It's not the same company I used to work for.

I put in 35 yrs with the Bells & Verizon, missed many meals, events, Holidays & birthdays. The most disturbing things I see is failure to maintain plant & disregard for customer service.

I see talk about gearing up for younger customers, making the company leaner & lack of caring for employees as new issues. This crap has been going on for the last 30 yrs, ever since the company stopped making everyone learn the entire phone business. College hires were put on 4 year programs that allowed them to learn the business from the ground up, not just what was taught in school. Everyone benefited from that because management had a real idea what was involved in doing the job &I how long/hard it is to do something. In other words they were forced to see the human side of the business.

Once they started to hire directly into management positions understanding or caring what humans had to do to keep the business going faded. That is when they started to dehumanize workloads & establish unrealistic/stretch goals. I would bet no upper management person would be able to explain how the plant works or how it gets built or maintained. Before I retired when I would ask upper management to explain how something worked or went from a idea to reality the answer was always , I was not hired to make things work or know how they work, I signed on to make money. In my opinion this was the start of the failure of large companies to understand their business, what the customer wanted & what it takes for a company to provide good service, keep both customers & employees happy.

While this is not helpful to those of you going through this painful time in your life, I can only hope someone reads this & thinks to put this "new" idea into practice.

My thoughts & prayers will be with you. I've been retired for 15 yrs & have never missed it nor went back to work as a vz contractor as most of my peers & underlings did.

One last observation don't fight each other (wire/wireless) work together to get treated properly & to keep employed. Infighting only helps those who are looking at you as a expense & not a asset or a human.

Comment! It's anonymous!

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Ivan was the last CEO we will ever see who started in the field and worked his way up.

EXACTLY....my father-in-law was a 3rd line district manager who started as an installer and worked his way up. Treated his employees with respect because he knew what they were encountering on every job and cared about the customers. I followed his example and have 16 years but my managers have no clue what is required to do our job and they do not like people like me because I tell them that I get paid the same every week and my priority is my customers. I will not leave a job until the customer is back in service, whether it takes an hour or five and sadly, most of the time, I am the 4th or 5th tech. to go on the same job but because it is involved, the other tech's. don't fix it because it will lower their numbers and they will get called on the carpet by the manager. I wish it was like the old days but I don't see college grads. taking a job where they have to climb poles and crawl in attics.

Amen buddy! Family made up of old Bell people that started at the bottom. My dad always told us you have to understand how it works from the handset, the copper, the pole, the switches central office... And he said if you make it to an office job don't forget to get out of that tower and go out in the field. He started out climbing poles; retired an executive. Good advice for any type of work really...

I agree that many of the mgmt folks have never even ride-along a tech to see what they do in the CO or field. They always wonder why an order takes several days/weeks to fulfill.

I'm here with 26.5 years and I wish I had the ability to not give a sh!t like most of the people I work with.

Wow , great post. I'm an old phone man myself. This company was built on the shoulders of men and women like you. I think many industries suffer because nobody learns them from the ground up. Ma Bell has been gone for awhile now. God Bless all the folks who have been affected by this layoff.

This is the best post so far. Period. It puts things into perspective - as long as we neglect our customers, quality of our work and assets and developing our people, we will be failing

Very well said...

Thread regarding Verizon Communications Inc. layoffs

It's not the same company I used to work for.

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