Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

What I learned at the Legg town hall

I guess nobody but me even cared to watch but this is what I learned.

That the new buzz word is "convergence" and that apparently the only AT&T product that people even remotely like is fiber. And that we somehow have to figure out how to get DSL customers not to move to competitors when we shut them off. And the means to get more fiber in the ground is by reducing costs which means, well you know what that means.

That we have reduced our outsourcing but our Indian offshoring is ramping up at an astronomical rate such that there will be 1 Indian for every 2 US employees. But we should be happy about this because these are our fellow employees "in it just like we are" and apparently offshoring isn't as bad as outsourcing. He didn't go into how much growth is being done at all the other overseas offices but did acknowledge all those offices at the start of the meeting unlike the other US offices.

That apparently the new benchmark of how wall street sees us and how we should rate the success of all our initiatives is the absolute low stock price. Our recent upticks apparently mean that everyone has forgiven us for all our past blunders and these same m0r0ns who caused the stock crash now are creating a great plan that is now driving the stock back up from record lows.

That we need more technical managers because we are a technical organization. Apparently this rule doesn't apply to him.

That our budgets for 2024 will be done with some creative math where we will spend more than allocated because we know a dollar now will be worth more later in the year.

That because the earth didn't implode, that our "back to the office" layoff initiative was a success to be noted on our success slide. Bothell, where the meeting was held, will apparently get some improvements, which means HR will create a new "stack plan" to pack more people into the building tighter than they packed them into the conference room where the meeting was held.

That there are "blue box" projects and "green box" projects and they want to move people from the blue to the green projects. Because they don't actually ever reassign people based on their skills despite the numerous requests to enter your skills into some systems that they are turning off at the end of the year as part of the platform savings, people in blue box projects will be laid off and and workers in Indian hired to do green box projects.

That there are too many code repositories and everyone in the future will put their code in the same place in the same programming language whether that makes sense or not.

He apparently didn't know some other executive meeting was the next day and also said there will be yet another meeting before the end of the year where they'll publish the worst things that people have called him. Because laughing at people who criticize the AT&T executives I guess is the fun thing to do at a holiday party.

He didn't go into 2024 layoffs aside from some brief reference to apparently "wave 2" but said he isn't paid for people to like him (about the only true thing he said in the meeting) and didn't go into why less than a year ago he said that nobody would be forced to relocate.

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Post ID: @OP+1pY309v9

25 replies (most recent on top)

For those who might not have caught the "stack plan" comment, human resources (or human capital per the Stink) was assigned to figure out how to cram people into offices, not building management.

Not sure how many of these I've seen leaked but they are a pretty good indicator of the offices being hit by layoffs as they show how much space they are trying to reduce.

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Post ID: @2nav+1pY309v9

Was Legg lying again?

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Post ID: @2glu+1pY309v9

"but AT&T can pretty much drive anyone to drink."

oh they sure as he-l can and have!

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Post ID: @2npo+1pY309v9

Sounds like the person filming the video did not get people all excited before the meeting and had no applause signs.

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Post ID: @2ndh+1pY309v9

I almost fell asleep during this town hall. So boring and what was the point of the newly hired Pepsi person talking about PR? I guess he didn’t want answer any questions about RTO. One thing I realized from between lines is that Jeremy now strategizes with Jeff Mc instead of John Stanley. Sounds like John is on his way out.

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Post ID: @1tou+1pY309v9

Great summary! One thing to add - Every single person in that audience looked like they were kidnapped, told to sit facing the stage, and held hostage until they died and turned into zombies. I really wish I was over exaggerating. Even the execs (Jon Summers, Rich Bauch, and Chris Sambar) looked like they DID NOT want to be there.

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Post ID: @1rfa+1pY309v9
About the only thing he missed was his talking about the reduction in contracting houses and the fewer bottles of booze he now gets as a result of the reduction.

Original OP here...
yes, thanks for pointing this out. Legg seems to mention red wine at every meeting so I guess his mentioning this was nothing out of the ordinary. Studies have shown that many people who bring up drinking are simply trying to rationalize their own issues. I'm not saying that's true in any way for him, but AT&T can pretty much drive anyone to drink.

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Post ID: @1hta+1pY309v9

@1pwi+1pY309v9 100% correct about "preferred" contract houses and the worker gets about 1/3 of what the house charges T.

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Post ID: @1cde+1pY309v9

Did he say anything about the pension that 30% of the current employees are eligible for?

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Post ID: @1jgi+1pY309v9

Thumbs up to OP for this post. About the only thing he missed was his talking about the reduction in contracting houses and the fewer bottles of booze he now gets as a result of the reduction.

