retail sales associate

store manager

installation technician

customer service representative

sales representative

AT&T

A typical day involved a 30 minute meeting starting at 8:00 and the requirement to leave the garage by 8:15, already impossible demand to meet. First job for the day would be an install, where the sales rep promised the customer that they would not have to be home for their 8 TV, 2 VoIP Line, and Internet installation, so once explaining to the customer that it is necessary to have access inside, they are already angry with you and the company. 

You then arrive at the terminal servicing that neighborhood, run connections to premise location, travel to premise to verify sync only to find it not at assignments. You then spend 1 hour validating the need for an outside technician to come resolve your sync issue. Once you have completed all the necessary work outside, prep work is done to run new catv home run to RG location, which customer wants on the exact opposite side of their house, in a corner office. You then spend 30 minutes explaining to the customer how their wifi will be very limited throughout the house due to their desired modem location, this further angers the customer because they believe you are trying to weasel yourself out of a hard job. You finally convince the customer to let you install the modem in a centralized area of the house, allowing maximum wifi coverage.

 As you begin to finish up all the prep work for TV and VoIP service inside, the line technician calls you to inform you he's headed to lunch and will be there in an hour after already waiting 4 hours for him to arrive, convincing him to do this job first proves pointless. You explain to the customer the hold up, making up an excuse for the line technician (He's finishing up another customer's service issue) so as not to slander our company any further in front of this customer; they become even more angry and threatened to cancel the service already. You call your manager, they tell you to start troubleshooting lines from the premise to the connection terminal in order to find a working line (This is line technician work, Premise Technicians are not trained nor paid enough to do this, but desperation makes one adaptive and underpaid). Using very archaic equipment to troubleshoot lines, you slowly determine which line is viable for the service. 

After you finally get sync at the premise finally, you head inside to power up the equipment, during which the line technician arrives to find you have sync, and thus gives you negative marks for having a line technician dispatched when they weren't required, all without calling you! You get the modem working, and begin uploading TVs. The first receiver has an error, and will not connect to the Uverse network, you swapped out this peripheral with the same outcome. You then instant message with a tech support to find there are problems with the "order flowing" and have to wait another 2 hours to rebuild the entire order. Customer is livid, they are on the verge of cancelling their installation due to all hold ups, you do your best to soothe them, and call up a Retention line to have tons of promos and perks added to their order, all free for a year.

 Finally the order flow issue is resolved, you continue uploading all the receivers, each uploading no problem. When you go to register the customer to complete their registration process, you discover the modem is not emitting a wireless signal, you swap this out, which in turns causes the DVR on the network to red ring (ie. dies), you swap out this unit as well. Finally, you see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are almost done with this job, it's 8pm. As you're educating the customer on the Uverse TV service, they inquire about the channel their favorite network is on. You check the directory to find it is not available with Uverse at all. Customer is visibly agitated as they explain how the sales rep assured them multiple times that their favorite network will be included, you then instant message with tech support again only to confirm that the network is not available on Uverse under a different name. This is the last straw, customer cancels installation, you pack everything up, return job for cancellation, and dispatch on another job at 9pm, a repair which is essentially a re-install that takes 3 hours. 

You arrive the next day at 8:00. After the meeting, your manager pulls you aside, explains how you are not meeting your numbers, and that the new second-line (their manager) is a real stickler for the metrics they gauge our performance with so unfortunately, we're gonna have to let you go. 

This is not a Murphy's Law hypothetical situation, this is a typical day as a technician with Uverse, with some fluctuations in road blocks. You will have good days, when other managers are not cherry-picking incredibly painless and quick apartment installations from the work load for their crew members, but they are few and far. Your metrics (How you perform) are compared to other districts in newer parts of the DFW area (i.e. Central Dallas and Frisco will be held to the same standards, which is a juxtaposition of a 1940s house to a 2000s house). 

On the job, I learned a lot about computer networking, configuring modems, all things Ethernet, and how to push my creative thinking to the extreme. I learned how to trouble shoot cables (Coax, Catv, you name it).

The management was interesting; typically your manager were the ones to empathize with their technicians because they were once technicians themselves, so they would do what they could to help expedite solutions whereas their bosses have a very limited knowledge of the technician job, only so far as what the archaic technician training program taught them and what they can surmise from anecdotes by technician managers. 

