Working at AT&T — Reviews by Employees

Wow, where do I begin. This is by far the worst company I ever worked for. I really don't have to many nice things to say about this company. The managers there are an absolute joke they lie to you, they are very dishonest. They will not tolerate any sick time, emergencies. I had one incident where I had to call in one time we had a severe flood here, I had lost my car in the flood, my whole entire block was flooded and there was no bus transportation that day. I called into work that day and I was asked if I could swim into work, oh and better yet the next day I got into work I received an point on my record. Not sure how I was suppose to get into work but yet I was penalized for it.

I will say one nice thing it was nice on payday.. The paycheck was nice was making about 55k per year and I only worked in the call center sales dept. If I would have to do it all over again that would be a negative. It is a very stressful environment to work in. The managers walk up and down the aisles screaming in your ear or in the background. The customers on phone always ask "what in the world is going on there". It is a very unprofessional environment considering to hear loud music all day long and the managers yelling and screaming in the background. I can go on and on about it but I would never suggest anyone to apply there or it may be different in another department but the sales department especially in Louisville KY needs to get it together!! I hope corporate employees are reading this and make a difference because I still have friends working there and they tell me it is still a terrible work environment.

I worked with AT&T in the Miami call center as a sales representative. The pay and compensation is very competitive and benefits are great. The company's demands are very unrealistic and the environment is borderline hostil. Training is done backwards in this company, they prepare you for failure as all that is taught in training doesn't apply on the sales floor. People get fired for blinking the wrong way, this job pays very well but is not a secure place to work one day you are in the next is not guaranteed, peers that are supposed to be helping in the floor are actually belittling and ridiculing you for not knowing and asking questions, this place is not family friendly they don't allow any absences life or death, emergency whatever. If you get in an accident on your way to work, too bad you are are still disciplined for it. The training and management staff are as fake, arrogant, as can be I have never been in such a negative and cold environment as this....sorry I don't mean to crush your hopes I am just being honest.

Howdy, I left a message here about 2 months ago. So I'm checking back with you to see if you still have AT&T Service. If you don't, congratulations. AT&T doesn't deserve any business because of the unecessary abuse they give to most of their lower-level employees. Do you agree?

AT&T put me on discipline solely so they could use fear and scare tactics against me. they tried and were successful with getting me to tell customers to do things that you wouldn't normally even tell your dog to do. In other words, I was telling my customers to do things that were worse than some one telling their dog to roll-over.

What was even worse was, I was one of their best over all performers out of about 140 representatives in this call center. In addition, I was very rarely late, honest and never missed a day. I got so tired of it their crap that I gave them my 2-week notice, and the first words out of my manager's mouth were, "Oh Noooo." That was followed by the Center Director, Human Resources Manager, and this same Sales Manager constantly asking me where I was going, and the director stated that she was going to miss me. I just replied to her, "How? I thought you were going to terminate me?" Then she stated that we would talk later, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. What's funny is she moved quick to catch me in the elevator so she could ask me why I was leaving and where I was going.

So again, if you're one who eliminated your AT&T service, or will never have AT&T service again, well, you're comments mean something. But for you who still pay for AT&T service, and you agree with these comments or even posted a negative one, then you're just a phony. Why would anyone support a company that goes out of their way to abuse their work force?

