Turning Up the August Heat on the Senate
August 16th, 2006 by nbastekSavetheInternet.com coalition supporters have been busy this August tracking down their senators and speaking up for Internet freedom at public events.
Sean, in Hawaii, asked Sen. Daniel Akaka if he would support Net Neutrality. In front of a live audience and countless television viewers, the Senator responded with a resounding “Yes!” Akaka had been previously undeclared on the issue.
In Paragould, Ark., Sen. Blanche Lincoln discussed Net Neutrality with her constituents after SavetheInternet.com supporters raised the issue at a recent lunch reception. “I want to make sure if you live on a county road or in a town with less than 20,000 people, you can get on the Internet,” Lincoln said. “I don’t want anyone at a disadvantage to get on the Internet.”
Earlier this week, Juan, from BlueJersey.com caught up with Sen. New Jersey Senator Robert Menedez at a town hall meeting and reports that the senator, who was previously undeclared on the issue, came out in favor of Net Neutrality.
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Senator Conrad Burns from Montana (pictured right), is still towing the phone and cable company line in the Net Neutrality fight. When confronted by coalition supporters at a picnic in Fort Missoula, he claimed he was for a “free Internet” but that the Net Neutrality bill contained some provisions that would be damaging to his constituents. One wonders if he’s referring to the good people of Montana or telecom lobbyists?
Burns’ anti-neutrality comments come from a senator who has received more than $210,000 in campaign contributions this cycle from the telecom/technology sector, according to a report this week in the National Journal’s Technology Daily. In that category, Burns is second only to Sen. George Allen of Virginia, who received $260,132 in campaign contributions from the likes of AT&T, Comcast, BellSouth and Verizon.
If you believe in a free and open Internet, let your senator know. Senators are typically at home in August and often hold public events such as town hall meetings or listening sessions. We need to show up for these meetings and tell them how important Net Neutrality is to all of us.
Take a few minutes to check your senator’s Web site or make a phone call and find out where your senator will be this August. Tell us what you find out.
If you plan to attend a public meeting, go to our state-by-state Senate Action Guide for tools and resources that will help you speak up for Internet freedom.
August 16th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
REVOLUTION: Velvet style!
Help re-invent the USA, which would save the “free internet”, plus other cool, new stuff!
“The Declaration of RE-Independence” on:
http://jimsorrell.proboards33.com or
http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/index.php?boardid=15311 or
http://www.greality.com/CaptainChurch
August 22nd, 2006 at 3:34 am
Exactly the article I was looking at earier ArugulaZ. I find it amazing that people are so gullible as to believe that corporations are going to offer the best prices/service, when they have a near monopoly on their markets. The idea that an industry should “Regulate Itself” is not practical when there are so few competitors. It is reasons such as this, that the government should be setting groundrules. It should be providing the same checks and balances that our government is supposed to have.
I find corporate hostile takeover of our political process to be disconcerting to say the least.
August 24th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
I resigned from ASS tits and tell me amother lie(att) I sent this letter addressing the issues of poor customer service and the companies blatant disregard for my seniority to the CEO ed whitacre and about 25 other high level managers. No response.
I was forced out of a job i enjoyed into dsl hell, where job stupidity meant job security and going beyond the call was just meaningless words. as long as managers are getting bonuses based on meeting imaginary numbers some bean counter pulled out of his ass nothing will change except the DSL techs have 3 “traitor techs” creating programs that automate the test system so that you will never talk to anyone in America and maybe will get some india-ian that only speaks louder when asked to repeat themselves.
Enjoy (names have been removed so i dont get sued)
I attempted to gain employment at South Western Bell since 1989. I was hired as a Temporary Cable Splicer June 1996. I was the only temporary to work overtime on loan to Installation & Repair. I was offered a permanent position about 6 weeks after I began working for South Western Bell. I was called by my First Line Manager, and told to report to his office to fill out the transfer forms for a position in Fenton. I asked him if he was dissatisfied with my performance and if that was why he was sending me to another job location, he stated if he was not happy with my work he would not have recommended me for the permanent position and I would not be working for him at all, so I must have proven myself an asset. I worked as a Splicer for 6 years. I enjoyed the work and was good at my job. I had no major issues and never had to file a grievance. I had six 1st line managers and three 2nd line managers in that time.
