So I’m out of the Knoxville area and was told by a Dtv tech that they are getting weighed in the beginning of March and soon to be trained in pole climbing and fiber!!! I thought they were only going to do Dtv?? Any truth to this rumor he told me?
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One of the unrealistic parts of having a super tech in the past was the costs of outfitting everyone with costly equipment. Those costs have gone down drastically for quite a bit of it. Might not have a Core Tech fix a large fiber cut but it is now economical for them to fix a fiber drop.
@1aek, spoken like that person who has never walked that mile in that Managers boots....oh Grasshopper, how little you know!! Thanks for the show of ignorance though.
Here in the west coast, prem techs (uverse) were given first dibs on getting crossed trained. But the majority refused. Now the DTV guys are getting crossed trained.
Of interest is the fact that AT&T really hasn't trained the majority of their workforce in quite a number of years now. So the curiosity is there as to why this has changed.
Any office job (management, craft CO, switch) is a breeze. Almost a steal. Now go get your a-- outdoors, no a/c no heating no ergonomic chair desk all kind of insects and animals traffic road rage the list is endless.... go and do it, then you can talk!!!
Safety card starting to be pulled. Can’t wait to see the long post of how someone who had to report into a office slipped on some spilled coffee. Ha. Was a tech for a number of years. Never thought it was a safety problem to actually visit a air conditioned CO or DEG cabinet and get out of the 105 degree heat.
Not realistic to have one tech know and do it all. There’s too much for one tech to know how to do it all. Company doesn’t get that or doesn’t care. All they’re going to do is exhaust the techs and there will be an increase in safety accidents.
Depending on the services and the issues we could have a CO, DEG, Regular Core and Cable trained tech deal with the same install or repair ticket. Then the possibility of each needing to deal with their respective center folks. Not counting some being kicked back and forth between groups and that process duplicated in some instances. And if it gets Jepped, accidentally or not, it could sit in a bucket somewhere before it is put back out to start the process again. We are seeing a lot of the customers who have to go through this disconnect their services these days. These processes and structures were developed in a time in which we were the only option and customers had to accept it.
It seems the company’s goal is to have all field techs cross-trained and able to climb poles and go into manholes. The company’s dream is to have techs to do be able to do it all. “One truck roll”. I’m a tech who’s never had to work outside in 30 years and now have been told to get steel toed boots and I’ll be going to pole climbing school. I’d be fine with that except I’m still expected to do my current job indoors where I’m expected to be clean and not smelling like a mixture of sweat and bug repellant. The union seems perfectly fine with all these changes. I guess it’s true that the union has been effectively neutered. I’m asking myself why I bother paying union dues any more.
Why wouldn’t they be trained? They’re AT&T employees. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were a called prem techs soon.
All new and re-certified pole climbers will be trained with a 100% fall restraint system. It’ll be ridiculously easy.
Possible - our Trainer has been heavenly hinting that we in the West will eventually be trained on pole work so we can also do IP jobs.
Of course, he has been saying this since T bought us and it hasn't happened yet. Our thought is this is yet another threat to convince guys to leave.
If you have to learn to do it -then do it. Sticking a pole isn't that hard - pay attention to your feet and don't go stiff and gaffing can be quite a thrilling thing to do. Once you pass the class, do what everyone does - use your ladder or call for a bucket truck.
Lol yeah right! Why would they train them if they are cutting the prem techs that do their job don’t make sense to get rid of a prem tech that does both dtv and uverse just to turn around and train dtv total waste of money should have just got rid of the dtv guy to save money