My coworkers were a main reason why I enjoyed the job. They weren't just coworkers, they were colleagues, my brothers in blue, etc. We looked out for one another, provided insight, shared wisdom, and helped each other when we could. 

The hardest part was breaking promises with loved ones due to unforeseeable work hours. You watch your social life dissipate as you dredge on, but your bank account skyrockets and suddenly you have new friends: Discover, Capital One, Citi Bank, you get their invitations every day. 

The most enjoyable part was meeting some of the most unique people in the DFW area and hearing their stories; their humble beginnings, their exotic travels, their work, everything. Their houses were also some of the most unique you've ever seen, vastly different from the modern day cookie-cutter homes you see in Frisco. 

If you are looking to work here at AT&T as a Retail Sales Consultant, keep the following in mind as you throw your resume to the nearest location. The pay is great, lots of discounts on entertainment services to keep you there. One of the biggest things keeping me working here are the discounts. That's about it.

Typical Day to Day: 
You come in, go over numbers, and go convince people to buy things they didn't need or want. Failure to do so will result in lower numbers, more coachings, less commission, and just overall stress. Then you head home only to start over again the next day. It depends on your store manager (RSM) and assistant managers (ASM). Fortunetly, I got an ASM who loved to commit fraud on a daily basis. Said ASM taught me how to word things properly to make it sound like customers are getting a good deal when in reality they are being uninformed about a product or service. I was once told to sell someone 3Mbps internet (stupid slow) by saying it was the fastest speed in their area. I did not say that. Even after talking with said ASM, they informed me that even if they do get mad and come back, "as long as I made numbers, management will turn the other way". If you didn't do as ASM informed you to, you would be talked to after each and every transaction with customers about why THE CUSTOMER didn't want services or products.

Day to Day: Part 2;
When you come into work, your job is to take as many customers as humaily possible to maximize commission and overall numbers. The thing I never got was when someone came in to the store simply looking to buy a case or pay a bill and "that was all they were looking for today." You as an RSC had to, open their account, and fill out a solution sheet, and then have said sheet signed by an ASM BEFORE the customer left the store. A "Solution Sheet" is bascially a form where you build a "Customer Solution" showing that you offered all the current products and services. Even if they were coming in and doing something small THATS IT, you still had to annoy the customer and pitch EVERYTHING. I know that it is apart of my job, but these customers aren't looking to buy anything, but the case they came in for. So WHY not get them out as soon as possilbe to help one of the 30 customers waiting for someone, that actually ARE looking to get one of our more benefical products or serivces (sales wise) instead of wasting time on a dead end sale? I've watched HUNDREDS of people walk away due to waiting times. We as human reps. cannot go at the speed of sound. Setting up service does take a second so once a sale is in process that rep won't be pulling any other customers for at LEAST 20 minutes, and that's if everything goes smoothly. So you've pitched everything to a person looking for ONE case and got told no to everything you've pitched. Well now you take your solution sheet to an ASM only to get drilled on why the person you're helping doesn't want our services. "They just want a case," isn't a valid responce. If I ever get fired or quit, I will NEVER tell ANYONE to EVER walk into an AT&T store. They will be there for at least 2 hours and will be just as stressed out as the Rep that helped them. The solution sheet isn't a "customer solution" it is a "company solution." How can we get the most money and sales out of the person in front of me?  Lesson of the Day: Do everything yourself online period.

What I've Learned:
I've learned that the company doesn't care about me or anyone else just numbers. ESPECIALLY in 2020. As a Part-Timer benefits suck, health is a joke that tries to take your ENTIRE check, so just settle for eye and dental 6 months in. I've learned that if yoy don't come into work you're in trouble and thats that. Back in Feburary I was unfortunetly passing my first kidney stone. Let me just say OUCH. I was in the E.R. from the moment I got off work around 8:30 PM to about 6:00 AM. Worst night of my life. I got excused from work BY A DOCTOR, gave my ASM my notes, only to be told that I would still recieve points for not coming to work. How am I supposed to believe my leaders care about me if they do that to me? Disgusting. I've learned so much more and you will too should you still apply after reading this. The schedule can and WILL change on you whenever and however the RSM wants it. If you want to use vacation time (you won't get til 6 months in) you have to request it from your RSM (which they can deny) with a month in advance. Your schedule though? Yeah your schedule can change with a two day notice. It's monday and you have something planned this weekend with the wife and kids? Maybe a dinner with friends? NOPE you just found out your schedule has changed in the blink of an eye. You are only guarenteed the next 42 hours. That's it.

