Archive Page 6
Hello From A Right To Work State
7/5/97
To:cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld
Congratulations on a great page. It's on my "favorite" list, and I get on
often. It loads quickly, looks great, easy to get around in. Obviously a lot
of care taken into maintaining it.
I've worked in union jobs before, and in fact, used to assist a friend of
mine write articles for a local (Buffalo) CWA newsletter, but I've since
moved out of the area. I keep in touch with the real workers by clicking on
your web page. I work in an office in a RTW state now (NH) ... and, take my
word for it ... union is better.
I read all your letters, and although I don't understand all the terms you
use, I understand your frustation with upper management. The immediate
supervisors in our division are great: they're worker bees just like the
rest of us. But when upper management gets involved in one of our
projects...delays, setbacks, and eventually (inevitably) the work becomes
out-of-date material. Politics -- Ugh!
Maybe I read your page because I feel connected to other workers sharing
the same problems. But what I've learned is that most workers everywhere
WANT to (need to) take pride in the work they do. They WANT to feel
committed to their work and to believe in the company they work for. And
for some reason, corporate management stifles that. Like one of your
writers said, let the workers do their job. There couldn't be an easier
prescription to ensuring a healthy company, workstaff, or management.
My best wishes to you all.
Signed,
as usual... Name Withheld
PS: dates on emails would give them continuity when reading.
The Grass Is Always Greener
7/20/97
To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld
Readers' Column:
I live in a city in the midwest and work for the local
telephone company here. I love reading letters written to your Web Site by
people in your local. It seems that you have a very vocal workforce and
having a medium of expression like your Site must give them a feeling of
empowerment! Our local has a Web Site but it really hasn't caught on very
well with the workers. It is used mainly as a bulletin board for
announcements about picnics, meetings or political statements by our union
officers.
I really wish I worked for a modern telephone company like Pacific Bell
that is in the forefront of providing state of the art telecommunication
facilities for the Silicon Valley. Because your local is in San Mateo
County you also must be be in "thick of things," technology wise. I work
in a digital work group here that is providing T1 lines for some of the
modern companies that are moving to this area for tax advantages. We are
very primitive as far as our "copper" facilities and we are only beginning
to reinforce our traditional spans with T3 fiber nodes. We have heard that
your facililties in the Silicon Valley are all in place, with spare
facilities everywhere and that your customers have hardly any wait for the
provisioning of T1's.
Here in our little "podunk" city, most of our knowledgeable engineers have
retired and our facility data base is in total disarray. When we call our
group that assigns and tracks cable pairs and T1 copper spans, they don't
have a clue about what is what. Our SAI's haven't been "stenciled" with
cable counts for years and most of our splicing recently has been done by
contractors from out of state or out of the country. Anything these scabs
did was definitely not written anywhere near the terminal they were working
on, so now it is anybody's guess what the counts are. It has become
totally embarrassing as technicians trying to provide service to our
customers while we are seemingly in total chaos. Anybody that knew how to
run a phone company has "retired" with incentives. Many just threw in the
towel because they couldn't take the B.S. that they were taking from the
"new wave" managers coming here from your California Stanford M.B.A.
programs or from the other coast at Harvard! All these dopes knew how to
do was count beans and tell technician that their "cones" weren't placed
around their vehicle. (We've been told here in the mid-west that Pacific
Bell did some studies that found that putting cones around employee
vehicles had no effect on accident rates and so you guys don't have to put
cones out anymore, except where you have to redirect traffic.. Boy I wish
I worked for such a modern thinking company! Here in the midwest,
independent phone company technicians call us CONE HEADS because we have to
put cones out all the time. They all know it doesn't effect accident rates
and only wastes time. Our bone head managers actually suspend us for not
putting our cones out. Can you believe it?)
