Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Whenever I hear the stories of the extraordinary work and talent these teams accomplish during times of crises whether man-made or natural, I am humbled and tremendously grateful. As a citizen, thank you. As a colleague....just Wow!

@4ucv. Lots of high level data(large businesses, all of the cell carriers, etc) flows through all of our larger CO’s(think of it like the larger airports in our country: different things going different places). Also a lot of “critical services” for some states are housed in Nashville & a few other locations(trying to get the point across without divulging too much info). From what I hear, power had to get restored to the building first, then the individual pieces of equipment had to be identified/repaired/replaced. Depending on what floor had what damage could have forced them to make service restorations in a particular order. Major undertaking no doubt. Hats off to all the men & women who went above and beyond working tirelessly to get services restored!

Maybe one of the old timers can be honest with us as to why an outage at Main & Toll in NSVLTN took down networks in BHRMAL and LXTNKY for days and not minutes.

@3mun+18GJ7m7b it sounds like you missed a few "schools years" along the way too

Well, since public school systems have decided that they will no longer educate children because of the flu, it’s assumed that the younger generations are going to be quite dumb. We are going on two schools years now of children not being educated. The states that have the since not to shutdown are now in a panic because all kids who are educated in public schools are a year behind.

You just do your job, thats all. St’s, Dt’s, Ft’s and Et’s understand. Computer strokers do it remotely. It’s been that way for many years.

And yet, there will be no appreciation coming from the C-Suite for this. As soon as these heroes are no longer needed, corporate will show them the door. Any retirement benefits that can be cut will be cut.

Actions have consequences

From my little corner, I don't see any apprenticeship programs. I don't see many young either. We hire a lot of contractors for cloud services and software dev who are likely young, but as for the physical infrastructure, seems like outsourced firms are where we are going. Do you doubt that a few years from now AT&T will be 200 people filing SEC paperwork and letting Artificial Intelligence coordinate an army of contractors and outsourced labor? I'm exaggerating, but probably not that far off the beam.

If you put an old Chicken and a young Chicken in a cage to fight for the hell of it!That old Chicken will just whoop that butt of the young Chicken 99 % of the time.I dunno why but I think it is called being wise and smart.

I do like to bash on millennials, but it’s not their fault that they wouldn’t be around. The company has been laying off people incessantly by seniority and there’s hardly anyone left with under 20 years of service. We’ve been hiring nothing but temporary/term techs for the last 10-15 years so there’s virtually no chance for younger techs to survive at with this company.

Thanks so much for posting this, I have been thinking the same thing since Christmas. And I am not going to bash on newer/ younger employees, as that's really not the point.

The point is, if you've been around network/ field operations in any capacity for a while, you are well aware of the types of folks that are responding to these disasters (man made and natural).

You may, like me, even be one of them. They are not the fresh faced young recent college graduates that are celebrating their new career at T on LinkedIn (why do I get the feeling that the company is "encouraging" them to create those posts..? But I digress...).

Many of the folks with the skill set and knowledge to respond to these events aren't even here anymore. They were laid off. Some left on their own. Many more will be leaving in 2021, basically at the behest of leadership, as they will be taking their promised medical coverage away unless they do. The folks that have the knowledge of those systems, the interconnections between them, the transport in the local markets out to the rest of the world and to other carriers...they leave a huge void. Sure the corporation will go on. But with the Fed now starting to ask questions about the restoral times, the network design and the lack of redundancy...things are bound to get ugly. You've decimated the ranks of folks that are needed to swiftly implement any changes as well as the pool of folks that will be available to respond to these events in the future. That's surely not going to be speeding anything up.

Good luck. You reap what you sow.

Agree that these technical wizards in the field are invaluable. I do think we need to even out benefits to ensure that the best of the next generation are willing to be trained to take their place.

but the psycho how destroyed that AT&T CO building wasn't a millennial. hahaha, jokes on you.

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

Dude quit hating on young people. They are the future. Just like I am old and hate younger ones hating prior generations. I love my sons and my nephew and niece and will die for them and they are beautiful. Stop this id–tic generation fights

Shoot, I've been in that boat, and for a lot longer than a week. Double overtime, overtime for flying on the plane, nice hotel, per-diem ─ made a fortune. These opportunities don't come often.

Mixed feelings about that OP. Yes it's admirable that senor employees gave so much to get things working again.

But it's also stupid to go above and beyond for an organization that only sees you as cannon fodder to be worked to death until they don't need you any more. At that point there is no appreciation whatsoever for the sacrifices you made for this company.

Maybe it isn't that Millenials are lazy, maybe they're just shrewder than to k–l themselves for organizations that treat their employees like as expendables while their incompetent CEO's retire with golden parachutes fully inflated.

Outstanding work and bravo to the men and women who once again stepped up and executed superbly. Thank you for what you continue to do.
PS: It’s the disastrous buying spree and unsuccessful attempts of reinventing the company along with poor leadership that has brought us here. HR staff who implement leadership mandates are also in peril of job losses. I know, first hand.

Yup. There is no replacement for "I've seen it all".
Hey rookies...we don't get paid for what we do, us old timers get paid for what we know how to do. So sit back, and watch.