AT&T Wireless Reviews in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Area

Pros

They pay is very competitive, good benefits, and reputable company.

Cons

Too many commission changes, quota changes, and its hard to transfer from one department to another.

Pros

Telecommute! - My department authorized telecommuting programs for qualifying employees.
Annual Bonus
Benefits include good plans for vision, dental, and medical and a 401k plan.

Cons

The vendor dominates technical development and programming for the company. AT&T does not seem to support this kind of work inside the company.
Management employees are currently required to go into the field to replace union workers during years that contracts expire in the event the unions go on strike which means ATT employees must put personal plans on hold so they can travel to other national worksites to fill in until the strike is finished.

Advice to Senior Management

AT&T has a great deal going for it in recruiting new hires; however, the need for "all hands on deck" when a union strike is imminent and the poor opportunities to advance are some significant drawbacks for AT&T. Do away with the need to fill in for the unions and find ways to open advancement opportunities.

Pros

Company offers good benefits for families.

Cons

No chance to promote unless your buddies with hiring managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit acting like the employees are not the reason your successful.

Pros

Pretty easy job where you can get away with not doing much work. You don't have to deal with management on a regular basis. There is a good amount of job stability because the company is doing well.

Cons

The base salary for new people coming in to the position is around HALF of what similar positions with similar companies pay. The "comission" might as well be a fixed amount since your quotas change on a monthly basis. If you exceed your quota by a large amount one month you are guaranteed to have a high quota that you fall well short of the next few months. There are a lot of politics and if you hope for a raise or promotion its all about who you know and who you suck up to. Not a bad gig to have while you are looking for something better. The salary range for people doing the exact same job is a joke. Salary can range from $24k-$90k

Advice to Senior Management

The salary range of this position is a joke. There should be a closer gap in salary and you will get a better idea of who the really good employees are. The quotas discourage high performance. Once I was close to my quota I purposely sand bagged it because I knew the only reward for hitting the cap was a huge quota the next few months. This position has too much freedom and no matter what anyone tells you who is doing the job or supervising the job, NO ONE in this position is working very hard.

Pros

there was a car allowance

Cons

holding commission was a normal practice

Advice to Senior Management

hire more effective managers please

Pros

Great benefit, good pay for what you do. Very strong company to work for even in the bad economy.

Cons

Can be extremely stressful with ridiculous goals that are hard to achieve.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a heart sometimes don't stress out your employees so much and they will work hard for you.

Pros

Benefits/PTO
Decent pay and small yearly bumps... (2-3%) minimum if you perform
Stable
It has just about all the positive attributes of a large bureaucracy.

Cons

Extremely large
Low expectations
Boring
It has just about all the negative attributes of a large bureaucracy, but they are mostly benign.

Advice to Senior Management

The senior management seems as in touch as they can be for such a huge company. Overall, stability is the biggest benefit of working there, and possibly the biggest detriment.

Pros

* The products/services are somewhat interesting. But the projects that launches these products/services are run so badly as the project managers are given zero authority/power to execute. Poor product and program strategies. Weak time to market.
* If you adore dysfunctional company politics, this might your next home.

