To increase the overall value of AT&T after all the layoffs and re-orgs, one of the best moves they could make is to cut anyone who does not have a real four-year degree minimally, not even an equivalent too, like working years’ experience. If you do not possess a real four-year degree from an accredited college or university, then you’re out. Maybe this is already a part of the calculations in HR for determining who gets a surplus letter. There are too many middle and upper level managers who do not have a degree, not to mention many that are highly educated. It’s far worse in the Level 1 & 2, namely Level 2’s, the biggest bloated segment throughout the company with employees who have not obtained a degree when faced with ample years and tuition reimbursement to acquire one.
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I’m occupational (craft) and I used the tuition assistance program to pay for both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. I went to large traditional brick and mortar universities because I didn’t see any reason to go to some bogus non-accredited online school, especially when the company was willing to pay the higher tuition rates. My degrees don’t make me a better tech than anyone else, but I figured it was a good benefit to use in case I need to move on from AT&T (likely from a surplus).
One thing that I did learn from getting my undergrad in business and my MBA is that AT&T is absolutely managing this company the wrong way in just about every aspect of the business. There is no way that I would ever take a management job with this dumpster-fire company.
It’s becoming more apparent that AT&T has a large employee base of non-degreed professionals. Which is fine, many positions (union and management) may be best fit for their trades and skills and compensated accordingly, who has a problem with that? However, it’s obvious they are running scared about losing their AT&T job. Who across the entire company isn’t right now? That very job they come out here and bash right along with the company, and other fellow employees. How much do you love your job right now? How bad to you want to keep it? Now that there is the realization that having a degree or not just may be used as one of the calculating factors in determining if you’re going to be gainfully employed here or not. And here people attack with their hateful, fearful talk at those who just may have something in their quiver that gives them staying power. Please stop creating divide, we’ve got enough of that going around these days. Good luck to you all.
This is the dumbest post I’ve ever seen in my life and obviously by some id–t that believes because they went to college that they are automatically superior to someone that didn’t. This is the stupid type of mentality that is running this company into the ground. You don’t automatically deserve a job just because you graduated college. Performance and candor at your job mean a heck of a lot more than that piece of paper that you or your family had to pay for. Ridiculous.
Hard to believe the OP has a 4 year degree. If so, he wasted his money. His writing style is terrible. If he does have a degree his post proves that it doesn't guarantee professional competence.
If you want to get laid go to college. If you want an education go to a library
If you spent 4 years in college for a bachelors and more for a masters, it’s sad that all that time spent has led you to work for this company. You mush have been recruited at a college career fair and convinced by someone working at the booth. I don’t think anyone in the class of 2020 leaving high school is saying i can’t wait to finish college so I can work at at&t.
This thread is a joke. Your 4 year degree won’t save you. That’s why you made this post, you already know your own fate. Good luck to ya!
The amount of nano degree pins on your flair vest will determine if you are surplussed. If you can’t stay here apply to TGI Fridays.
The OP here doesn’t know much about the company. This whoLe. O pant was built to where it is today on the backs of people without some damn college degree. There wasn’t a degree program for this company to start.
This post is arrogant and needs to be removed.
OP has issues, probably on the chopping block. Then again, we all are.
I believe it’s folks with degrees who have caused this Company to flounder. An college education is a great thing to have; but it doesn’t guarantee anything. The smartest guys in the room ran this outfit into the ground. Here’s a suggestion; start utilizing the knowledge of your front line employees. Everything that has been rolled out here, could have been deployed so much better if they would only have sought input from those who deliver it.
In times of pain, it is important for everyone to stay civil and stop mudslinging on others, more importantly towards people who are unlike us. Lets pray for everyone and hope we all survive. Amen.
What an id–tic comment. a degree doesn’t prove competence at all. Too many with a degree can’t actually “do” anything.
So some of the people on this thread really believe in degrees over performance? You are kidding me right? So no vote for experience, inventions, savings or anything? Just 4 year degree? You would think that the degree process made you more open to possibilities and finding ways to win. Sadly seems like just made you more tribal and biased. Good luck to you, you will need it in the surplus with your way of thinking.
Ridiculous trying to penalize someone without a degree, especially 10-20 years into their career. There are plenty of reasons why someone would not have one, life happens. Maybe it's cause they wanted to start working and not waste their time and money on the extra required basket weaving class.
@uys -
"I’m personally not a believer that anyone who does not have a degree, doing the same exact job as some who does is actually doing a better job than the degreed person. Though I’m certain, as I’ve seen it, cases where it’s very true, but not more often than not"
WTF word salad is this, yes you've really convinced everyone that your degree made a huge difference with that sentence. Hi everyone i did this unrelated thing years ago I deserve extra credit for everything because I feel like I did something unique. The real question is what did you do today?
Higher education does not deliver on the promises it did from just 20 years ago. Stop shaming people and start recognizing there is talent everywhere, not just people who are like you. And yes I have a degree, who gives a shuck.
I have forty three badges. That should count for something
A degree from 10 years ago, let alone 20, isn't helping anyone. In my opinion today's degrees don't mean much either. I don't work at AT&T but I hired a graduate from a highly rated university that doesn't know anything. That is not my first experience with this. A degree just means you can memorize something long enough to take the test. These blanket business degrees, or communication degrees that don't help anyone. It just checks a box for HR. Now very specific degrees, like medical, law, architecture, sciences, do matter. But a degree in business or communication isn't going to help some lazy shlub be a better boss. True leadership comes from emotional intelligence. Empathy, trust, and knowing how to actually do the job of your entire staff goes a long way. Just my 2 cents.