The Hardest Part of The Job:
Pretty much every living and breathing moment. If you want to work here. Yes, you will pay the bills. Yes, if you do have good sales force, you will make great checks and great commission checks. Just be ready to take on this wonderful company and it's amazing dedication to you. Sarcasm.

The Most Enjoyable Part of the Job:
You meet a lot of people. I come from a background of helping people. I love making people happy it's something I strive to do everyday. So you can see how myself and the job clash. It's Sales. It's not a customer solution you're building, it's a company solution. You do make a lot of friends. RSC's are usually pretty cool with each other. I love all my friends at work. We are all different in our own ways and you wouldn't really catch most of us in the same niche. but work brings us together even if it's complaining about work haha.

Gonna end this here and just say if you don't mind going over people's heads, lying/rewording things to sound more pleasing, commiting fraud, and dealing with this company's disgusting policies and guidelines, then this job might be for you. Thanks for reading I hope this information is useful to you.



The wireless industry has changed, so there isn't as much money to be made compared to say, a decade ago. AT&T is a good company with a good product, but there are some issues that can be extremely grating.

First of all, everyone on the retail sales floor is a union employee. I don't have an overall opinion of unions one way or the other, but it seems a little ridiculous for a retail job. This means that if you are assigned to a store with many tenured employees you will be the one who gets the short end of the stick from everything like scheduling, to the choice of your employee phone model. For me it meant working nothing but closing shifts and every weekend day for the entire time I was there, and even having to use a phone with a cracked screen because I was last in line to choose a device from the demo stock. 

The quotas change every month, which is pretty standard in this business, but instead of setting them as a target amount of sales, you are up against a target commission amount. What that means is that the amount you are paid for a transaction changes each month. One month, a sale may net you $10, whereas the next you may only get $3 for the exact same transaction. This keeps commission payouts lower and makes it even harder to overachieve since the goals are set aggressively in the first place. 

The customer surveys will always reflect negatively on the sales rep, no matter what the customer says in the survey. This applies especially to corporate policy where you have absolutely no influence. The only scores that count are something like a 9 or a 10 (I forget the exact metric) and everything else pretty much counts as a zero. I had multiple surveys where the customer absolutely LOVED their interaction with me, named me specifically, and detailed the transaction. However, when asked a question about pricing satisfaction, if they scored low and commented something like "AT&T's prices are high compared to the competition", it bombed my entire score. I had an extremely patronizing district manager who would then send out nasty gram emails to my store manager. Thankfully, he shrugged them off, but this is indicative of a culture where everything simply rolls downhill and any negative feedback must be the fault of those on the sales floor.

That same district manager would also send out mass texts where he would congratulate top performers, but also denigrate people as well. These texts went to every salesperson, customer service rep, and manager in six different stores. To me that was very unprofessional. Congratulate in public, motivate in private, management 101. There is no need to embarrass people in front of their co-workers, especially in something as passive-aggressive as a text message. The key takeaway here is to try and meet the personalities in the store and find out the management styles of those above as well. 

There are so many departments and segments in the company that you are never really empowered to help the customer without having to call a certain department for approval or completion of a menial task. Often, you'll be on hold for a long time, even though it's an internal company hotline. This is very frustrating because you can spend an hour on the phone waiting for somebody in a call center across the country to try and figure out something that could easily be solved if the local store/employees were empowered to fix it. This again leads to very frustrated customers who don't like waiting around.

However, the are several pros to this job, it's not necessarily a negative place. As far as retail sales jobs go, the pay is more than you will make compared to your average hourly retail gig. If you want to work retail, wireless still has some of the highest compensation. I still interact with several people that I worked with and made some good friends in the store that I still have today. The training is pretty solid, though a bit boring and elementary for someone who has been in this business for any length of time, but you have to cater that sort of thing to rookies, not seasoned pros. You will learn a lot about several different technologies very quickly, whether they be operating systems, phone and tablet models, or apps and services. Personally, I enjoy interacting with people, so it was always fun getting to know my customers and their varied backgrounds.

