of them!?!?! Lots of incompetence with that group. So we that make a difference need to do our job and do as as best we can.
Many of us have 25 + years and feel responsible for the company’s success because we built it with our eager, youthful spirited minds and efforts only for new management to come in and treat the “builders” like step children from he-l!
Just like a Marriage that’s not good u hold on hoping things can be better like they used to be but find out it won’t! After giving your all, simply walking away is not easy to do that’s why we stay, our dedication is real. I wish we had CEOs who listen to the workers and care about how we feel but we don’t. Their luxurious lifestyles are all they care about And now the direction of the company shows the error of their ways. Unhappy workers, low morale plunging stocks, disastrous spin-offs all equates to this new era of “silent quitters”. I still do my work but going above and beyond like I used to is history now! I’m tired of others not pulling their weight while still being rewarded the same as me and I won’t pull it for them anymore ! there’s no teaming anymore just every man for himself from upper all the way down. Managers are childish and unprofessional hanging out with workers being gossipy and showing favoritism to slackers because they like their personalities and being rude and shunning the one who show up to really do work and not play all day. It’s a sad mess. Things became worse once SBC came in. They clearly don’t know how to manage a company. Strong arming employees as they have done has been the demise of our group
T is a big company. There are some places where it’s not too bad and others where it’s compete misery and ineptness. All depends on where you’re at. I’ve seen great teams and manager go from great to miserable. I’ve seen the overworked and over stressed. I’m currently in a bit too bad, but dang it’s crazy hours. I’ve worked at other companies that were dread come Friday end of day seeing people called into the VPs office and let go. I haven’t seen that here. You really don’t know how good it really is here at T. Even the bad teams, it’s not that bad, you just have to manage your expectations. It’s a job. If you come here expecting to climb the ladder, then most will be disappointed. I used to want to climb the ladder, then I learned it’s a fools errand and probably not going to happen no matter how hard I try or how well I perform. Treat it like a job, do what you have to and go home. Get your paycheck, save for tomorrow. Be open to other opportunities at other companies.
"Sure you can quit if unhappy but most of us are not rich enough to pay for CORBA and go without income"
Another option available is to look for another job.
ATT goea out of its way to make employees miserable. I had a foreign manager yell and scream everyday. We were told we were expendable. Some were pushed out to a contracting company.
Sure you can quit if unhappy but most of us are not rich enough to pay for CORBA and go without income.
Uuummmmm…because the drastic dysfunction of this once great nation is inescapable these days. Remember when you used to go to work to get away from the life grind, now the wokeness is completely surrounding you…all day, every day! Now everyone has their eyes wide open and are starting to see your escape benefits (they used to attract the great work force to come work for them) slowly (and continue) to erode away…this does not come as a surprise to those that have been paying attention through the last 2 decades and continuously voted contract “no”….what’s surprising is it took a lot of minions this long to notice. You don’t see the executive leadership roles complaining (they have gotten theirs at your expense for 2 decades) or the world getting angry over the 401k match rates, pensions, wages, healthcare shares/costs etc…that were taken away with the last economy “crisis” that never returned….all while corporate profits have been at record high levels! I mean, if we’re going to go woke, might wake the h*ll up on all the erosion of employee benefits while you have the captive audience on your side! Wish the best for everyone but I have been stocking and bracing for the very long haul we have in front of us at this time.
These upper management stooges haven’t a clue how they’re paying people to sit around doing very little if anything. They’ll never know because lower management covers for their people to save their own a$$e$! Money for nothing, why would anyone leave a high paying low input job!
My life is going nowhere so I have nothing else. Just mad at everyone.
Where elso can a person hire on and collect a paycheck while acting like they are working while actually working a second job elsewhere? Management is clueless so it's a win win for everyone.
Nah. Where else can I get paid to sleep all day at home.
Work out of my home office. The morale is horrible and any camaraderie is non existent, but I stopped caring about that type of stuff a long time ago. I’m on my partners medical insurance so I don’t need the garbage offered here. I get pad well and I get quite a bit of vacation even though they took some away. That’s enough to keep me around until asked to go.
I'm happy.
It's Thursday.
I've done 4 jobs this week and have 61 hours in.
already in to 6 figures.
Taking 3 weeks of vaca starting next week.
Perfect!!!
Been here 25 years as craft. Good pay..great benefits..union contract..I hear Comcast is looking for contractors.
starting over with one week vacation after earning four. Trying to get two more years and gone. I meet rule of 75, but not the modified rule. Many put in 20 years or more, but are tole the stockholder who bought stock yesterday is more important. I guess if you have a million shares and stock options, we can guess why labor costs and benefits are cut.
Cuz it's easier to stay around and complain than to actually put an effort to find something better. Lazy.
Makes me wonder how long the OP has worked here. If you’re a new employee yes you may think T is great.
Try working here 5, 10, 15 years surviving layoff after layoff caused by horrible leadership decisions, horrible and totally inept front line managers promoted not on ability but promoted based on race, wokeness, extreme nepotism, LGBTQ, utterly horrible merit raises or none at all EVEN though you received a good APR. The list goes on for a mile.
You must be where they hand out the good mushrooms…