I was surplussed in 2002 and offered a job at ASI as a Network Center Technician. I did not want this position because I know I do not thrive or enjoy working in this type of environment. I was not going to accept the job but when I returned to the garage my first line, , was on the phone with placement, and I was wrongly advised this was the only offer I would get, so I accepted the position. I figured I could stick it out for a while. I had no idea a “while” would last this long. I came into this position with the best attitude I could maintain. I did “Win Backs” and referrals. I also addressed all the legislative issues that SBC and CWA asked me to. I voluntarily transferred from provisioning to maintenance because I knew my troubleshooting skills and telecommunications experience would be a benefit to customer service. I have proven my self an asset at ASI. The customer e-mails and company commendations I have received prove it. I had hopes that if I did all I could to help the company in every way I could it would benefit me in returning to an Outside Group 1 Position. I have waited for a transfer to come my way. I even tried to get a transfer by opening up my scope to the complete state of Missouri. I also changed my transfer status to accept temporary positions and still was unable to secure a transfer.
There was a time when I was proud to say I worked for the “telephone company” because any issue that I encountered I was able to resolve, either in person or by making a call to the correct department. And I could be assured it would be addressed and resolved. Now, when I admit to working for “the telephone company” I get accosted with emotions that range from anger to pity regarding the out right stupidity of our process for resolving Communications issues. I could tolerate that aspect by not admitting where I work, but I cannot escape the attitude while I am at work. And when the attitude from the customer is justified and any explanation I attempt to make just sounds like so much nonsense, that even I wouldn’t accept, I have to remove myself from the situation. I have attempted to address the issues with management but the response is one of two; “That is the system we have to work with” or, and this is my favorite asinine reply, “The security guards are only here to keep you from entering, not leaving, so if you don’t like it leave”. These are examples of the worst kind of management I have had to contend with in my tenure at AT&T. This leadership is unproductive and demoralizing and is one of the largest flaws with in this company.
I can no longer tolerate my participation in the combination of company inanity and customer “serviceless” practices I am forced to witness at ASI and by extension the company as a whole.
Some of the specific issues follow.
* Nine months after I was surplussed, “management” realized too many Splicers were surplussed and we were not returned by seniority. That in itself is something to get aggravated with and is one of the driving forces behind my frustration. Seniority should mean more than just picking vacation and work schedules. I was advised, after the fact, that since I accepted a lateral transfer within my Force Adjustment Area that my “surplus was satisfied”. What ever the criterion that was used to make the decision to surplus Splicers was not made based on any consideration I had any involvement with. Because I accepted the only job I was told I would be offered I am considered “satisfied” for the intent and purpose of the Company and the Union. I can honestly state I have not been satisfied in any manner since I have been involved with this force adjustment.
And when you consider that all the temporary “Project Pronto” techs were surplussed 6 months earlier than I was and they were able to get I&R titles, then surplussed again prior to the 9 month “management realization” and were able to return to the splicer title, it becomes a major issue for me and causes me to feel this action appears to be more about seniority manipulation than “needs of the business”.
Those techs never should have been surplussed to begin with because they were “temporary”. They should have been laid off, not surplussed. I had the opportunity to transfer to “Project Pronto” but was told that it was a temporary position and there was no job location guarantee when it ended. Because I only had 5 years service I could not justify taking the chance of where I would have to report when the project ended. Also the hiring of all those new temporary techs was unwarranted. That should have been apparent because for the first six weeks they had no work. There were a limited number of jobs for the Cable Splicers already on the payroll and it would have been better to have experienced techs performing the work when it became available. As it turned out I was loaned to Project Pronto to complete a job that all the time had been charged off but none of the work had been completed. I worked with a few of the “new” employees and saw first hand their ineffectiveness, which was a result of their limited experience, training and their attitude which was negatively affected because they were “temporary”.
* The procedures which AT&T operates under cause “Customer Service” to become a by-product of the actual goal of “Closing Trouble Reports”, which is what all of our “Quality Reviews” are based on. The attempts to quantify the vast array of issues and resolutions inherent with Telecommunications Repair are unrelated to actually restoring the service to the customer. It is desirable to know why an issue is not resolved, but when the “knowing” takes priority over the resolution it becomes detrimental to customer service and is incongruent with the function of the purpose of the Company as to what the customer expects. As an NCT I have no reasonable expectations of control over many of the aspects which affect the parameters I am held accountable for. There are too many “uncontrollable” aspects from “customer availability for dispatch” to “untrained” technicians that do not have a clue as to what a good working telephone line actually requires for dial tone, much less DSL to work. And these issues cause poor customer service which increases the aggravation and sense of futility that the customers I talk to feel.
Good jobs in 8 hours, Repeats in 10 and 30 days, and chronic repeats are the scale in which our service levels are weighed and these measurements have taken priority over actually resolving the issues. Management’s attempts to operate under budget with out overtime and with “skeleton crews” are adverse to the goal of meeting acceptable customer service levels. Until the “Network” is upgraded and aggressively maintained there are going to be delays and repeats on the services we are attempting to provide to the customer. You would think a company that understands how difficult it is to “win back” a customer would have a better grasp of this concept.