I degree means nothing, maybe good to wipe with. Just because you have a degree doesn’t mean you’re trainable,smart, or even know what the hell you’re doing!
Look at AT&T with these new people straight out of college with zero Experience coming up with these bright ideas that don’t even know what the hell they’re doing they have no clue how things really operate in the field!
@wkk+15nzruoz, @jzt+15nzruoz: what are you two trying to say, get rid of everyone in the company that has a degree or is highly educated, or at least those at the top that are? Then what, replace them with a bunch of HS Diploma/GED people or less, or maybe a trades 2yr degree/certificate in welding? Dumb down the entire business and then they'll fly right?
The people at the top with all those big degrees is what put this company in the sh– hole it’s in. Keeping more people with degrees will only make it worse. I have a 4 year degree by the way...
The first line of removal should be anyone with a liberal arts degree or a communications degree. Those were handed out to the ones that couldn’t figure out what the real world was about.
Having a degree doesn’t mean a damn thing. I have had to clean up the messes of my counterparts that had degrees and this company has been ran into the ground by people with much more than a bachelors. Seems like the low performers are trying to bank on a degree.
Work on getting an "EDUCATION", not just the degree. Across all industries change occurs about every 18 months. The nano degrees are great fast learning tools to keep up with changing demands.
wish I had a nickle every time I had to clean up somebodies mess that didn't have a degree. but you are trying to make sense at att. that just doesn't compute. I think people should also have degrees that fit the position. I have seen people with economic degrees in IT and other non-IT degrees that make no sense to me at all.
Does the degree count if I received it from the University if Phoenix? I hear it’s the harvard of the online schools.
@jaa+15nzruoz, not because I can't fact check your story, but it's in direct conflict with what most all of us know as reality, so therefore I call you out as a b4ll$h!tter. Maybe your boss doesn’t want you vying for his spot, most managers are selfish and greedy that way around here. In AT&T, when someone earns a Masters, MBA etc, especially when the company helped pay the tuition, more often than not, they move to at least a Level 3 position (and up in time). Most all the middle managers have earned a Masters. Rare can anyone move up pasta Level 2 without one. BTW, the company does care about you’re Masters, which is why there are avenues for you to inform HR about your increased level of education, there are positive ramifications, and it goes into other factors, like do you stay or do you go, along with, how smart is our work force.
@txc+15nzruoz, it's not the degreed professionals getting replaced by cheap H1B's from India, whom are often highly educated and certified, but the non-degreed lower paid employees whose salary more closely matches the smarter better faster Indian contractor.
3 of 14 folks in my mgt group have degrees. Two of those folks are our lowest performers. I have a BS (yes form 20+ yrs ago) and was recently speaking w my Director who got his MBA in 2018 about if I should pursue a masters. His answer: no one in this company care’s about your degree. All a degree shows is that you wasted 4 yrs of your life and then got a job with a guy who has a GED making the same money w same benefits.
Sounds like someone with a degree is upset due to all the H1B's continuing to take their jobs!
That's OK OP - Randall told me I could get one of his Nano Degrees and I would be golden.
What a mo–nic post OP. You sound like one of our out of touch middle managers. A degree doesn't help if you are completely lacking in common sense, as you obviously are.
Besides, if you actually knew what was going on at this company, you would realize that leadership doesn't want to pay the cost for Americans with college degrees to begin with. Not when they can hire an Indian worker with a tech certificate.
Op is irrelevant...
Most of you from ATO will endup rebadged working for Accenture.
Good luck boys.
The suggestion makes as much sense as laying off people on the basis of their proximity to a collaboration zone.
OP, you think like an AT&T executive - I see a bright future for you in AT&T!
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, do not require a degree.
Rattled cages?
ANOTHER id–t, Boy.. OUR COMOANY IS FULL OF THEM. LOL
Like it or not, a degree or no degree, it is a deciding factor in these difficult times. OP has clearly touched a nerve and rattled cages
Another id–tic post perpetrated by a clueless AT&T id–t
Great idea OP! Thank goodness my degree in gender studies shows high business value and will save my field operations job.
To be fair, yes...it is usually people without that degree that speak of it's irrelevance, and this is fairly transparent. I was hired without one back in the day , into a field tech position coming out of the military with an electronics background. For those positions, these types of candidates are usually a no brainer. I would later go on to hire many with similar backgrounds, and most of them worked out well (I had also since earned a management degree, which the company paid for). I saw some of these folks get caught up in surplus years later. These are folks that got tired of the Field Ops grind, and were generally good performers...when the business was still growing and there were ample opportunities , some opted for a more cushy gig in say an Engineering role. Well, when surplus started becoming a regular evolution and that herd needed to be thinned, these non degreed "engineers" seemed to be out the door first. Which I guess I understand, but unfortunate for them.
I bet that anyone employed in AT&T that has a Master’s degree from '77, or even from the '90's, is either long since retired, or in middle management now and thus on the chopping block. Look at them with their high pay, high severance package, and giant retirement funds. All fattened up for a super cushy retirement, if not already deep in it, which that old as F Master’s Degree help afforded them.
This is of course nonsense. In my background that included Field Operations, I will take the recently separated from service young veteran over the same aged person with a degree almost every time. In fact I did so many times. The degree does not position them better to succeed in that role. The military background sure as heck does.