But it IS a retail job in a segment where emotions run high and you'll have to be able to shrug some things off. Customers will get angry, you will get yelled at about things that are actually their fault, and you'll be accused of things ("You've overcharged me since day one!") simply because you work for the company and may have never interacted with that customer before. You gotta be able to shrug it off. 

Overall, wireless is a good retail job, and a good stepping stone to other ventures, whether internally or externally. AT&T is a strong company, but if I were looking at a wireless job, I'd check out Verizon first. Same pros and cons, but more money and no union seniority.

Worked for ATT for a year and a half. Great company. Co workers were fantastic. I did really well my first year, finished top 1 percent of salesman in the region. How quickly you learn and adapt depends on you and how willing management is to teach you. I was quickly recognized and promoted at nine months. Very good place to start with zero to little sales experience. The health benefits kick in after six months, you do get immediate discounts on ATT services and products. As a salesman expectations are pretty clear. 

You make good money for a sales job that is pretty easy to grasp. I was able to provide for my wife, kid and my dog with this job. You get out of this what you out into it. Great resume builder. 

When I was promoted the expectations weren’t as clear. There’s a lot to do in management. Growth and learning really depends on you, upper management doesn’t watch out for you as much. 

My COU workers as a managers were fantastic. Friendly, energetic and motivated. 

You do have to be very patient and empathetic. You meet all walks of life and people will either treat you very kindly or see you as someone who is just trying to get by with an entry level retail job. People can lack respect and be very rude, as is the world of customer service. 

Software at ATT needs to be updated, I believe it’s 20 years old and constantly receives patches/updates. Can’t tell you how many times something wouldn’t work because the system crashed. Very frustrating for customers but even more so for employees who have to work with the software every day. 

There is a lot of turn over in retail sales. I worked under four different managers in just a year and a half. When I was a rep we had five or six reps quit and five or six hired within six or seven months. 

I had both negative and positive experiences with management. Some managers really care about you as an individual, will invest a lot of time and energy if you are willing to work. They give good advice and let you grow/make mistakes. They are friendly/personable. Good managers stick there necks out for you and are willing to stay late to help you close a sale. I had one manager who stayed late several times, when I was new, to ensure that I could close big deals. He would stay later to help us learn back office tasks. Another manager would frequently plan team builders outside of work. We got to know everyone in the team very well. Another manager always asked me how I was every day. He would sit down and ask me about family, myself and any other current events in my life for 5-10 minutes before hitting the sales floor. These managers really cared. 

On the other hand… Some managers micro manage. As a manager I was once asked to give an update about every single customer in the store via text message. That can be quite a few customers on a busy Saturday. This particular management team would not be upfront about my mistakes and how they were upset about them. I would hear from co workers about my performance. That’s unprofessional. Once I put my two weeks in I was asked to stay for a whole month.. only to hear that the manager just wanted me gone. The manager got extremely impatient, would micromanage (as stated above) and would demand unrealistic results. We had a meeting about our sales and in one category we had already surpassed the goal by %30 for the whole month. I was informed that the goals were too small anyway and we needed to do better. I received several text messages asking if I would be on a team call just minutes before the meeting. However, before putting in my two weeks that never happened. (I was also previously informed that they were hoping to promote me yet again in about six months time). I was discriminated against just for wanting to leave the company for a great opportunity. Several other things took place but just to put it simply… managers take some business aspects personally and will go out of their way to avoid you, to audit you and try to find fault. Of all the other places I’ve worked and put in my two weeks I have never felt so belittled just for wanting to leave for a different job. 

All in all, if I saw how my journey at ATT would end I would’ve done it again. Sometimes you can’t avoid unprofessional management. It really helped me build my resume and helped me get my foot in the door for a lot of interviews. Management mostly is good but tend to take things personal and can micro manage and be petty. Mostly they’re good but it’s up to the the toss of a coin. This is corporate America and no one will watch your back so make sure you cross all your t’s and dot all the i’s. 

The Good:

I started out as a wire technician having never used a drill or pliers in my life, and having no experience with telecom work. I still started out at $28 an hour, but I also have a college degree and AV experience so YMMV. Regardless, a degree and tech experience are not a hard requirement, so if you want to get hands-on experience in cabling/telecom but don't have prior experience or education, being a wire technician is probably the best paid entry-level position you can find.

