pbxn

I worked @ Ameritech, formerly IL Bell, now SBC, soon to be AT&T. From what I have heard from old coworkers, similiar to Bell South, you now work for big brother. Meaning GPS enabled trucks that are monitored to a T. Field managers that have nothing better to do than push papers basically track your every move. And forget about it if you stray more than 2 miles from your current job.
Most guys now, park their trucks near a Sac, and walk for coffee..
Also gone are the days of going in the supply closet for wire, jacks cabinets etc. Nightly inventories are performed (3rd party) and your truck is stocked for you.
Other than that expect a typical union push to save some basic items, that is ifcourse if you are union. Most days now, guys off the street are part-time, temporary employees. (that is a little trick to keep you out of the union)

dixiedogger

That pretty much sounds like the way it is at BellSouth for the network guys . On the CPE side it is not so bad at Bell. Are your sources Network or CPE?

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WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DIAL TONE???????????????????????????????????

pbxn

Have friends on both side of the fence, and both have similiar complaints.
Once you sort through the Bell politics, I guess it is not so bad, I am sure it could be worse.

Ramjet

Dogger. are you currently at Bellsouth?
I spent several years with SBC years ago. Got caught up in lay-off etc. Went private for 13 years and sold out to the current co I work for. We have had 3 folks leave our co and go to SBC only to get very fed up with it all and try to return to us. They let a couple return. I had been asked several times by some of the local techs with SBC that are around my age and experience why I haven't taken them up on offers to return. I just can't stand the large corporation mentality anymore, and am very content where I am at. That said, our company is a CLEC and it sure is nice to buck up to the "Big Boys" when they find they are not the only dial tone in town. We are also not monitored during our workday. Our managers actually have too much on their plate to fool around with stupid stuff like tracking our whereabouts. Also, we are non-union and will stay that way.

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Two snips, a snort, a turn, a fly, and a grunt, and it was so simple, like the jitterbug, it plum evaded me!

dixiedogger

Yes I am currently at BellSouth. From my perspective Bell has been a great place to work. Just hope thats not about to change. I admit there are some down sides to working for a large corporation and union but have been on the other side of the fence as well and while I do miss some things about it the ones I worked for could not match the amount of training, and benifits we get here but I do not doubt there are some good private companies out there to work for.

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WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DIAL TONE???????????????????????????????????

slagburn

They've done work for my group out here... pretty much exactly the same from what the techs have said - seems to be a lot of turn over though, new faces show up saying that old faces moved on to better pastures.

Not sure if this is true everywhere but out here they aren't just a Nortel shop, they'll sell, install and maintain Cisco and Avaya along with a few other things that I've forgotten about.