Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

The McDonald’s Stankey described in his diatribe about Culture Wars doesn’t exist anymore. I seriously doubt they’ve been to a McDonald’s in the last 30 years because it’s beneath them.
Most McDonald’s have an ordering Kiosk, which effectively replaces cashiers. You order what you want , how you want it. McDonald’s also has an App so that the food is ready when you get there. Order the food however you want it. Stankey described a McDonald’s developed by Ray Kroc back in the 1950s, some 70 years ago. It was a very structured McDonald’s, but that’s long gone. I still am scratching my head as to why he thinks they’re still set up like that. The HR representative agreed with him. Oy vey.

@p3 exactly! Can you imagine anyone watching this webcast or reading his email be encouraged to sign up for working here? If they have a choice probably not.

@nt She applauded. I think they should give it more attention the next time they put one of these things together again. She’s HR and Recruitment and Hiring is a big deal. They should know better.

If their so proud of the CEO, AT&T should make sure that ever new visitor to our table at the hiring events gets a thumb drive with John memo and a replay of his videos as a parting gift.

The biggest failure on the part of the HR lady and Stankey is that Friday’s webcast would NOT serve as an opportunity for Recruitment and Hiring. Never mind employee retention.
She failed, he failed, to deliver a webcast that would recruit the best and most qualified candidates to work for ATT. She heaped lavish praise on a man who was defensive and at times incoherent about what ATT is about. They talked about old timey stuff such as Yugoslavia , landlines, and Applesauce. Not exactly a sure fire way to obtain great new employees. Target is undergoing a tough time with sluggish sales, yet our COO said we should be Target. She applauded. I think they should give it more attention the next time they put one of these things together again. She’s HR and Recruitment and Hiring is a big deal. They should know better.

@m0 git outta here🤣🤣🤣. Did we need to know we’re One person and not Two? 😆

He got one thing right. We should emulate Target. Target fired Target CEO Brian Cornell on August 20, 2025. Way to go Target 🎯!!

•••
He said don’t live your life like a Triangle. Live your life like A Square Box.
I’m not kidding.
The only shape I could think 🤔 of was a Round Circle. ⭕️. His bald head is round and he talks in circles

@k2 I watched half of it. The moderator was his long time friend and it was too cozy for me, given how employees are treated.

@kp “ He talked about being a Porsche ” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hopefully he’s being sarcastic or that’s a misquote.

The HR lady didn’t ask him to reply to Frequently Asked Questions. Instead she asked him to answer NEVER ASKED QUESTIONS.
“What is culture”?
“Is a Porsche a better car than the Yugo”?
And my all time favorite question and answer was “Are we two people or one person”? His response was “You are not two people. You are one person .”
His attempt to say slow down and enjoy life. Work life balance.

Serious Question. Can someone you loathe and despise inspire you to be a better version of yourself? A better worker?
What I hear from him Every Time he speaks is defensiveness.
He’s constantly explaining and repeating himself. He cannot effectively explain anything. His long winded speech about the Hamburger industry and McDonald’s made little sense. He was very defensive but the results are the same. Confusion with yet another explanation of Loyalty versus Commitment. More to follow.

“I just can’t believe so many of you apparently watched this.”

Never. The “script” never changes…if lips are moving it’s lies. When lips are still the hamster is busy on the wheel…thinking of the next lie.

Did anyone tell The Stank that Target fired their CEO because they were doing so poorly?

@kc I caught that. He droned on and on about how he wants Committed employees and not Loyal employees. The HR lady said “let’s talk about Culture”. That was his rehearsal cue to talk about Commitment versus Loyal. If you have to explain yourself 723 times about what you mean by “ I don’t want your Loyalty”, you’re probably not effective at communicating. She was merely a prop and offered nothing of substance