The Bad:

You will have no work-life balance, and your relationship to your manager will likely be an adversarial one. 

Expect a 50 hour minimum week mostly outside in the sun, the cold, the rain, the dark, and all other things that the great outdoors entails. Your day is over when there is no more work left, so you will never know when you will be home -- don't plan for ANYTHING on a work day. 

Management is motivated by absolutely nothing except hitting their numbers. For you, that will be efficiency (how quickly you complete installs and repairs), completions (how many jobs you are able to complete without cancelling) and quality (how many of the jobs you completed had to have another technician go out again within 30 days). 

Sounds reasonable and easy, right? Well, the amount of time you expected to complete a job is laughable, like, outside the limitations of the human body -- to do a full install from scratch, and do everything right with no corners cut, you probably need 3 hours. They want it done in 2. A repair could be as simple as an unplugged modem, or it could be climbing five telephone poles and putting up a new wall box and running a new wire through an attic. In either situation, you get an hour to do it. Completing a job without canceling it sounds easy at first, but if you dispatch on a job, and 5 minutes later the customer calls you and says "Actually I have to leave, I'm gonna cancel the appointment," that counts against you. If a customer calls in because their internet is out, and you discover that the main cable for the neighborhood has been cut and construction needs to dig it up and fix it, that counts against you. 

And doing good enough work that another technician doesn't need to go out to the same customer again within 30 days sounds easy enough, but accidents happen. A dog will chew up the cable you installed. The modem will randomly go bad. Construction or landscapers will cut a line. 

See a theme? Many of the things that harm your numbers are outside of your control, but AT&T does not see gray -- it is ALWAYS your fault in their eyes. Although your metrics will improve as you get better, no matter how good you are, it is impossible to hit the target numbers consistently. 

Why care though? You will be told to not worry, because you can't be fired for your numbers. But if you start to get on your manager's radar (and again, this can happen for reasons outside your control), they will put you under the microscope and try to make your job so hard that you quit, or find reasons to fire you. I have personally seen this happen to others, and had it happen to me. 

Since this is all dependent on how good your manager is, maybe it won't happen to you. But I am not sure if there are good wire technician managers, having worked with nearly a dozen -- i believe the issue is cultural, not just a few bad apples.  I can almost guarantee you that even with a "good" manager, you will be harassed over something trivial at some point. 

So why 3 stars? If i could put 2.5 stars, 50/50, that would be more accurate. Like I said above, as frustrating as it can be, the pay is good. I happen to think that every working person in the country deserves a significant raise, but even I can't complain too much about my paycheck, especially when you factor in the aforementioned overtime. Plus, it's a good way to start out in cable and build skills if you have no prior experience. And while management can be bad, there is truly a supportive culture shared between technicians (as long as you don't do completely terrible work), so you don't always feel completely alone. 

In conclusion-- if you can stand long hours outside, are willing to be away from home entirely 5 days a week, and can stand occasional vitriol and indignity slung at you by your boss in exchange for good pay and a decent stepping stone to a more humane position somewhere else, go for it. Otherwise, reconsider.

Hired on as a Premises Tech to install internet & cable TV. Training was a joke. 7 weeks of wasted time that doesn't prepare you for any of the things you need to know in the field. A week of pole climbing using shoe-spike harnesses they don't even stock at the garage. A week on how to train the customer to use the remote control, but they don't allow you enough time to do the training at an install.

Garage managers rose up through the AT&T ranks. Some never even worked on u-verse & don't know the first thing about the system. None of them are educated in staff management, so the garage environment where I was stationed was a lot like a frat house. Constant pranks & juvenile insults made it a place I didn't even want to go into in the morning.

Found out after starting there, the turnover was 50% within the first 6 months you are there. For 6 months you're on probation & the union won't back you if, for any reason,  they want to let you go. During the probation period you're under a microscope. I saw techs fired for losing a tool, traveling outside their route during a job to pick up a part they needed for an install from another tech.

It's definitely on-the-job training, but if you don't have the foresight to know what questions to ask before a situation comes up, you're screwed, because in the moment.... you're on your own. The majority of the new people that make it in this job have previous experience from being trained and working for another cable company. They move to AT&T because it is a union job there.