READ THE REST...DITTO

I worked at at&t from Aug 2003 to June 2010 - when I was fired. The whole time I was there I made all my stats (pretty much) did more then I was supposed to do. Knew a lot more then my co-workers and was treated like crap. I think the managers were intimadated by me because I knew more then them and knew where to find my information. One manger told me they would talk about me in their team meetings saying that if you need to know or find some information I would be the one to see but they never said that to my face or praised me because I guess they had to much pride. Managers and co-workers would try to agrue with me that I was wrong even after I showed them the proof in writing. Everytime there was an intern opening I appled, I got interviewed but someone else who was kissing ass go promoted over me. It got to the point that I was the only one applying that had the most seniority, everyone else was there 6 months to 2 years tops. I never had alot of absences until the last year I was there. I had some medical issues. I was over my points but I had vacation which they would not allow me to use. I had surgery on my elbow because of tennis elbow ( a work related injury that they triied to fight for 6 years). Since workers comp gets used and so does short term disabilty at the same time I did not quality for short term disability or fmla because of my work related injury. A couple of months later after coming back from surgery one of my sons classmates got strep throat so I got it and so did his dad who also works for at&t. I couldn't talk or move and was on medication and bed ridden. The doctor kept me home and filled out my fmla papers but it was denied b/c of the short term disability for a work related injury. Since they didn't let me use my vacation and denied my fmla I went over my 12 points a year to 15, they fired me after 7 years of working there. Another rep was at the same points because she ran out of fmla hours and didn't know - they didn't fire her - go figure - talk about fair - NOT!. I never kiss ass, I just do my job. They never had much to say duing my monthly evaluations and yearly except "you need to work on your communication skills" because I wouldn't put up with the mangement and upper managements crap and let them be little me. Otherwise I usually got compliments from customers and did my job better then most but since I didn't kiss ass or hang out with other employees/managers/area managers because I have kids and a life I didn't get promoted and in the long run was fired and so was my fiancee because he got strep throat and went over his points and his fmla was denied becuase he didn't have 1250 hours worked to have fmla approved. AT&T sucks! they don't give a shit about their employees. They stopped giving raises every 6 months and now only get like $.15 once a year. You have a deductible on your insurance now which by the time you pay it the year is up and you will have to start over again. They get rid of all their older people to hire new ones who they can start off at $9.00 per hour instead of the $16.00 I was capped out at. I hope the Rantoul call center closes down because upper managment does not give shit about their employees.

PAY (Hourly + Commission): Your hourly rate is ok, with raises every year. However, most of your money comes, or should come, from commission. The problem is, AT&T does everything they can to increase your goals and decrease your pay. In two years my overall sales goals have increased 25%, I've had new products added to sell, and my commission has decreased by 20-25%. The goals are so high that less than 10% of the sales reps can hit them, and even if you do hit them every month, you're lucky to make 45k a year total, whereas we used to easily make 55k-65k a year.

Respect: None. Your a number. If you hit your goals, you will still get griped at for not getting high enough. If you don't hit one of seven possible sales goals, you will be griped at every single day and put on an action plan. There is no recognition within the workplace for good work, just negative emails and conference calls for not hitting a sales goal or two. Oh, and if you've been with the company for a long time and are ready to leave because you're pay is getting lower than ever due to increased goals and decreased commission, AT&T could care less and will just replace you with a new hire that makes less hourly.

Benefits: Ok. You get a cell phone while you work for the company. Health, dental, and vision is good depending on what state you live in and how good the union is in your area. Generally the union isn't any better than AT&T and just makes you pay dues while doing nothing for wireless sales reps. I don't get any discounts on AT&T home services, but I have a good medical package for my family that is relatively inexpensive after the deductible gets met.

Job Security: Rough. I hope you can sell. You're safe your first 3 months, and then you're in the frying pan. If you don't hit any one out of 7 possible sales goals in 3 out of 9 months, you're fired. No questions asked. They don't think twice about how long you've spent with the company or how much money they've spent training. They'll just go and hire a college student that makes less hourly than you do. If you do hit your numbers, make sure you show up to work on time every day and don't get sick very often, because AT&T has a hidden "point" system where they penalize you for being late to work or not showing up, even for illness. Just 7 absences (or being 15 minutes late 7 times) in a 6 month time period and you are fired! If you get sick and it might take a while to get better, just take an extended leave of absence so that you only get penalized one day while your gone up to 2 weeks...