@k2 I watched it because it popped up on my calendar. I gave it a try but right away realized both of them were out of touch with the state of our company and furthermore, both are elites who don’t go through what most Americans are going through. She cracked jokes about Stankey being older than her, and that he’s OLD. Huh? She talked about how smart he was and that he attended UCLA. She said he was very good for the company and at some point asked him for advice and wisdom. He talked about being a Porsche and gave outdated information about how McDonald’s is regimental and how Target is where it’s at. Huh? He mentioned outdated information about Yugoslavia and Yugos and said “don’t be like Yugos”. He also said that we need to achieve balance in our lives and stressed the importance of work-life balance but never said anything about how working remotely might help achieve that. She laughed , applauded, and said he was very good. She looked at her watch a few times and tried to cut him off. He caught that and she said “ go ahead and keep talking”. I thought she was trying to figure out how she was going to make her plane ride to the Bahamas. She was checked out And ready to go. Elites

Stankey serves the institutional investors. He's a short-timer with his exit on the line. Damn the customers, damn the employees. He was clear in his message - the institutional investors are his primary concern. He said "without them, none of this matters because they give us the capital to continue." What a complete a-s. Without Stankey, we wouldn't have this debt due to POOR BUY HIGH SELL LOW DECISIONS.

Am I the only one who caught his comment on how he wants committed NOT LOYAL employees? D-mb@$$ doesn't realize they are related?

Commitment is the choice to act, a deliberate promise to devote time and energy to something, while loyalty is the inner quality of faithfulness and dedication that results in consistently following through on those commitments. Commitment is an action or agreement, whereas loyalty is an underlying character trait that fuels the consistent performance of that commitment, regardless of changing feelings.

I just can’t believe so many of you apparently watched this.

Maybe Stankey should have weekly or Bi-Weekly meetings to provide his guidance, so we know where he stands on our work. He could even prerecord the video so that we can watch them multiple times to understand his actions! We could even use them in our lawsuit if we don't take the severance and aren't forced to sign an NDA!

Stinky out here trying to drop wisdom with a quote about a country and a car that haven’t existed for 30 years… about as relevant as he is running AT&T. His leadership is like applesauce — bland, mushy, and only good for spoon-feeding people who’ve already given up. And right on cue, HR claps along like trained monkeys at every word, as if recycled 1980s car jokes and word salads are going to fix morale. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. Bro, if there are extraterrestrials out there, please take over — they couldn’t possibly do worse than this.

@h4 unfortunately there’s a lot of joking going around about the wise cracks she and stankey made. Yup. Not nice. We watched to see HR and Stankey explain how they were going to address his memo but it turned into wise cracks about how he is and silly stuff about applesauce.

Are you kidding me right now? That lady was from HR? And she applauded his actions to take away working remotely? And she applauded him moving people from Alaska to Atlanta, from Delaware to Dallas , all own the employees’ own dime??? How the heck is that promoting Work -Life Balance?? Lady why is that something to applaud? How sad. Honestly that’s really sad

@g5 😆😆She did act like Diane Sawyer and he does look like dr Phil.

@h0 the lady who sat there like a seal was from HR? Are you sure? She sure didn’t act like she was from HR

Did I hear Stankey actually got mad and used the word “bi--hing” during the ECG conference yesterday?? And there was an HR lady hosted the damn thing on the stage? How the fugg is this allowed? Have some damn respect, will ya?!

“…failed infrastructure projects and failed System upgrades/ Implementations.
Yes , according to him , we’re all to blame. And I quote “I asked IT and they said it was the requirements”. 🫣shame on you Stankey. Whoever signed off on ServiceNow should be fired.”

Bwaaahaahaahaaa!!!!! REQUIREMENTS. BWAAHHHAHAhahahaha!!!
It goes like this: The dummy offshores code from a sentence and not a penny extra. They don’t think. They don’t ask questions. They don’t have business knowledge. They don’t give a rats a$$ if it’s right or wrong, just that they coded it to a half baked, rushed requirement. D-mb a$$ let go everyone with critical thinking skills because of their skin color and age. D-MB FU-S!