When you become a full union member at 6 months, the benefits are great. Health insurance for the whole family is dirt cheap. But for the first 6 months, (you know, while you're still trying to figure out how to use the safety belts & stuff up on a roof or ladder,) you pay for 100% of the insurance yourself, if you want to get it. The price was $1200 a month for me and my wife. So, most guys go without it, because it's not affordable.

I thought I would really enjoy working this job. I worked previously servicing office equipment & thought this would be a lot like that without all the rigid office environment protocall. And while I did like going out and meeting with customers in their homes, all the oppressive aspects of the job took away from it.

In the end, you are solely judged by how fast you can get the jobs done when you're on probation. (Yes, they have a printed schedule that says it should only take you X hours to install an internet hookup and 3 TVs.) And it doesn't matter to them whether everything is on the same floor of the house, or if one TV is in the basement, one is on the main floor, and one is in a second floor bedroom. No additional time is given just because you have to climb up on the roof, without insurance. You still need to get it done in the same amount of time. Job time is why most new guys are let go. One of the veteran techs told me, the only way he was able to keep up his install time, was doing repairs, because they allow more time than you need for repairs if you know what you're doing. Then it averages out over your day. The problem we had in my garage is none of the new guys were given repairs. All we worked on were the installs. So, in a way, they were setting us up to fail from the start.

When I spoke to one of the veteran techs about the high turnover of new techs, he explained that to AT&T this was a much needed write-off. He said they are pulling in so much money from the u-verse division, they used the constant training and turnover to help  counterbalance it. Too bad. I thought it would be kind of cool to work for a high profile corp like AT&T. In the end.... this was the worst job I ever had

Where do I start, let start with this, if you want a good paying job with decent benefits ONLY and nothing else matters then this job is for you.  Now if your concerned with anything else then I am going to tell you what they don’t tell you when you start working for AT&T.  Let’s get started, management they really don’t care about you only when you are performing at top level because they receive bonus pay out. There is no real coaching to help you develop in your craft because they are always changing things as they call AT&T "At this time" so what you are doing one day the next day will be different which is difficult to develop a core base. 
Their policies, procedures and resources for employees are not readily available it takes some time to find or locate information that should be at your fingertips to perform correctly, but in the event you are being discipline they are easily found to support your corrective action by the manager and then you are told you should know this or its in their knowledge base system as well as they tell you “you went over this in TRAINIING”, go figure! Henceforth their knowledge-based system is poorly structured, not to mention the outdate technology, the 20 systems you use daily (not exaggerating) and management always refer you to these systems to find your solution because most of leadership don't know the answer when you have a question or concern regarding a customer or just knowledge. Sounds crazy huh, they can’t give an answer but know how to find or tell you what you are doing wrong per policy. They sale the job by saying AT&T has the best customer service based on review boards that measures telecommunication across the spectrum. This is because they don't care about the employees (the frontline of the company) they only care about the numbers, this means you must take abuse from the customer but always be nice to them and the customer has learned this behavior to get what they want. If a customer call you everything but nice things there is no recovery to handle the abuse you are receiving and if you do anything (take a unscheduled break to take a breath, cry, get some water, put the customer on hold and or tell the customer they are not being nice and you only trying to help) they will hit you with code of business violation. Defined as they don't care that you are a human being (The Plantation effect) it’s do as i say and say nothing about it. Another thing if you question anything such as changes with the company, daily manager huddle techniques etc AGAIN they have the "at this time, do this don't ask why mentality.  They have you, so brain washed that employees are afraid to challenge them or the company. So, this will continue to be the normal behind the scenes at AT&T. Wolves in sheep clothing.  Oh, by the way the union is worthless, they act like they can help you, but they are on the managers side except for some union reps that are really trying to make changes although they rarely win the fight and you are on the short of the stick. They will never change on the inside until the employees demand better treatment as a person and as an employee that really want to work and or enjoy what they do and truly be happy to work for AT&T and not have the mentally it’s a job that pays well for non-degree employees. Most people that work here says “if I leave where will I find a job that can maintain the lifestyle I’ve creative SOLEY based on the pay they receive” which leads the employees to turning blind eye to what’s really happing on the job. Again, if you can deal with the Plantation mentality because the pay is great then enjoy working at AT&T.