Sometimes the most simple job becomes discouraging. Modern technology is
just starting to come to our city and probably for that reason we are in
the "dark ages" as far as our tools and equipment to get our job done. In
our work group we have noticed that T1's are beginning to go in like hot
cakes. We are providing T1's to "Cel Sites" all over town and all over the
countryside. We are not only providing these facilities to our own
cellular company sites but also our competitors' sites. But often at these
remote sites, either on top of buildings or on the top of a knolls, their
is no dial tone to talk to our tester and run the needed acceptance tests.
Just today I was trying to install a T1 to a tower of one our major
competitors that has business ties at the national and international
levels. The technician for this other company drives up in a brand new 4
wheel drive Toyota with air conditioning, jumps out and asks how everything
is going. I said things should go smoothly, that I had done all the prelim
work through the fiber node and that the circuit should be "live" at his
terminal. I put my digital test set on the pairs assigned and I had
"power." I then put my dial set across the pair assigned to the POTS line
and it was dead! Now this is where things turned very embarrassing. I
have no way to call my tester in the testing center! The other technician
looking at my frustration said that I could use his new PCS phone that his
company gave him to use on the job. I tried to hide my embarrasement by
saying that our company had given us a "discount" to purchase our own PCS
phones but my package had not come with a "cigarette charger" and so my
phone had a discharged battery. I did not tell him that our company
refuses to buy us cel phones to use on the job and also refuses to even let
us voucher calls on our own cel phones while using them for work related
calls! This other technician then told me that his company provides their
technicians with these new PCS phones not just for a tool for communicating
but for the promotional value of advertising their product. I'm sure all
your technicians working in the center of all this new technology, The
Siclicon Valley, are all using Pacific Bell's new PCS phones....we even
have heard here in the midwest about how Pacific Bell's new cel phones are
selling so well. I just wish our company was as well run as yours and was
supporting us as well as your does.
Well anyway, after I called my office on his cel phone and listened to the
usual recordings of not being in the office and all that crap, I told the
tech that I would be right back and jumped in my vehicle and went down to
the local Wal-Mart and got a cigarette charger and then drove back to the
site. I then called our tester on MY OWN CEL PHONE, WITH MY OWN BILLING!
I just wish that I worked for a company like your Pacific Bell. I'm very
sure that your company would not allow your technicains to be emabarrased
like this, day in and day out, trying to provide good customer service.
Especially in the areas that are high-tech and where customers expect to
see technicians that are well trained and have all the needed tools to
provide the service they are paying for.
At one point a couple of years ago our company had the gall to provide our
digital group with "radio phones" to communicate when we couldn't "find"
dial tone. These joke-phones were provided to us because their was a big
media "stir" in our city about technicians going onto peoples's lines with
butt-sets and customers were then missing important phone calls while
technicians were talking on their lines! Eventually the company took these
walkie-talkies away from us because we became the joke of the business
community here! Even my own daughter asked if she could call me on her toy
wrist band-walkie, because the kids at school were teasing her about her
father the "cone head" who walks around with the "tin can and a string."
Boy I wish I worked for Pacific Bell. Imagine my embarrasment of using my
walkie-talkie while the competitor technician is calling on his PCS! There
is no way a first class company like Pacific Bell would not realize the
impact that this image would have on the buying public! At least in my
little hay seed city the public isn't as savy as your customers in the
Silicon Valley. Pacific Bell would not allow something like I have just
described to happen out there.
I grew up on a small farm in the midwest and my grandfather told me that he
could repair any piece of equipment he had with a piece of gum, string, and
bailing wire. I'll always remember this and maybe that is the mindset I
have to keep while I try to keep things going here. I know you have
problems of your own at Pacific Bell but hopefully by reading this letter
you will realize how good you actually have it and things could get a lot
worse.......like here at this phone company.
Please withhold my name and my Email address. I doubt if anybody would
ever read your web site from here but you never know. My family still
needs to eat and I fear retribution!
You might be suprised what things are really like here
at Pacific Bell, and remember the old saying Be Careful What You Wish For, You Might Get It."