Work/Life Balance: Doesn't Exist. Open 7 days a week, and only closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. My store is open 9am-9pm Monday through Saturday. Supposedly if you've been working with the company the longest in your store, you have seniority and you get the schedule your request. Nope. AT&T does whatever they want with you. It doesn't matter that you've been there 3 years and there's multiple people with far less seniority in the store than you. If you want opening shifts from 9-5, you're only going to get them 1/2 the time like everyone else. Which means your schedule changes every single month and it's a pain to make plans to get together with family and friends. To make it even better, they'll make you work 3 +10 hour shifts and then only work a 5 1/2 shift on a random day during the week to keep you at 40 hours. You'll also end up closing at 9:30pm and turning right around and opening at 8:30am regularly too. Those shifts are rough.

Career Potential/Growth: The only place to go is up, into management. With how AT&T treats its employees, I couldn't handle it. Besides, it's bad enough getting griped at every day for not being high enough in one sales category yourself, I don't want to be responsible for 10 people not hitting their number and get fired for it.

Location: I'm neutral towards that. Whatever store needs a rep is where they put you. This could mean that though there's 6 stores withing 15 miles of your house, they're going to make you drive +30 miles away 5 days a week because that's where the opening is. Oh, and they won't move you when there's another opening unless you fight tooth and nail and threaten to quit over your job location.

Co-Worker Competence: This is a mixed-bag. While the store I'm at has mostly competent people in it, so much of what I do depends on support. AT&T customer services is awful, technical support generally isn't much better. I hate dealing with these two divisions so much, that I've started going to Google for any problems my customers have before I call Customer Service. CS is frequently not up to date with current policies, and is always sending people into the store with problems that sales reps cannot fix. Also, our wired sales support is completely incompetent. You will place a wired sales order in your computer, and then have to call a union-represented employee to get it to go through. You will wait 35 minutes to talk to someone, and spend another 45 minutes repeating information 3x over to them to place the order while they place you on hold forever. And that's IF you get someone that understands and speaks English well. Multiple times I have had to hang up on a AT&T rep on the other line because the couldn't even understand or spell my name over the phone. It's aweful. Oh, and the customer has to stay in the store while your on this insanely long phone call to place his order for a new home phone and internet service.

Work environment: This all depends on your location. I've worked in big stores, and I've worked in small ones. It's really frustrating working in small ones when you get a rush of customers and there isn't room for everyone. Especially when the temperature jumps from 70 to 85 just because of how small the room is and how many people are in it. Sales software is buggy.

If you ever feel the need to be insulted, try applying to AT&T Wireless for a job. I have over a 15 years of experience. I worked for one of their Solution Providers. Before I was allowed access to AT&T's systems and sell the product I had to take and pass their training courses, which I did. After that I continued to take part in their weekly training sessions. The AT&T rep was always at our office pushing us to sell their products. I successfully sold their products despite all the restrictions they place on their SP's. When the company I was working for cut staff I applied for an open position with AT&T. A couple of days after I applied I received a rejection letter telling me that "I was unqualified". If AT&T trained me and I had sold their products how could I be unqualified? They never even interviewed me!

I recently left AT&T. Thank GOD for a site like this where the truth will out. I saw one positive review of this company in the first five PAGES of reviews. And they all said the same thing. First let me say that when I started at AT&T in Feb 09, I loved it and was happy. Liked my co-workers, loved the possibilities of where I was going. And I was in the top 10% on a floor of 140 people and in the top 25 out of the whole sales force. Then I got to experience the excruciating downfall. Does that mean I'm a bad rep? Maybe. Or it could be that I was affected by a chaotic, toxic environment and it mattered to me that I did a good job and my customers were not ripped off. Anyway, here are the highlights:

BENEFITS; Excellent health, dental SUCKS. I found this out the hard way. AT&T actually dictates the insurance to the dentists and AT&T only pays 10%.

PAY/COMMISSIONS:
You can never plan these. Because if you earn, and that means EARN commission, when a customer stops paying their bills, YOU pay that charge out of your commissions. If a customer goes out of business so has to cancel, YOU pay. If you sell a product that hasn't gotten all the bugs out, (like internet product YP Connect), so the customer cancels the next year, YOU pay. Accounts in collection? Those accounts are floated to us from, um, collections. Interesting. Because collections is paid to collect, sales reps are not. New policy this year was if you get a customer to straight renew, NO compensation for that. Last year was our commissions in December got moved to January. So much for union dues!