The people, including management, make this a fun place to work.  However, AT&T (at least as far as their call centers are concerned) is a horrible place to work and it actually has little to do with what you would expect, the customers.  It has more to do with their lack of quick response to their employee's concerns, ridiculous policies and procedures and ineffecient metrics that effect promotions and bonuses.

For example, I worked in Advanced Tech Support.  We were judged on AHT (Average handle time), WTR (Willingness to recommend AT&T), NRS (How willing they are to recommend me), 30 day repeat (did they have to call again within 30 days), hold time and transfers.

For over THREE months, the IVR (which routes calls) was broken where Mobility (where I worked) continued to get misrouted uVerse calls.  We have no access to those accounts, we have no training in uVerse troubleshooting, we can't even order it for the customer.  We can do literally nothing with their accounts.  Obviously, transfers are going to skyrocket, our WTR and NRS are going to drop because obviously, a customer isn't going to be happy that someone answered their call and can't help them at all whatsoever.  Did the metrics change despite this being a company wide issue?  No.  They let our scores drop, where we couldn't reach those magic numbers to get bonuses.  Which is bad enough.  But they also base promotions off your scores.  This was just one example but this kind of thing was commonplace.  

They also pushed a major initiative over the last year or so to "handle it where it lands" meaning if you get a billing call, take it.  If you get a call that technically is more of an Apple issue, take it.  If you get an Android call and you work in an iPhone center, take it.  It was meant to help drive customer satisfaction however it did the exact opposite.  

If you call late night and get ATS, most if not all, billing systems are down to cycle usage and update for a few hours (exactly when, they could never tell us, we'd just find out sometimes as the call would come in).  

If you get an Android call and you work on iPhones, you have NO training whatsoever on that device making troubleshooting and more importantly navigating the customer through so a real headache. 

If it was a software feature (like when the 8.0.1 upgrade came out and bricked people's phones) we would have to troubleshoot with them despite us (At the time, after about 6 months we finally did) having no training on the nuances of the actual software and Apple provided troubleshooting steps.

These crippled our scores call center and company wide, customers were upset because reps sounded stupid (as they had no training in half the troubleshooting scenarios we were now essentially forced to take) and took longer on the phones than if we would be allowed to just get them to the correct people.

30 day repeat was the worst.  If you called in within thirty days for ANY reason whatsoever, it counted against us, the reps.  Nevermind if you called because your data wasn't working and I got it fixed promptly and gave you the greatest service you've ever received... I'd have to pray that you didn't call back in because you had a question about your bill, or if you wanted to upgrade over the phone or you received a new SIM from the store and needed to activate it, etc.  

If it weren't for the awesome people you get to meet and the decent starting pay (which depending on where you live and the amount of decent paying jobs might not even make it worth it in that regard) I would not recommend an ATS call center position to my worst enemy.

A great environment shot down by egotistical managers. I was brought into the team to do work that I've been doing successfully for over 20 years now. The team was practically being assembled as I was hired in. One of the goals was to get everybody on the same page with respect to each person's expertise so that everybody could eventually follow a game plan that made the project in / project out process as seamless as possible. All of this while actually handling intake of jobs that had relatively tight deadlines. This wasn't a problem for me to spend a day explaining my process and sharing it with everybody so that project managers could better estimate turnaround times. 


What really blew my mind was the lack of professionalism found in some areas. For example I was tasked with a job that would require me to duplicate some text edits throughout multiple other sizes of the same campaign. I noticed what was potentially a typo and wanted to bring it to the PMs attention and possibly get a proofreader to quickly confirm if the typo was intentional or not. The PM responded with " let's do all of them and then run it through a proofreader afterwards." Really? So, you're telling me to make 28 potential mistakes that will take up roughly 1-2 hours of time instead of taking 2 minutes to ask a proofreader if it's correct or not? 