•••
Stooge on Stage asking “What is Culture”?
He replied with a graph stating that McDonald’s is hi·er·ar·ch•tic•al instead of hi·er·ar·chi·cal. He mispronounced hi·er·ar·chi·cal 17 times. Apparently UCLA doesn’t teach English courses.
Oh and that woman needs to go

She sat there like a trained seal , waiting for her cue to clap. When he talked about Work-Life Balance being sooooo important, she didn’t utter any objections to his RTO mandates or his “no relocation” money policies.
Just sat there.
Like a D-mb Seal.

•••
She Giggled. He Grimaced. She Joked. He frowned. She looked across. He looked down at his sneakers. She said she was younger than him by five years. He looked down.
🫣🥱🤐🙄

The “lady” asking Stankey questions oughta be ashamed of herself. I’ll try to set the record straight… she asked him “what was life about , and did he learn anything?” He replied with saying we need to be balanced squares and not triangles. Balance your life with these 4 things…like a square.
1Your Career
2Your Relationships/ Family
3Your Health “ treat your body like a Porsche “
4Your existentialism- why do you exist and get up in the morning? Don’t just think about you.
The comment about applesauce refers to your 10 people who will always be there for you. Even as you need to be spoon fed applesauce.
Now, Why Didn’t That Nitwit Lady say “Excuse Me”?????!!!!! She should have berated him for taking away the very things that help with life balance - working remotely !!! Oh she made me sick when she praised him

•••
The paid stooge asked him “Did you think you’d end up COO after graduation from UCLA? “. Lawd have mercy. What a mess! No hard hitting questions, just fluff

So after basically taking a serious -ump on employees with his lengthy survey results tirade, his follow-up is a meeting where he waxes philosophical?! Who in their right mind would do that? Only the pompous narcissist that is JTS.

Based on the tom·fool·er·y between the lady questioner and Stankey, this podcast was promptly burned and will never see the light of day.

The woman asking stankey the questions is not blameless for this wasted hour. She asked ridiculous questions, pretending to be Diane Sawyer asking know it all Dr. Phil. This woman had the audacity to ask Stankey “the meaning of life”. As IF we value his opinion. That’s why he talked about Squares vs Triangles , Applesauce, etc. wasted hour IMO

He needs to go. He said we’re all to blame for the millions of dollars lost on failed infrastructure projects and failed System upgrades/ Implementations.
Yes , according to him , we’re all to blame. And I quote “I asked IT and they said it was the requirements”. 🫣shame on you Stankey. Whoever signed off on ServiceNow should be fired. I think the project manager of Halo was fired , thank goodness. But Stankey remains clueless and wasteful of our money.

@fr I saw it more as a Koffeeklatch🤷🏻‍♂️. She repeatedly said they were old friends and had known each other for years. She kidded him about this and that. There was no intention for the show. Just coffee talk.

Seriously, how can anyone take this man seriously anymore? The board is as incompetent as he is allowing him to continue.

I was unable to watch the webcast. I’ve scanned the comments. Can someone tell me why ATT’s COO spent an hour talking about Yugoslavia, Tip and Ring, McDonald’s, Applesauce, Target, various Shapes, etc.? I’m not kidding. What’s going on in the C suite that these deflections are being discussed? Seriously. 4 Real. I don’t know why the moderator didn’t self identify but perhaps she should have so that the viewing audience would know what this was supposed to be about? Was she from HR? What gives man ?? Aren’t there real issues facing ATT without wasting employees time on discussing junk ? I’m being serious. Were these topics mentioned on the surveys ?? Fair question. Did the surveys ask about applesauce or Target vs McDonald’s?

@da Who was the stupid woman on stage ? At the end of the webcast, she told Stinky “You do an amazing job of being President 🙄🙄🙄🙄. What an azzz she is!

Karoline Leavitt or Kristi Noem in disguise??

Since we’re talking about outdated cultural touchstones… Target is no longer a place to emulate. Back in the 90s, they used revolutionary technology at that time to track their inventory. Products were basically automatically reordered based on software. But it’s 2025, and I don’t think Target is a store to follow. Dwindling sales, plus a lack of innovation has truly hurt the brand. I hope Stankey looks around and sees it’s not the 1990s anymore. 🤷🏻‍♂️