Cons

* Lousy middle and upper management with idea how to meet business objectives or hone in on the vision of the future. Very reactive to competitors' ideas with no proactive innovation of their own.
* Company filled with 'lifers' who have been at the company 20-30, some at the 40 year mark. They have no other perspective but working at one company for most of their 'career'. Many came from the call center and played their politics and became low/middle managers and are put in charge of launching so-called top Web/online initiatives but yet they have no experience in eBusiness or any initiative they are put in charge. I have seen managers put in charge to lead eCommerce initiatives but they have never ever even bought anything online! I am not kidding you. Hence the projects fail. I have been at the company for a little over 5 years, have had 12 managers and not a single one of them were a SME in what they were managing. They knew far less about the subject than most of those they manage and they execute stupid decisions that hurt the team. There are constant reorgs. If you don't like your foolish manager, wait for about 6-12 months and you'll get another fool. I am dying to leave this place. If it weren't for the horrendous economy, I'm certain I would have been long gone.
* Very few amazingly talented people get hired in. Every now and then some rare bright talent gets hired in. They don't stay because the company's Orwellian culture pushes them out. You are beat up for having good ideas and an innovative attitude. The way to keep the heat off yourself is to adopt a "yes" attitude to everything, no matter if it's good or bad. That kills innovation/creativity and establishes bots. Very Orwellian work environment. Big brother attitude and corporatespeak galore.
* "Lifer" managers who have no understanding of leadership or management. Their idea of management is based on Orwellian kickdown and Theory X methodologies where you have to obey them at all costs. Since many came from the call center culture where you have to clock in and out at a certain time, they bring those ideas with them and force it on professionals they manage. You are a good "team player" in their eyes if you obey, say "yes" to everything and don't rock the boat.
* Most employees are relegated to being glorified admin assistants regardless of their title because there is so much overhead, so much red tape and no empowerment of them in their jobs. Most professionals have zero authority to do much of anything. You have to get a VP to approve your purchase of a pencil, literally. There is no trust, no empowerment, no authority given. Management methodologies belong to the 1950s, not a 21st century management style.
* Failure rate of IT projects/programs is very high. Higher than the industry standards. Even for those projects that have been launched, many do not completely reach their business objectives/goals.
* No such thing as real performance reviews. It's all based on favoritism. If you are not someone's "pet", you are screwed. Performance reviews are based on quota. Every year, a couple of people have to be stiffed with a bad review no matter if they did well. So if you're not someone's "pet", you can be the scape goat. Happened to many others I have known. They would perform very well throughout the year but they weren't their manager's pet and they got stiffed with a low to mediocre review where the lazy or lousy ass employees who are brown-nosers or pets get the high reviews and awards.
* Zero career growth. No upward or even lateral mobility encouraged. The internal hiring system is such that you have to ask permission to leave your team or the hiring manager of the other team won't even talk to you. When you ask permission to be released from your team, your manager thinks you are no more loyal to the team and you are cut from all other considerations for your current team. Fact is, you may not get a suitable/well-fit internal job for months/years. So now you're screwed with your current team and have no path to leave for another internal team. Making it where you have to leave the company. Also, managers frequently tell team members they can't leave their team, i.e. you're frozen from leaving for another internal job even if you were offered that other job. Their excuse: they can't fill the headcount with someone else.
* Lousy health benefits for managers (non-union). Current health for PPO/POS plan - you have to pay a very high deductible (almost $2000). You might as well not have health insurance unless you were ill or go to the doctor a lot and can hit the high deductible threshold. Colleagues tell me all the time they no longer want to go to the doctor as they end up absorbing all the costs for the high deductible. Health plan for managers deteriorated badly since the re-emergence of Ma Bell after SBC acquired AT&T.
* You are just a number, not a person. You are never treated as an individual nor appreciated as a human being. Very dystopian environment.
* Low ethics by managers despite constant HR doubletalk about corporate code of conduct to be followed at all times. No real checks and balances in place as HR consists of bureaucrats and empty-headed followers whose job is to carry out the orders of management.

Advice to Senior Management

* Trim the fat. The company is very bloated. Fire the "lifer" low/middle/upper managers who are lousy do-nothing leeches.
* Hire real talent, and replace those who do nothing but bring down the company.
* Adopt and launch real business strategies instead of a monopolistic approach in the marketplace.
* Poor culture starts at the top. Start scrutinizing performance at the executive level for real.
* Complete revamp of the company culture to enable a new culture that is about innovation and change. (This is an impossible task to ask of a behemoth company that has been around since God created cream cheese).
* AT&T is a classic textbook business school example of what NOT to be when you run a company and what you do NOT want your managers to become. It is a soul-crushing toxic environment that I'm sure that even Peter Drucker would shake his head in disbelief.

Pros

90% worked from home office
decent salary
huge org w/opportunity

Cons

won't move up unless you "know someone" regardless of abilities/tenure
benefits went seriously downhill
continue to heap on more and more responsibilities without any additional comp
continued to place leadership in to save an exec's job instead of knowledge & experience
expected to train my boss

Advice to Senior Management

Ever seriously wonder why AT&T is called the "Death Star"?

Pros

It is a environment to get used to sales. If you have no family or life its good. You learn to roll with the punches because priorities change constantly. Decent commission rate.

Cons

No life to work balance. Commission payouts are getting smaller and smaller because of bad job market. No benefit to moving into management at all. Will pay for tuition but wont work around school schedule. They are making the minimums harder to hit and paying less when you do well.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your people and realize that without them you are not going to have anyone moving your products. The wireless side is the only thing making this company money, the sooner you realize that and treat people accordingly the better the company will be.