Also the limited training of the Network Center Techs is a major factor in the failure of this department. If it were not for my electronics degree, prior telecommunications experience and training supplemented by my fervor for this industry I would be at a loss if I had to depend on the training I received while at ASI. This limited training creates inability which coupled with the lack of concern for performing the job with quality customer service only fosters employee and customer frustration. When I transferred into this position I was told that “there was no training” for the techs who were here before me. My response was that since the DSC has been operating for almost 5 years that it is not inconceivable that someone could put together a “realistic training process” but that seemed to great a concept to be grasped. All this combines to create an atmosphere that is difficult to work productively in. And since I sought to transfer to an outside position I have had to attempt to work around these inept procedures while maintaining satisfactory ratings which has put an additional burden on me as compared to the network center tech that does not want to transfer and does not care about the longevity of their employment since they see this as a temporary job. There have been changes in the structure of this job but customer service is still less than the level I want to be accountable for, much less associated with.
* I was recently asked what really bothered me about my position as a Network Center Tech and my reply was hard to express as one particular item but at the top of the list would be that other employee’s failure to utilize all the tools at their disposal to do their job correctly adversely affects me and my ability to perform my job. Addressing the poor communications, lack of technical comprehension skills of our foreign representatives and the customer’s anger due to numerous failures to resolve problems the first time are the norm not the exception. And when employees seem to be able to find every reason to not do the job to resolution, instead of one reason to do the job, I get to deal with the irate customers, which fuels my sense of frustration. I am the point of contact for the customer and have had to endure their anger, which in most cases is justifiable, as a result of their frustration with AT&T. I am instructed to “Go beyond the call” but when I attempt to I am told by other departments that we cannot, because of an error and another department I cannot call has to fix it. Or a specific time commitment was made and missed. Or the tech dispatched to the premise does not call the DSC to verify that the issues are truly resolved. Or when I call outside managers to advise them they need their techs to return to the premise because there is no dial tone since the tech left, the manager states we cannot return and will have to reschedule for the next day. And the responsibility falls on me to inform the customer we cannot meet our commitment. And the real frustration comes because I remember, as a Splicer, when I could and did meet our customer service responsibilities, and provided quality customer service, instead of excuses.
* I also have issues with the Company and the Union because of the way the contract we have bargained for seems to be just a “suggestion” instead of a rule. The first page of the Contract talks about “good faith” but there seems to be no attempt to apply that practice by CWA or the Company. I have held up my part of the contract. The company has consistently ignored my seniority in regards to transfers. The “demonstrated ability” clause is used broadly and inaccurately in its scope which should be implemented in cases where seniority is equal but the job duties and experience are dissimilar, like a Supplies Attendant attempting to become a Splicer, not when the only difference is where the actual troubleshooting work is performed, as in the case between a Network Center Technician and a LFO. To disregard seniority because I have not driven a van for the company is a poor excuse to bypass me for a transfer, especially since I drove a truck as a Splicer. And this clause does not take into consideration the background which was used as a basis for my employment with South Western Bell, which is considerably more than most of the techs I have talked to about their telecommunications training and experience.
* CWA and AT&T have agreed to allow three year temporary positions contrary to the contract agreement of 18 months and CWA has made this concession, as I was told, as a trade off in order to restore some employees who were released due to surplus, but no concession was made in regards to my transfer situation which forces me to believe that since I am paying the maximum dues that I am not a concern for CWA. Now that AT&T has temporary employees in the position I was forced out of I have no hope of transferring anytime soon. And the recent surplus only forces me to be last in line again. I see no reasonable hope that I will be allowed a transfer in a timely manner, if at all. And continuing to persevere in this position with the poor levels of customer service that have become the “norm” is not what I want to be associated with.
* Some would say that this is the way “Companies” operate but I disagree. The real issue is at the lower level of management. The first Line management I dealt with as a Splicer was straight forward in their approach. Their concern was job performance and that the work was completed on time. Most issues could be resolved with simple discussion. Those managers did not have time to waste on meetings; we resolved our few concerns standing by the truck at the job site. But most of the managers I have had to contend with in my 4 years at ASI have shown little regard for the overall work I performed. They only seemed to focus on ways to tell me I was not performing the work, not how to improve my performance.
