Remembering a Better Company!

     I was torn today between blogging topics.  I spent most of my career working for BellSouth.  They were bought out by Texas based SBC under the guise of mega conglomerate AT&T.  Since that purchase (probably for the wireless side of the house) my company spirit has hit rock bottom.  So, I wanted to come down really hard on the evil empire and their draconian methods of management.  Therefore, this is definitely not the right time to talk about it.  I'll reserve that for later.

     I will talk about BellSouth.  In my mind, they were a quality company who provided good customer service.  I worked in many departments having been an Engineering Clerk(2x), Maintenance Administrator(2x) Coin Collector, Lineman, Centralized Repair Service Attendant, Service Technician(3x), Cable Splicer, Facility Technician, and Electronic Technician.  I held so many titles due to only having three years service when Judge Green broke up the Bell System.  It created havoc in the industry and for several years I took any title to hold on to a job.

     BellSouth management could be difficult to deal with at times but disputes were generally settled quickly.  There was always the opportunity for dialog - up as far as you wished to go.  Management still saw employees as human.  It was more of a family type atmosphere.  I'll have to say that in my twenty-eight years with them, I only had one bad manager.  He had problems with just about everybody, eventually getting into a fight with a contractor on the side of a major highway!  Then, he was gone, and everything was better.

     BellSouth always took care of the outside plant.  If there was a bad section of cable, it was replaced - customer service came first!  I didn't know an employee who would leave someone out of service.  The work was often hard.  I worked in Calhoun, Etowah, Marshall, Morgan, and St. Clair counties of north Alabama.  Those areas are very rural in places with difficult terrain.  I remember almost passing out in Piedmont on a 105 degree summer day while placing "C" rural wire across a mountain.  I remember working twenty-four hour days in cable maintenance getting folks telephones back on.  We had to break ice off the poles in Ft. Payne so our hooks would go in after a winter storm.  And I remember the difficulties of driving a bucket truck on Sand Mountain during the blizzard of 93'.

     But times are different today, we've got our "numbers" to keep up...  Sometimes you never know what you've got till it's gone!  Remembering the old days and a good company...