Archive Page 7

To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld
2/17/00

I know there are people running this corporation who are much wiser than myself. I know that I am just a small cog in the overall scheme of things. I know that my opinion won't be valued by many people who might read it, but just the same, I feel compelled to write.
In recent months, I have noticed a few things which at first I thought were just short term policies, but now as time grinds on, I have come to realize that it is more like long term policy.
I find these trends disturbing, and if for no other reason, I would like to vent. On the upside, maybe someone will read them, someone higher up than myself, and if one or two things make sense, maybe they will "borrow" an idea or two and claim it to be their own. It's been known to happen.
Everyone in the outside world has noticed the work load building lately. The appointments aren't getting further out, the number of jobs awaiting dispatch is just growing. The obvious answer is that they are turning the work out, but not by having the appropriate number of employees to cover the work, but rather, they are covering the load with "overtime". Lot's of overtime,
lot's and lot's of overtime. As a matter of fact, 60 hours per week has become the minimum, forget about the 40 hours work week. Forget about seeing your family, spending time with your children. These are things of the past.
The work that couldn't be covered by the repair forces was dumped onto cable maintenance forces by means of a few keystrokes. Suddenly certain types of troubles that were traditionally covered by repair forces were suddenly repairs that ended up in the maintenance pool. Those of us in the business know these as ver codes.
When the maintenance load jumped up, maintenance managers were suddenly forced with some difficult decisions. First, it was attempted to cover the extra work with overtime. This alone would prove to be insufficient. Next it became necessary to instruct technicians to just "fix their pair" and move along to the next job. Don't bother with doing a complete job, a quality job. If the splice is trash, don't resplice it. If the terminal needs replacing, don't replace it. We have a "rehab" crew for that.
Of course the next thing was to pull the "rehab" crew into the trouble load. The trouble crews alone couldn't keep up with the mounting work load. But you may ask, if the rehab crew is in the trouble load, who is doing the rehab work that the trouble forces have been told not to bother with? Hmm, an interesting point, but let's not worry about that right now.
Now you have trouble crews not doing proper maintenance, and the rehab crew has been pulled into the load too. But the load is still building, now what to do? Well, of course, someone immediately said let's get those worthless air pressure guys into the load, they are non-essential personnel after all. Hmm, good answer.
So now the trouble crews are not addressing the problem, the rehab crew is not addressing the problem, and the air pressure folks are not fixing leaks anymore. You walk into work one morning, and there are 8 or 10 cable failures building.
Failures now are like single tickets. As a matter of fact, what was thought to be a failing 1800 pair cable was pulled off of the other night in San Mateo. This is positively without precedent. As a matter of fact, some of you may remember when a technician was suspended for four days because he left four customers out of service overnight, after making a determination that he needed help in order to address the problem. Now management is pulling off of cable failures that have 60 customer direct tickets against them like it was nothing.!
Now you have 2 to 4 technicians tied up on each one of these failures, while the rehab crew and the air pressure crew (the worthless bums) are busy doing the troubles that the trouble crew can't do...and the load still builds, what's next?
Well, it's getting sticky now, you have all your repair and maintenance forces tied up. OK, here's the next deal. Let's get our construction forces away from splicing (who needs more facilities anyhow). We'll grab them and force them into the repair load. Huh? what's that you say? They aren't trained to do repairs? They aren't equipped to do repairs? They don't know how to appropriately charge for repairs? Well, let's not let that stop us, if nothing else, they can meet with the customers, explain that their repairs won't be made today, and dump the tickets into the maintenance pool!
All right, enough already. Let me say this just once. Repair forces are supposed to handle the station repairs and installations. Let them do their job, and staff them accordingly.
Maintenance technicians are supposed to keep the cables up and running, let them do their job, and staff them appropriately.
Rehab technicians are supposed to replace outside plant that can't be properly repaired. Let them do their job, and staff them appropriately.
Air pressure technicians are supposed to keep the failures from happening in the first place. Let them do their job, and staff them appropriately.
Splicers are supposed to place new cable, and get it to where it's needed the most. Let them do their job, and staff them appropriately.
The Load is NEVER going to get under control until you do these things. Throw as many people as you like into the load. Do what you like with the appointments. The load is NEVER going to come under control until you do these things.
There! I have had my say. I thought I would feel better for having said it, but I was wrong. The reason is that I know deep down that the people in charge aren't reasonable enough, not rational enough to see the beauty of the simplicity.

When Did it go From We to Me?

7/8/98
To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld
Maybe this reply is not to you directly, but to the fine telephone technicians that keep the phones ringing. A little background is in order. I started my career with the phone company in Northwestern Bell in Minneapolis Minnesota as a lineman. I then went cable splicing. From splicing, I went to cable maintenance. Due to an unfortunate motor vehicle accident, I ended up on the test board with the rest of the sick, lame, and lazy.
When I worked for the telephone company, I was a union steward for two years and a chief steward for four years. Our union was over 2,000 members strong. Each of our 2,000 members showed up at our monthly union meeting. If you were not there, you were conspicuously absent. You had to have a good reason for missing a meeting. a flat tire was no excuse. Someone could pick you up. Our union was a WE union. Solidarity in my day gave you good folks the money that you have today plus six weeks vacation. When we walked, it cost us dearly, but we got our points across. management paid attention to us. The price was too much to pay if they didn't. Somewhere along the way, the union went from a we union to a me union. What's in it for me? Today, if 100 members show up for a meeting, 10 are in the meeting, and 90 members are sitting out at the bar lamenting of how bad it is.
We, and I include me, are quality telephone technicians and we need to act like it. Every union member needs to be at every meeting. 
The rule is simple. For each hour of QUALITY work, one hour of quality pay. When field technicians do substandard work because of uninformed managers counting widgets, we all suffer, especially our customers. Our customers will go to the competition and jobs will be lost if technicians do not adapt to the standards for quality telephone service.
Those short time managers will be gone and you good folks will be left holding the bag.
If I can do nothing else, I would encourage your members to become involved with the union. Get back to solidarity. Push for quality management as hard as management pushes for widgets. I know that, given the time to do the job, you technicians are the best in the industry.