In one instance, I was the point of contact for Dish satellite contractor filtering issues at the request of my 2nd line . I accepted the extra duties but stopped when it became apparent that my manager was more concerned with separate aspects of my job performance than my overall activities. This was a simple case of his inability to realize that my attempt to “go beyond the call” included work that could not be “quantifiable” in the limited scope he was attempting to maintain. The almost “god like powers” of 1st lines over their direct reporting techs is limited only by their desire to use it. The requirements of this job make it easier to fail, than to meet, the 100% levels that have been set as quality guidelines, thus making it easy for disparate issues to be the motivating force when managers determine who is meeting satisfactory levels. All you have to do is compare managers and their techs and you will find inconsistency. The basic point is that the mentality of the “Center Managers” as compared to the “Field Managers” is driven by unproductive activities. The only reason I can justify for this is simply that there are too many center managers and they have too little to do. The number of redundant emails I receive attests to that fact.
* I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how I can be on a step of discipline but be given a 100% satisfactory quality review for the year of 2005.
* You might question if I had so many complaints why didn’t I attempt to make changes. I attempted to make changes to improve this department and overall customer service because my motivation was based on gaining a transfer to an outside group 1 position and anything I could do toward that end was not beneath me.
I offered suggestions via the “Employee Suggestion Box” but have never received a reply as I requested, or saw my suggestions on the “feed back board”.
I suggested we move the Network Center Tech’s to the central offices so that we could work directly with the CO tech to address DSL issues. This would save revenues in two ways; eliminate the need to rent our current center in Earth City and eliminate multiple 1st level management positions because we would be under the CO 1st Lines.
I suggested we return to “Full tech installs” to avoid causing our new customers the unnecessary aggravation of switching from a network that worked to one that we could not support. This would eliminate unproductive dispatches on denials. To off set the cost we would require the LFO to go to 5 other addresses and test for DSL availability and advise the customer, and if they were interested we could then set up the DSL and know it would work which would improve our appearance of customer service.
I suggested we increase the monthly cost of DSL and warranty everything to improve customer perception of our service commitment.
I suggested we set up “Kiosks” at Central Offices and local retailers with a DSL connection and line testing capabilities to allow the customer a 24 hour access point for testing their modem and telephone line. By giving this access to the customer we enable them to be proactive in resolving their issues. And we eliminate the need for “India” and the time wasted on basic troubleshooting issues. This would also free up the NCT availability to address issues that are not resolved by installing a filter correctly on the customer’s telephone.
Until AT&T starts thinking out of the “call center” box customer service will continue to suffer. Wasting the customer’s time with calls to people who cannot be easily understood doesn’t make any sense for a Communications company.
I also gave a process model which would have allowed for stream lining the procedures of ticket ownership to my manager. It separated the duties of the techs within a group into specific functions so that we could address tickets in a timely manner. It was brought to the attention of the 2nd line but rejected due to ticket ownership constraints which in my opinion were geared more for micro managing the techs instead of timely customer service. And now with ticket management, WITT and ATAS the main focus of my ideas have been implemented.
I aggressively addressed “Capacitance” issues that were a major cause of repeats. I advised and volunteered to teach a class but my manager would not allow it at that time. I let the issue drop since it was not important to my immediate management why should it be important to me. But after dealing with the irate customers and the issues created by foolish repeats I again addressed the issue. I tracked the tickets I handled in a two week time frame and sent the information to the 3rd Line and was told PMEI would add it to Peer Training but nothing has been done to address the issue center wide. The only manager who actually took any interest in improving customer service on this issue was and he had me train his techs.
I am resigning from AT&T as an Network Center Tech due to the aggravation of incompetent management and the frustration of inept procedures that consistently fail in attempting to provide quality and sensical customer service coupled with the doubt of a timely transfer to an “outside” Group 1 title has caused me personal issues, which have negatively affected my attitude and quality of life. In this case the fear of the “Known” is greater than the fear of the “Unknown”. Better living through chemistry is only an option if you enjoy what you are doing. Taking “meds” to entice a positive attitude is a poor substitute for a good reason to continue working in this position at AT&T.
Until recently attempting to transfer back to an outside position was my goal. Now getting out from under the Company and the Unions manipulations of the contract, that have negatively affected my ability to transfer to a job I enjoy, is my final goal. Four years of this nonsense is more than enough for me. Maybe if I had hired into this job, and not as a Splicer, then I could contend with the issues, but since I remember when I had pride in what I did and that I was able to make a real difference for the customer, I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of this endeavor. And maybe if the majority of the managers I met here appeared to be motivated by more than their yearly bonus they would be more vocal about the failings in customer service instead of just shrugging and stating they can’t make any changes to the system we have to work with. Why it is not being addressed more aggressively and timely is something I cannot surmise, that it should have been is a long over due conclusion. Just because on a report it appears we are “DELIGHTING EVERY CUSTOMER… ONE AT A TIME….” it might be beneficial to consider who is generating that report.
I am disappointed I am not getting to my goal of 30 years and retirement at AT&T but I guess I can truly say I know what it means to be a customer and be disappointed in AT&T.
js5169(employee id)
Displaced Splicer
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