AT&T Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area

Pros

So far the best thing about working at AT&T is the work/life balance. I'm very lucky in that I can work from home. I've never had to visit an actual ATT facility and my account is real quiet. So I hardly have to even move my car for work, only about 5 times a month. That saved me money when gas was $4.50 a gallon. The bonus was larger than I received from previous company and that is a blessing in this economy.

Cons

The downside is the repetitive, boring and frivolous training. Most of it seems to come from corporate lawyers to reduce their liability. Some bad blood between management and its workforce because of the unions. If there is a strike the non-union workers have to cover the work with no additional compensation and have no say in the matter. Working from home means very little networking with decision makers so job advancement is almost zero. In 5 years I've never met my 1st or 2nd line manager face to face. With the economy in a free fall the overseas outsourcing and downsizing has been accelerated.

Advice to Senior Management

As in most corporations senior management is totally out of touch with its front line employees. Your workforce is more then just overhead. We are real people, with real lives. Think about that when you decide to slash your workforce in order to increase the price of your stock options. Give us the ability to make this a great company and cut out the bureaucracy.

Pros

Stable company with forward thinking on future technology & handles money extremely well. Probably a good stepping stone to other corporations. Good benefits (but you have to pay more as a manager)

Cons

Constant downsizing; doesn't truly care about employees; reorganizations are planned with little input from lower management - when lower management doesn't agree, their input is ignored. California employees are treated like second class employees because of California's worker friendly laws. If a vacancy happens in California, it's backfilled in another state. Very cheap leadership - many employees pay for their own cell phones, office supplies, head sets. And there are still 24 private jet pilots on the payroll.

Advice to Senior Management

Involve your lower management leaders in more key decisions. Listen to them - they're the one's who have to make your plans work.

Pros

Good benefits; depending on department good family environment

Cons

tough to advance after a 2nd level position. Essentially, advancement comes after someone in a position above you has left. In addition it is hard to get a lot of professional development help. They show off the new program that offers courses supposedly from Harvard, but no one knows about it and to get set up takes a long time. If you are looking for dedicated professional development growth, I do not think this is the best place to be. Furthermore, if you don't have a MBA coming out of undergrad, don't expect any support from the company to pursue it.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the opportunities for learning so that talent does not keep on searching for other opportunities

Pros

Benefits package including health care, life insurance, and employee-preferred discounts are outstanding. However, changes do occurr from time to time especially with health care coverage which leaves a lot of people confused.

Cons

No upward mobility. The goals for attaining the next level is unclear. Little to no training is given to those employees who would like to sharpen their skill sets because most supervisors are out of touch with their respective employees. The perception of working for a big company like AT&T is not what it seems to be. It's good to take care of the customers, but the same is not for its hard-working employees. It's all about meetings and agendas but not so much about employee recognitions and company-sponsored outings or events.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to Senior Management is to listen to Supervisors regarding work satisfaction and the desire for promotions.

Pros

The name that everyone recognizes. So that when you make that "cold call" and say that you are from AT&T, everyone knows who you are calling from and usually "why" you are calling.

Cons

Reliability. Due Dates. Stucture. Quota. Processes. Quota.

"Our T-1's have a 99.999% up rate, and they will not go down, we will know that its down before you do!" yeah right.

"This is when you technician will be there..." Nope, just kidding, for some reason your job was never assisgned to technician, I'm sorry you wont have your lines and your dsl up for another week. Oh, and you like this Integrated product, this Flex Reach, with both your voice and data...well if you can wait for about 6 MONTHS we can have it in and up and running.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at what are we are given to sell...what tools are in place for your team to be successful? How are you going to get a customer on the hook for a product that takes 6 MONTHS TO INSTALL AND PROVISION?! Provide a resouce that we can call to hand off problems. You want your lines, dsl's, plans, T-1's and Integrated T-1's...realistically how are you going to raise quota and lower payouts on products that take 6 MONTHS to INSTALL?!?! Where is the reasoning behind this and how can you be successful at a corporation like this if you dont have a "connection" in a different group (the inbound call centers)

Pros

- Great starting place for someone looking to develop telco/datacom skill set, then take that skill set elsewhere to maximize pay

Cons

- limited sales upside (sales compensation cap)
- limited career advancement opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

- develop career progression opportunities
- encourage process improvement, not business as usual when current SOP is inefficient

Pros

Steady employment, average wages. Management concession package

Cons

Over the years the company expects you to do more with less. Raises are practically non-existent, and shows overwhelming favoritism.

Advice to Senior Management

To care more about lower management and to ensure that employees are treated fairly.

Pros

AT&T is the best reason for customer to open the doors to us. We can walk up to any business and should be able to gain access to the customer's decision maker for a quick marketing pitch. It is hard to claim that from a smaller Telecommunication company. We have some very technical genius working at AT&T but we also have a bunch of people being in the way of everyday business and pile of paperworks that would not earn us any eco friendly place to work anytime sonn. Too many cooks and not enough assistant to support a massive red tape monster.

Cons

AT&T is not always willing and nimble enough to take all the business offering to us.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Management to work together at the highest level possible and eliminate red tape starting with straighten out the operation side of the house---Unionized Technicians are a great way to ensure good livings but often is the cause of customer dissatisfaction with AT &T .

Pros

Experience with many different types of people in a high speed sales environment. Learn how to deal with a hardball style of management. Very social environment.

Cons

Old school type of management, pay scale on a constant downward spiral, they make you work more and get paid less. Unrealistic expectations and goals. Commissions are paid on feature sales mostly. You get charged back on your paycheck for 6 months after you make a sale. Feature codes and pricing is changed about every three months. If your customer goes to a different At&t out of convenience. Every sales person step one is to look at features on the customers account. If the feature code has changed, you end up owing At&t money and someone else steals your commissions. You spend half of your sale times checking your charge backs, When your feature sales drops it affects your percentage which affects your overall pay. our managers treated us like we were bad sales people, but, would not let us spend anytime trying to fix our chargebacks.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to stop micro managing. Appreciate your employees who get you paid.

Pros

being exposed to working for a large comopany

Cons

the company barely reimburses for business trips, no employee lunches or anything of a sort, no forks or plates in the kitchen - you get the picture

Advice to Senior Management

When you hire someone new, it would be nice to have a budget to take them to lunch, etc...
There is no commuter program in this company. How is that possible for a large company like this not go for "green"?