I'm a retired r/75 in the past year and watching many of my life long friends lose their jobs to the cuts over the last few years. I see a future with 75k employees and a set of assets that can turn a decent mid single growth to keep up a small dividend.
That said, the lack of HR and people leadership @ T is going to be a future harvard business case study. Can you imagine a place where, with proper HR leadership you could take 150k and curate them down to 75k picking the best people to lead and deliver? Yet i know so many people at AT&T through the various reorgs that have been pulled, pushed, moved to roles that would normally not be their first choice or end up working in a group that was called innovative yesterday and dead weight today. Yet HR never inventories any of the talent and outside of a few small programs and DEI there is almost no career growth management. Just a few unjust sharks swimming the waters using these talents for their own gain and survival.
It reminds me of a garage sale of books, tools and shoes. All super important and valuable at one time and probably still is, but you bought more and the old are given away. Yet the work completed with those tools, the experience and knowledge of the books and the miles walked in those shoes are forgotten.
If John does anything in the next 30 days in prep for 2025 its to reimagine their HR and Career team at AT&T. That is a legacy he should want and then wouldn't need to talk about his "luck" in getting the job.