To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld
4/22/98

Have you ever accepted a ride from someone, only to discover shortly into the journey that they don't have a clue about how to drive? You know the kind of person I mean, they are either pressing the accelerator to the floorboard, or they are jamming on the brakes. The kind of an experience that makes you want to jump out of the vehicle at 70 miles per hour because you figure your chances are better of surviving the escape than they are of remaining in the car. They go full gas until they are right on someone's rear bumper, then SLAM on the brakes. Talk about a frightening experience!
Well, that reminds me of how our management runs our company. They go from FORCING employees to work seven days a week, at ten hour minimums weather they really need to or not, to SLAMMING on the brakes, and forbidding ANY overtime, regardless of weather the load is building or not.
Does this sound to you like someone who has an intelligent plan about how to run the company, or more like someone who doesn't have a clue?
Hey you people upstairs....WAKE UP!!!! You're about to CRASH.

To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld
3-9-98
When Rick Mabry was the 2nd level manager for the North Peninsula (overseeing nine supervisors), his productivity for a "good" month (August 1996, for instance) was 2.53 jobs per day/per technician. 2.53 is a real number, not an imaginary bogey like, say, 4.5. 2.53 is the average across the board - all areas of the Peninsula.
As Jethro Bodine used to say, "Let's do some cipherin'."
A bogey of 2.53 jobs per day represents three hours and ten minutes per job.
Technicians are routinely routed out the door with six or seven jobs - let's be conservative and use six jobs. In the world of actual numbers (Mabry's actual bogey) that represents 19 hours of work expected. Eight or ten hour shift? Take your pick.
Floaters, in the last three hours of their shifts, are routinely "bulked" with an additional three jobs. That would be 9 ½ hours of work expected in the last three hours.
What do you suppose happens to the 3.47 jobs (or 2.82 misses per 10 hour day) that must remain at the end of a shift - you know, the jobs that are effectively hidden in the technician's bulk load and make it look like Rick Mabry has taken care of the load? Could I see some hands? That's right, Elly Mae, they're called MISSED COMMITS.
Who do you suppose is in charge of the routing these days? Hands? Correct! It's Rick Mabry. Do you suppose he realizes that these are missed commits? If he doesn't, he might take a cue from Jethro and do some of his own cipherin'. If he does realize it, I think he would be well advised to take a refresher course in "Honesty in Business." Does S.I.24 also apply to managers?

2-7-98
To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld

My husband has been working 10-14 hours days for the last 24 days straight. Supposedly some months ago there was some overtime agreement reached that said something like if you give them 5 10-hour days then you'd get the weekend off. I'm not quite sure of this because it never seems to have happened. I know that everyone is in the same boat and that you're working very long, long, hard hours. Understaffed, underequipped. My husband says that they are talking about sending him to Santa Rosa or Sacramento or who knows where now that we've really been hit with rain. My question is then "who will do the work in this area"? Bring back the Canadians? Lots of fun cleaning up after them I hear. I'm just sick and tired of seeing my husband so tired and I'm tired of raising my daughter pretty much on my own. By-the-way, my husband still has a grivance filed from last winter that we received a letter from the union saying that it was being investigated. Sure takes a long time. Enough of this forced overtime nonsense. It just isn't safe for any person to work that many hours straight, without a break, and expect that an accident won't happen. How about this being addressed in the talks coming up for a new contract? This just isn't right. What do the rest of you think about this?
 

To: cwa9430@ix.netcom.com
From: Name Withheld

 They're hitting the street with 480 minute loads. They've been told that if they don't make the illusory bogey of 4.5 jobs per day, their jobs are in jeopardy. Jeopardy? Has anyone told these guys what the company went through to get them here in the first place?
Has anyone told these guys that the real world numbers are closer to the low 3's for the Mid-Peninsula? The San Mateo yard is lower yet: they have to deal with Hillsborough, Woodside/Portola and Skyline. There's nothing wrong with setting reasonable goals, but COME ON!
They have also been led to believe that they must come in early and sort through their work loads prior to their shift: ON THEIR OWN TIME!
Many of them work well past their shift (even when they don't want to) because the managers refuse to clip the jobs that they can't get to; instead they are given veiled threats about their Low Productivity. I have been told that some of them, to make their numbers look better, don't even put in for the overtime that they've worked! Welcome to Pacific Bell!
They are taken into a closed-door conference room for their meetings so they can be spoon fed the party line away from the scrutiny of the seasoned techs (who have learned to just laugh off the managerial BS and simply DO WHAT IT TAKES to get the job done).
There are some very clear contractual violations occurring --- the Union needs to get involved with this. Maybe it has to hit the newspapers. Maybe it'll take a string of letters to the chain of command. Maybe some of you new people will have to write about your experiences and Email it to the CWA Website! Oh my God!
One of the new technicians told me that, on his first day, he was greeted by a supervisor with, "Oh, no! Not another one!" Welcome to Pacific Bell.

Lester