Sad part is that from experience, I know that often AT&T dictates which contracting house a candidate has to work with and many of the list that I'm guessing were cut were based on size. So, the large number is AT&Ts doing to begin with. But many of the small ones are minority owned, the same ones that probably made other AT&T lists of dealing with a diversity of suppliers. And outside of the paperwork, which contracting house a candidate dealt with really didn't matter because AT&T would send out a fixed price contract and it was up to the candidate to negotiate how much of that contract would go to him/her vs the contracting house itself.

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Post ID: @1pwi+1pY309v9

Legg needs an amputation.

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Post ID: @1uvn+1pY309v9
Assuming all this is accurate this guy sounds like a real peach. Glad I am not in that org but we seem to have a bunch of this at the top here.

Although there seemed to be some tongue in cheek with the OP post, I watched also and the post pretty much hit all the big points including how Legg would talk about the names he was called in another meeting from Atlanta. He might not have called it a "back to office" LAYOFF but he did say things about how "successful it was". And Legg seems to get a bit bent when someone calls him a liar. He's brought that up in several meetings but if the shoe fits, he needs to live with it.

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Post ID: @duj+1pY309v9

𝐴𝑇&𝑇 𝑖𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑓𝑢𝑙. 𝐼 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑗𝑜𝑏𝑠...

Methinks someone offshore wrote this, because no one born and raised in the US ever uses "doing the needful" in writing or conversation.

Of course offshore folks will be happy with these decisions, more work for them. I agree with other posters in that work experience is less collaborative because (1) offshore colleauges always seem to be in a cheek-by-jowl call center, even technical developers and (2) when an offshore colleague will typically just stay silent when they don't know something, rather than engage. It happened over and over again, and always the excuses why something wasn't done.

Cost reduction is indeed the "needful" though in that, I would include lots of those folks who like to prop themselves up on stools, start the cameras, and pontificate while taking home many multiples of pay because they are our executive "talent." Could do with less real estate, too, but somehow it's ok to be work 12000 miles away from Dallas but not 500.

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Post ID: @rdr+1pY309v9

I think the OP got it pretty much right. I was struck by how arrogant Legg seemed... more than usual. Definitely a chip on his shoulder. I did think it was ironic about needing more technical people, developers, etc., and technical leadership; yet he informed us that his degree was in political science. (I thought he had an accounting degree. I would have been more impressed with accounting than political science, because at least accounting has some rigor to it). The other takeaway that I had was that he will be wanting us to "work faster", and will be demanding why we aren't working faster. Fun times ahead.

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Post ID: @cim+1pY309v9

AT&T is just doing the needful. I do not have an issue with offshoring jobs that are equivalent to that country's spend on our products. It is done all the time with large companies having the corporate spend conversation between companies doing business.

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Post ID: @ygk+1pY309v9
That there are too many code repositories and everyone in the future will put their code in the same place in the same programming language whether that makes sense or not.

I'm not sure about the same programming language piece but CDO's Stackover flow was just migrated over to Discourse to make it easier for the AskAT&T team to ingest the questions and answers we provide it.

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Post ID: @biv+1pY309v9

T can longer afford to retain US-based employees.

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Post ID: @crz+1pY309v9

It is a f'n disgrace what this company has done to US employees over the past 20 years. This company will soon be like the 1% in the US, where only the top executives are US citizens and the remainder are from somewhere else. I was able to leave at the end of 2022 not knowing the clusterfk that would happen this year. I feel badly for my former co-workers and friends who are now living through this kr-p. Good luck to all.

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Post ID: @arz+1pY309v9

Assuming all this is accurate this guy sounds like a real peach. Glad I am not in that org but we seem to have a bunch of this at the top here.

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Post ID: @qiz+1pY309v9

What I got from the meeting is
Don’t panic BAU
Offshoring is the new trend, live with it or the door is wide open
We are not getting more budget for 2024 but we will be more efficient thanks to growing team in India and shrinking team here in the us

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Post ID: @khr+1pY309v9

JackL399 is an absolute mendacious corporate toadie & another lap dog for chief Machiavellian “Juan Skunkey”.

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Post ID: @yiq+1pY309v9

what customers LOVE is trying to get support from India

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Post ID: @uhc+1pY309v9

Bottom line, on shores will be gone, and offshores will RULE in 2024

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Post ID: @pxf+1pY309v9

our "back to the office" layoff

Legg did not use this phrase.

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Post ID: @yyp+1pY309v9

I can’t not understand these Indian workers. It’s not just their accent but they are working in offices with many people. I have to tell them to take me off speaker phone. I ask one what was going on in the background and she said an office party. I ask her could that not have been done away from the workspace. She did not respond. I ask to speak to someone with better English.

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Post ID: @dxp+1pY309v9

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