TARDINESS/ABSENTEEISM/VACATION:
1 minute late counts as late. You can be fired for being 1 minute late 3 times in a row. Nowadays that is dinosaur thinking (according to the latest management trainings). This is not how to motivate or even maintain control. And this isn’t Japan! Vacation and personal time has to be used for sick time, cuz no sick time. If you are sick, just stay out 3 days. If you come back and have to leave again, it will be counted as two different events. Vacation, unless it is planned way, WAY ahead, cannot be taken all at once. AND, during “lockdown” you are not allowed to take it at all. Lockdown means there is a one or two month blitz on getting new money.

REVENUE ACCOUNTS VS. NEW MONEY:
Again, no compensation for renewals as of this year. If you get a customer to renew means another year revenue for AT&T and nothing for you. For new and non-advertisers, reps are given ONE list. That means ten reps in a row will be calling one customer. That gets responses like “What is WRONG with you people! This is the tenth phone call, take me off your call list!”. And reps are given a list of cancels from last year. People that already said NO. And on the list were Wal-Marts, Taco Bells, Chase Bank, etc & we were forced to call them "just in case they advertise locally" . No hunting allowed unless approved by your manager and that was always a fight in my case. Her reason was this, “The reps already hitting their numbers are allowed to hunt.” Huh? Interestingly, when I took the risk and hunted, I always got a sale.

TURNOVER: VERY high. Top performers have left and are leaving.

MANAGEMENT:
Antiquated thinking. NANO-management. The way my manager talked to me was disempowering, disrespectful and sometimes downright venomous. She would almost hiss! Interrupting was a frequent power play. After being asked for an explanation for something, as i was giving it, I would get "STOP TALKING". Once it was "Now GET BACK ON THE PHONE!" after a reprimand for something quite minor. It was confusing because in other conversations she said I was a good sales rep, liked me personally, etc. Perhaps she was bi-polar. If a mistake happens, no explanation is allowed. You're wrong, that's it. If you make a mistake, a common response is "You had this in training, I don't understand how you could make this mistake."

TRAINING:
You will watch videos and have Power Point presentations read to you. Yayyy.

SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS:
They are ok, it’s just that you may spend time typing in information from one application to another, because the developers don’t seem to talk to each other. In some, you can’t even copy the account number to paste it into the next application. You have to write it down then type it in.

ATMOSPHERE:
TOXIC. Good, professional people have a lot of stress related illness. Splitting headaches, colds, pain in the body, insomnia, etc. The noise in Alliance was mind numbing. No air cushions on the doors, so they would slam all day long.

COMMUNICATION:
For new products or impromptu meetings, usually last minute. For customer difficulties, a slow response or no response. I frequently had to dog my manager for answers.

MEETINGS-MEETINGS-MEETINGS:
Most of them could be handled in an email. For some reason they deem it necessary to drag the reps into a room and brainwash, er I mean ‘motivate’ them regularly. Speaking of brainwashing, here is something I noticed: a sound loop playing in the background over and over and over during training videos. 40/40 training is the worst one. It used powerful, emotionally impactful images at the end of each video. The use of sound and images is a powerful mind bender.

BOTTOM LINE: Top performers left and are leaving. I am no longer there and I was grinning from ear to ear when I left. It's amazing to me that they dont see that 95% of the people they hire are excited to be there, want to do well, work hard and succeed. And yet they feel they have to threaten and punish people into doing a good job. But if you thrive on constant pressure, AT&T is the place for you. If things need to be fair, if you need true and complete information, or if you need to be able to count on the money you earn, not recommended!

This company will work you (60+) hours without any additional pay and has no regard for your personal life. They hire incompetent management and do nothing when you bring it to their attention that you are being mistreated.

Never been treated as poorly as i have been with AT&T, it seems like they may be taking advantage of the poor economy and know they can get away with treating people like crap.