An open letter to the management of Pacific Bell of the Bay Area
I was recently made aware that craft performance was going to come under close scrutiny, and the bottom performer was to be identified, and placed on an improvement program.
After thinking about this, I have come to the conclusion that this is a good idea, with maybe just one twist.
Lets find the low performers, yes, but, not from within the repair forces. Lets find the low performers in the management ranks, 2nd level and above. You might notice that I did not include 1st level managers, and the reason is that they are not "policy makers." They have been given an impossible task, and are not allowed to voice their opinions, or concerns, about the obvious truth of the current situation.
Let's analyze who is to blame for the pathetic situation that the company, particularly in the Bay Area is in.
1. 20 to 80 minutes on hold trying to reach one of the support groups.
Craft's fault or management's?
2. A chaotic dispatch process, sending technicians from Daly City to Portola Valley to Menlo Park, to who knows where.
Craft's fault, or management's?
3. Holding add line campaigns when vacant, or defective pairs are not readily available.
Craft's fault or management's?
4. Not reinforcing or replacing defective plant for the last 6-7 years.
Craft's fault or management's?
5. Sending technicians out of their work area without maps, knowledge of the area, or qualifications in that area.
Craft's fault or management's?
6. Emphasizing speed, rather that quality or thoroughness (in other words, fix your problem, and get on to the next job.)
Craft's fault or management's?
7. Encourages one work group to dump their work onto another work group.
Craft's fault or management's?
8. Using basically unqualified contract splicers and cable maintenance technicians instead of increasing your permanent work force to match demand, (who in a lot of instances cause more problems than they fix.)
Craft's fault or management's?
9. Ignoring cable rehab, air pressure, defective plant identification, and bulk reclaims.
Craft's fault or management's?
10. Let go all qualified engineers and replace them with unqualified contract engineers.
Craft's fault or management's?
11. You know, I could go on and on just about forever, but, I think that you probably get the idea.
SOLUTION:
Yes, I am not going to just criticize without offering a common sense solution to all of this. Get your heads out of the sand before it is too late!!!
1. Start organizing and removing roadblocks so your workforce can become more productive, instead of pointing fingers at people who are just trying to do what you are asking of them.
2. Start having your maintenance techs doing maintenance work, multiple cases of trouble, bad pair identification and replacement, bulk reclaims, air pressure, cable locates, digital transmission problems, emergency restoral, and give them the time that they need so that they have a chance at realizing success.
3. Start having your repair/installation forces do just that. Repair lines, check multiples, repair service drops and inside wire. Refer to maintenance only when really necessary. How efficient is it when the original tech out to the job dumps on maintenance just because he is worried about his clearing time. Chances are that when maintenance arrives, access will have been lost.
4. Start having your construction forces and line crews replace and reinforce what needs to be replaced or reinforced, defective or maxed out facilities, and let them finish the job they are on before you pull them to send them somewhere else.
5. Reorganize and reinforce your dispatch, and line assignment departments so that your outside forces can be "turfed" to an area. This might help to increase productivity, and stop unnecessary referrals.
6. Hire back all of the qualified engineers that you let go!!!
One of your managers (who shall remain anonymous) when asked what he needed to get us back on track, replied: give me technicians and facilities. What he claims to have received in return was "rapid launch", and an "eat a donut, go to jail" policy.
This cannot continue if we are to survive as a company. The problems that we are facing today must be dealt with today. The problems that we have here today are not with your craft workers, they are with you, our management team!!!
Dear Mr. Strahn
To: Randy Strahn
Vice President Pacific Bell
666 Folsom Street, Room 1235
San Francisco, CA 94105
Mr Strahn,
In past and recent months we have had two newspaper articles of very much
interest to me. Both were in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle.