Don't get me wrong, the designers and developers were some truly gifted and great people. The problem was within the management sector. My final project was considered a big deal (and of course I had no clue it would be my last until they conveniently waited for me to complete it). I was to handle updating two large campaigns. Some of the details specific to AT&T branding guidelines were not present within the design files provided to me by the graphic designers. As a responsible developer I reached out to PMs as well as lead designers to confirm what was final and approved by the client (AT&T). After receiving the green light I completed all of the work only to be told by a higher up Manager that it was wrong. This was a direct result from the PMs and designers files that they confirmed and provided. After a little back and forth I was given the authorative confirmation from the higher up manager. I still managed to complete the edits and corrections ahead of schedule. 


Strangely over those past few days prior to the delivery of my last project I was told that we had to back up ALL files to a cloud storage space. The way this was presented left me feeling suspicious as it was magically and suddenly the most important thing to them, even to the big project I was handling. Upon delivering the files it was the end of the work day. At precisely 5pm I received a call from the recruiter telling me sadly I was being let go. When I asked the reason he said "They are telling me you can't keep up with the pace." 


It's one thing to secure your position in a company, but to lie about a worker's abilities to perform tasks that they were extremely comfortable with and more than capable of executing, even when they had to fix errors from someone  else's inability to get it right the first time and still deliver the product before schedule is sad and pathetic. 


On a side note the other people that got hired in with me were in disbelief when I told them the reason given for letting me go. One of them said "I don't understand, you're way more advanced than even the guys that hired you in."


My suggestion to him was simple: Keep your resume updated and ready. 

Description: AT & T is one of the leading telecommunications providers in United States. A portal solution was developed for the sales department to unify the information from various applications at one place. The employees in the sales department use this portal as a one stop shop for all the information they need to work on. As a senior SharePoint developer I was involved in design, development and implementation of the portal. The portal helped to integrate the data from various sales applications, automate the business processes with workflows, easily access information using a search solution, easily enter and evaluate the information using electronic forms created by InfoPath.

Responsibilities:
 
•	Responsible in customizing, designing, developing and administering the intranet portal.
•	Actively interacted with the Business stakeholders to analyze the current infrastructure used by the sales department, collected the business requirements and design the information and security Structure for the portal.
•	Migration from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 using third party tool like Idera.
•	Planning the architecture of MOSS site collections, sites etc and maintaining the Taxonomy, Navigation and display structure.
•	Configuring SharePoint servers.
•	Created custom Site Definition, Web Parts, Content Types, List Definitions, Workflows, Features and Page Layouts.
•	Created custom Web parts using ASP.net 3.5 AJAX
•	Developed various tools like creating/deleting document libraries, uploading/moving/deleting files, changing document library permissions using SharePoint Object Model.
•	Written SharePoint Document Library Custom Event Handlers using SharePoint Object Model and SharePoint Server 2010.
•	Created List, List items, views and Site Columns in Team Site and Sub sites using Windows SharePoint Services.
•	Created custom SharePoint features.
•	Created Lists in SharePoint which allows users to maintain data for the website.
•	Created Data Entry forms using InfoPath and published in to SharePoint site.
•	Created User profiles and allotted permission levels for secure SharePoint portal.
•	Created and maintained Document Libraries and Picture Libraries in Team and sub sites
•	Created a single level document approval workflow using .Net workflows. (WWF).
•	Used Master Pages and Themes to achieve uniform template design for the entire application
•	Maintenance of Intranet and Extranet Portals.
•	Configured Forms Based Authentication successfully on development server and production server using LDAP authentication.
•	Created KPI’s and Dashboard using Excel Services for tracking the project tasks and also other SQL reports using SSRS.
•	Used Excel Services to show the data from Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet.
•	Designer modifications, as well as full-on branding customizations with SharePoint Designer 2007
•	Customized SharePoint Master Page layout using Microsoft Office Share point Designer 2007
•	Designed and Configured Forms Based Authentication for the SharePoint site.
•	Using STSADM for administration of the portal.
•	Backup and restore of the site.
 
Environment: SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS) 2007, Windows SharePoint Services(WSS) 3.0, SharePoint Designer 2010/2007,Visual Studio.NET 2008, C# .Net, ASP.NET 3.5, ADO.NET, InfoPath 2007/2010, Windows server 2008, SQL SERVER 2008,Silverlight 3.0, WPF, WCF, CSS, HTML, DHTML,CMS, IIS 7.0, AJAX, MS Outlook 2010, JavaScript, Web services, SQL Server 2008/2005, T-SQL, Microsoft Team Foundation Server (MSTF).

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