I remember feeling that I was a very special part of a very special company. A company that actually cared as much about its employees as it did its customers. A company that put customer service ahead of sales and knew that happy employees made for a very profitable company. That passing the tests to get hired by Southwestern Bell (now AT&T) was a very high achievement and meant you were now in an exclusive group of people who destined for a pension and gold watch. I remember Whitacre himself periodically calling a call center just to talk to front-line employees and thanking them for making our company great. Then.....he retired and Rosemary’s baby took over. I literally get a headache now as I enter the parking lot of our facility and wonder what will management come up with to get me out the door. All I want is to finish what I started and what I loved when Whitacre was in charge, but I cannot shake the feeling that the company has other ideas. I was hired in a group of over 125 people and more than two decades later, only two of us remain.
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Good ol' Ed, wonder what he think has become of the Golem he assembled during his telecom buying-and-consolidating spree, and especially how his hand-picked successor has done. Ferret Face is his lasting legacy, after all ...
I miss Cellular One Chicago.
Back in the the day when it was a job for life we were usually the only game in town. Everything revolved around wireline services. A lot of that technology was manpower intensive - do you remember how many people used to work in COs? There was no real pressure to roll out new products and we could take our time and gold plate them if we wanted. Now we have competition in everything we do. What used to be our core unique services have become commodities where most consumers focus mostly on price. Technology changed - namely wireless and IP. We bought our way into industries and then let those companies leadership go because “we knew better.” We alternate between being everything to everyone (low price and high end) and just focusing on some (cherry pick). No one misses the old “job for life phone company” days more than me. But that ship sailed a long time ago. I wish it could come back but then I wish it was still the 60s and 70s too.
Bellsouth ran like a well oiled machine by comparison to what is now AT&T. I had heard from others that SBC ran a real s**t show and they were right. Ask anyone that was around Bellsouth prior to the acquisition. Also someone mentioned the DSL services in the Bellsouth region were terrible, well at least they were still growing when AT&T took over. Uverse was supposed to be the next generation but it was cut off before it had a chance to take hold, same with gigapower. AT&T keeps changing direction. Stopped everything to pickup Directv, then started the fiber rollout for gigapower, then changed up again to acquire Time Warner.
Elon Musk isn’t a visionary. He’s a scam artist.
Whitacre was a mediocre CEO as best. No vision, not a motivator, good at cost cutting, that's about it. He retired and went to GM where is did not last very long. No wonder.
Too bad AT&T does not have a visionary CEO like Elon Musk or Satya Nadella to name a few.... AT&T no longer has any unique products or services. Everything is built with OTHER vendor products and services, we just stick our brand on it and run it on our network, which while big, IS NOT unique. Oh well.
Couple of old timers from Pac Bell shared: After SBC closed on Pac Bell, Ed Whitacre came to San Ramon and when asked why was he gutting the company, he said "because we brought you." Yea, let's bring him back to stab more people in the back.
Cry me a river. You act like a job is your life. There are thousands of other companies to go work for. This is the the most free county in the world. What’s holding you back?
They're all crooks especially Alexander Graham Bell Who stole the patent..been scamming since 1871
Yes I remember Jimmy Olsen I believe Robert Allen succeeded him who was every bit Mike Armstrong’s equal when it came to incompetence and utter baffoonary Promoting anyone with an accounting background to CEO is a mistake as it stifles innovation and R&D for the sake of the almighty $
Anyone remember Olson as CEO of ATT. There was a man with vision and compassion for employees. He started as a tech, lines men I believe..and worked his way to the top. It's a shame cancer got him..all the rest of the CEO's after him could not shine his shoes..it's been down hill ever since..and one of the biggest jokes was Mike Armstrong..
He essentially put AT&T back together after the divestiture with the addition of wireless without taking on a lot of debt! The mistake was taking on tangential businesses with debt in which we had little expertise or vision.
Ed Whitacre fans should remember that the strategy of serial acquisitions (buying one company after another and gutting them to boost profits) was his invention. Also, Randall was his personal choice as successor because he considered him most likely to carry on with it. Research has shown that CEOs are inclined to choose successors they see as most like themselves.
@-nyi, you forgot Ameritech, they too say the same thing
LOL! "...making our company great. Then.....he retired and Rosemary’s baby took over. " How accurate and appropriate. I took remember the days of Whitacre, and it was awesome. Then it slowly become a swirling toilet. Thanks Rat and Stinky
I hear the same story from every business that SBC bought. I started in Pacific Bell, it was a great place to work before SBC bought them. The Bellsouth people say the same thing. The Cingular people say the same thing. The legacy AT&T people say the same thing. The common rot is SBC. The only people who think SBC isn't a vile pestilence are those that started their careers with SBC. Whitacre was slightly more competent than Randall; but they are both still t–ds.
sbc should of never have been allowed to buy back all the baby bells. They should stayed broken up period. You can thank the bush/clinton era for that I am sure everyone involved made out like bandits except for the honest workers who made the company what it was only to watch it be destroyed by nobodies like stankey and randy.
Ed sh– on everything he aquired.
Now that’s a typical SBC response if I have even seen one. 😂😂
Bell South more advanced? Is that a joke? Their data services were a disaster. Their DSL product was a mishmash of terrible designs and carrier ethernet and Enterprise IP Services had serious scale-ability issues. SBC wasn't a savior by any means, but Bell South wasn't some technology marvel.
Ed was the destruction of BellSouth. We lost our bonus and salary increases. We were way more advanced but Ed’s way was the only way. SBC is a cancer that has k–led many a company. If we could get rid of the SBC leadership this company would become great once again.
Ameritech was acquired by Whitacre and it was chaos from that point on with layoffs and budget cuts. Our stock options plummeted under him and never went up to even be able to sell them for a profit. He didn't like anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line and even now, look, you have to go to Texas to have a chance at a promotion. Our bonuses were reduced. He may have been good prior to the merger but not afterward.
That phone is disconnected.
get over it.
Back in the day, when you where hired by AT&T or one of the Baby Bells you had a great job for life. Now we're just Randy's temp workers. Shameful what this company has become.
Ed was a great CEO.
Those days are long gone
Att should have external auditors come in and check the books.
Yep