Guys... It's funny and sad at the same time. For a bunch of guys who work in "tech" not to be able to read the Tea Leaves. Y'all should've seen this coming a while ago. I did... 2+ years ago and did what I had to do: Leave AT&T.
Please read the following:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/job-layoffs-surge-35percent-to-highest-level-to-start-a-year-in-a-decade.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/americans-55-and-over-are-suddenly-losing-jobs-at-the-fastest-pace-in-4-years.html?recirc=taboolainternal
Americans 55 and older are suddenly losing jobs at the fastest pace in 4 years
-1uep,
The "backbone" of the network that you are used to is not the "backbone" of the future. Remember "All IP by 2020?" The old backbone has been all IP for years already, w/the exception of POTS. Good luck getting one of those ordered today.
What is changing is the delivery mechanism... from SAI's and their related fiber/feeder boxes and all those "hands on" devices --- to a SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORK. Don't forget those words.
If the backbone of the "future" is an "all IP" network, the the backbone is truly nothing more than the protocol: TCP/IP. Not you and a bunch of people "touching things." Fiber by itself drastically reduced maintenance on the network. All of us/you were mostly needed for the "legacy" copper network. As that network vanishes and the "backbone" (TCP/iP) migrates from the fiber to Over the Air (OTA/5G), they'll need even less people to manage/maintain the infrastructure.
And since it'll be vastly simplified in footprint, you can skip having "employees" and just sub out 90% of the work.
They know exactly what they're doing.
Jeez, they've telling us for years what they were doing. You guys just refuse to follow the bouncing ball and refuse to admit that you've always been in over your heads and working in an industry that you never bothered to learn to grasp. There's more to telecommunications than splicing, plugging in wires, and running a quality check on LSBBT.
"Enjoy living with your head in the sand!!"
The folks with their heads in the sand all sit at the Executive level.
They seem to think their new tech will magically work without the backbone systems that carry all of that traffic. All of that backbone requires knowledgeable people to maintain. The very same people the company is letting go without any understanding of what self-harm they're doing.
Finally, AT&T is no longer a single " industry " so figuring out which part of the company is going to get hit with layoffs is a bit trickier to predict. Yeah, we figured wireline is probably going, but they're not just going after wireline. They're slashing and burning everything.
Actually @1wnl, I'm a former field tech.
I don't have contempt for engineers. Actually, I prefer engineers to Wall Street types. That said, reality is reality. I find it hard to believe that an "engineer" at a tech company would be so disconnected from the very field they work in that you didn't see this coming.
I quit in Fall 2017. I'm just some barely educated (traditional school) putz that taught himself everything he knows about IT. Guess maybe it's my innate interest in tech that makes me read articles on technology as much as I can... But this was a train barreling ahead at 250 mph for your job. You were blind (especially as an "engineer") if you didn't see it coming.
How did you miss all the pre-ratification 5G test results coming out in 2017 showing multi-gigabit speeds and low latency?
How did you miss (as --- presumably --- an AT&T "engineer") the news stories on AT&T setting up test radios in Middleton, NJ & Austin, TX and sending customers 5G SIM-enabled WiFi RG's when they called up for HSIA??
How did you miss the trend over the last decade of streaming services?? Do remember the software disc AT&T made for loading onto and XBOX 360, turning it into a STB for Uverse?? Geez, that was 2011, 2012, 2013???
When DirecTV Now dropped October 1, 2017 --- did you not put the pieces together?? This m---acre taking place right now is not even 5G related... It's DTV Now causing this carnage, mainly. Can you imagine what this board will look like when 5G goes live and nationwide in the next 2 - 3 years?? CORE tech's surplussed in droves!!
You weren't just warned, they put a neon sign in your face at a million watts!!
Really dude... at this point, you can only blame yourselves for lack of preparation.
"Chance favors the prepared mind..." --- Louis Pasteur
"You're not needed anymore and no one owes you a thing. Learn how to take care of yourselves instead of demanding to be TAKEN CARE OF!
God, go back to 1776 and y'all would be some turncoat British sympathizers."
Wow! Now there is someone who lacks any sense of humanity or decency. I'm guessing this person is a spreadsheet jockey who has contempt for engineers and thinks that his amazing business sense will keep him in clover for the rest of his life. Well, grasshopper your lack of understanding of life will be your comeuppance.
RE: "Dude, drop the excuses about the debt and executive pay and all that silliness.
It's the technological advancements/changes taking your job. PERIOD.
You guys are really doing a disservice to yourselves by burying your heads in the sand and blaming corporate America."
Your explanation is no better than anyone else's. But thanks. Kept you off the street.
@YpdyQaf-1wqs well said.
Dude, drop the excuses about the debt and executive pay and all that silliness.
It's the technological advancements/changes taking your job. PERIOD.
You guys are really doing a disservice to yourselves by burying your heads in the sand and blaming corporate America.
It's a tech company. This is what happens in tech. What's so hard to understand about that??
You're not needed anymore and no one owes you a thing. Learn how to take care of yourselves instead of demanding to be TAKEN CARE OF!
God, go back to 1776 and y'all would be some turncoat British sympathizers.
Sad. Not the American way.
Grow a pair.
Why so much animosity for your colleagues that are upset at AT&T? This just seems mean spirited. Somebody summed it up well: AT&T is a cesspool. It's worse, it's a snake pit, a company full of junkyard dogs that have treated like c-ap for so long that they have grown nasty and mean to each other. Look what these soulless executive sociopaths have done to us. They have no respect for us but that doesn't mean we can't respect each other. What does it matter that they talked about cutbacks for years? They offered people training to retool their careers. It turned out to be a sham. If announce for years that I am going to rob a bank does that make it ok? And let me tell you if those chuckle heads at 208 S. Akard hadn't run up a debt of 180B then the cuts would not have been so severe. So let's focus our ire where it belongs on soulless and clueless executives.
Unfortunate but true that this is happening with some employees of a technology giant company. Some people live like inside a bubble in their cubicles, in their little worlds and not paying attention to the messages around them and what is happening. Then act like surprised and suddenly everyone is evil. Get your a-- of your chair, go outside, start talking to people, read information inside and outside the company, inform yourself. Don’t wait for anybody to do it for you...
yep leaving att was the best decision in my life. it was a sess-pool.
As far as AT&T is concerned, there was that "2020" plan with announced head count targets, disclosed years ago. I'm not seeing anything unexpected as a result. We know that landline telephony is obsolete, replaced with cheaper technologies.
As far as that CNBC article, it says "The auto industry led by sector in March with 8,838 layoffs". No kidding huh? The reason that they're laying off is because they resorted to subprime auto loan in 2018 in order to sell cars last year, otherwise, they would have been laying off last year. I wouldn't read into it a general economic trend - yet. There is still plenty of hiring.
Always think of ways your job can be eliminated because every business you ever work for is thinking about it.
This is true. You've got to be a step ahead to survive in this world.
The layoffs are no surprise. They announced it to Wall Street several years ago. Only the lazy and ignorant who couldn’t bother to read financial news affecting their industry are surprised.
Enjoy living with your head in the sand!!