A meeting was held today to announce a 40% reduction in technology and operations to occur in early July. We are already beyond bare bones after all the outsourcing, voluntary then forced reductions. Honestly how is this going to work?
21 replies (most recent on top)
Tech-M already has the Microsoft Azure cloud migration, don't think they will absorb anymore rebadged employees, or very little.
Tech M taking over the cloud migrations - so that whole employee team is gone or what?
I'm hearing the same thing in my area of AT&T Labs, 40% cut across the labs. I'm hearing areas like Domain 2.0 are on the chopping block. And I can also confirm the rumors of Tech-M taking over a lot of the IT areas & Microsoft Azure cloud migrations. There are going to be some big re-orgs. The only time frame that I heard was this summer into early fall.
They are going to do more "outsourcing". I've been told that Tech Mahindra will be administering the Azure cloud migrations, etc. Less comp. centers reducing costs (lab space, HVAC, power, less sysadmins).
SVP made the decisions? Wasn't there a whole slew of SVP's shown the door today?
@slk+15chZDqs - Spot on - I have seen friends, cousins, army buddies get moved to IT that have no clue but they always are the leaders or the platform specialists. It was a joke.
All the Arnoldi did at every town hall was say micro-services a ton. She has an accounting degree and she is making technology decisions. I also see vp's with lawyer degrees making technology decisions in the EG group. It's a joke - just have your friend come in and run things but don't listen to the people who actually know how engineering systems works.
It is a total joke and att is just a dying company with people just getting their golden parachute.
@slk - i agree with you as to the “incompetence” , with the clarification that is mostly within the “no actual work/decision-maker” band, as I am in IT and have been battling the stupid decisions and rug-pulling actions for years, trying to create some value each time, while pleading the case for steadfastness and good tools. Calls fall on deaf ears and emails end up with “thanks for the good suggestions, we’ll look into that”
I can confirm John Summers has a 40% problem. The move to Azure is a very clear vote of no-confidence with our IT department who have been demonstrated dramatic incompetence for the last ten years. This is what happens when you put incompetent people who know little or nothing about computer systems and security in charge of IT for appearances only. Note Melissa Arnoldi who was an accountant who led IT for two years and did absolutely nothing useful. Result... promote her to run all of ATO which she also screwed up and they shoved her off to the side. Completely incompetent, just like the people who put in those positions. Yup.... all the way to Randall, since he approved it! All decisions for those levels go all the way to the top. It wouldn't surprise me that a large chunk of Summers' org is going to transfer to Microsoft, after which they will largely be terminated over a six month period if they aren't awesome.
@fxx+15chZDqs I assure you, I'm not blowing smoke. It was a small team meeting and I didn't specify it so as not to be identifiable myself. It's impacting Scott Mair's organization. No need for hostility.
@ezs+15chZDqs you are correct, Tech M is doing most of the Cloud MS Azure migrations.
The peanut butter will be spread very unevenly. Some teams might see up to 50% cuts. Some teams just have 5%. On average, 40% to 45% is the right range for this round. IT under summers will definitely has thick layer of peanut butter.
Fake news
Spread that Peanut butter baby McFresh keeping it real for his Homies
"a meeting was held today"
Really? Just provide details. Either it happened, and you have some details, or it didn't, and you're blowing so much smoke out your a– the people in China are choking on it.
My understanding is the peanut butter spread targets were set by SVP.
40% cuts? They'll probably add headcount to SSIM.
Someone in one of these threads used the game “Jenga” as a metaphor for what ATT is doing and I agree. They are trying to pull all the pieces they think aren’t supporting the structure, but the wrong people are making those decisions. How some of these people got to be AVP/ Directors I just can’t figure out. The Summers town hall was a bunch of whiny reasons why IT is going to be cut, you can bet that if they cut 40% under McElfresh (which is what I also heard), they are pulling supporting pieces.
Supposedly they are removing 2 layers of management as well, and won’t be “spreading the peanut butter evenly”. I expect a high number of level 2’s gone , perhaps the AD role, and from there it’s anyones guess ... 10-20K people have to hit a lot of areas and levels.
Which org was told this today?
Angry customer spit on me today
In ATO, McElfresh said in a Town Hall late last year that the layoffs were not going away. He said they are going to constantly look at the business to determine what areas to cut. The last that I heard was Tech-Mahendra is going to handle a lot of the Cloud (MS Azure) migrations. And due to Covid-19 creating an economic downturn, and other ATT debt, cuts (outsourcing) are inevitable.
Any estimate of how many management positions that equates to? Is it expected to be all L2 as in the past or does it do some real damage to the bloated L3 + structure?