The first was dated September 8, 1996, and the second was written for January
5, 1997. In both articles you stated Pacific Bell's management simply couldn't
have anticipated the huge work load for the past year. I believe my
co-workers and I have a very different opinion than yours, since it was clear
to us disaster was sure to be coming.
I would like to bring you up to date on what your employees see as problems.
First the minutes on service orders are inadequate. Second the dispatching
system has been and continues to be in distress, examples of problems would
be: double dispatching, excessive travel time between jobs, no jobs due today
in the computer which would force an employee to call in to the support
department for excessive hold time.
How do you also explain additional line campaigns, was no thought given the
work force and the plant, both of which are so depleted. That one is
especially hard for me to appreciate, when after 35 calendar days, I've had 5
days off.
I have included for your review a time sheet that shows how poor the dispatch
system is, I will take a moment to speak to each job. As my day begins on
December 20, 1996, I am dispatched first to Pescadero, which is 32 miles from
San Mateo yard to clean graffiti off of a b-box. Job 2 is back 32 miles to San
Mateo for a repair. Job 3 is a service order missed from the previous day, no
new commitment with the customer so I had no access. My fourth job is also a
service order missed from the previous day, it has an estimated time of 30
minutes on it, calling for the installation of 1 jack. It took 20 minutes to
drive from San Mateo to Portola Valley. No new commitment was established
with my customer although they were home. To me this is a system set up for
failure.
The quote that really propelled me to write to you is from January 5,1997 and
it states from you Mr. Strahn, "it's understandable that the PUC is seeing more
complaints - but the quality of service hasn't deteriorated." Mr. Strahn, I
am working with 75 employees at 262 E. 19th ave. in San Mateo whose physical
and mental stability is in a very fragile state at this time, we are in a
crisis, now please do tell me how customer services are not going to be
affected?? We are on a mountain of despair, are managers have been demeaned to
clerks and messengers, our pay checks were wrong on a continual basis half of
the year of 1996, a services technician to this day remains in the office
for over half of every day, just to do payroll. All of our support for routing
the workload was removed, so now three services technicians remains in the
office for half of their day to do the paperwork and dispersing of jobs. I
have also been witness to Pacific Bell doing things which I feel are
unethical, for example; on December 27,1996 I did two repairs that were called
in that day and given that days due date because the lights were opened up to
take more tickets that were taken December 25. I am told that it is to labor
intensive and not cost effective to try to recommit the already taken tickets.
I do believe the public would be unhappy with Pacific Bell's solutions. We all
have stories of very inappropriate management of the workload.
I would like to share with you an experience that happened to me. It happened
during the week of December 8, 1996. I was scheduled for a day off December
12 and scheduled to work December 14. Being two weeks before Christmas I had
many things to do on my day off and had discussed this with my boss. I was
advised that if I did not work in my day off, I would be written up for
insubordination and given time off without pay. I was speechless Mr. Strahn,
I am an employee with 15 years of service and have never been disciplined for
anything with Pacific Bell. The fact that even with my day off on December
12, I would have still worked a 49 hour work week, the week of December 8
through December 14, 1996. So with no other option, I worked a total of 6
hours on my day off to avoid reprimand. You bet I'm angry, but what was
demonstrated to me on that day was how out of control Mr. Simanson and Ms.
Standen are. In my opinion, these two managers should be evaluated on their
management skills. I have for 15 months watched the destruction of my life
and all of my co-workers lives, all under the control of these two managers.
Please review all of the changes implemented by Ms. Standen and Mr. Simanson.
Lastly, Mr. Strahn, I would like to invite you and your colleagues to 262
E.19th Avenue San Mateo to talk to each employee, perhaps we can all
participate in making pacific Bell the very best it can be.
Sincerely,
Name Withheld
Service Technician
cc: Ellie Benner
We Need Your Stories and Experiences!!!
If you have a story or a news item that you would like to see published here, don't hesitiate to let us know about it. E mail us at cwa9430@cwa9430.org We would love to hear from you.
