a janitor in a LD Central Office - witness to a debacle

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: M W <gardener1_98 () yahoo com>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 13:40:09 -0800 (PST)
To: dave () farber net
Subject: a janitor in a LD Central Office - witness to a debacle

Hi, Dave;

     I have worked as a cleaner in an AT&T central
office for over 2 1/2 years now (for a contract
cleaning company).  I have watched in wonder and
bewilderment.  How they have been laying off half the
staff, through VTP's and early retirements.  And at
the same time, running a new backbone through the
office, adding equipment frames from Siena and Cisco,
and running fiber between the floors hooking it all
up.  They even added three bays to a DMS-250 switch.
I asked one of the guys there, "Why?  how can they be
doing this right now?" And the answer had to do with,
well, they had been implementing this new mesh fiber
network for three years now, so it was all in the
pipeline before the 'telecom crash'.  Plus, the
backbone was a joint venture with Touch America Co
remember them?).  And they are trying to move some LD
circuits over to an all-optical, VoIP method - so as
to send voice, data, etc all over IP.  Doing away with
circuit-switching and eventually relegating their 4ESS
to obsolescence.  All fine and reasonable.

      But it has been a very sad two plus years.  I
have seen Lucent techs laid off in droves, including a
former classmate of mine.  Have talked to the old
techs and heard some of their "war stories" installing
equipment for the old Bell System way back when.
These guys bought tons of the parent AT&T stock,
watched it rise and then collapse, even as it was
spinning off stocks of other co's like Lucent, NCR,
etc, etc.  They really lost out, after all these
years!There is only one tech now part of the day
there;  the second-shift tech covers part of the day
too.  And he is still learning CO work (used to climb
towers!).  Third shift guy works later on - so some of
the time the office is dark, unstaffed.

     Many rooms in that building (like an old radio
room) are stripped and empty.  It's almost like
watching a company in its death throes.  Yes, I
realize, AT&T will still survive and stay in business,
evolving as they must (like pushing hard into wireless
and such).  But where I work, it is now so silent, you
can 'almost hear a pin drop'.  I walk around and pass
through a company facility, thinking 'this
organization helped build our technological society in
a major way, and now it is being relegated to the
dustbin'.  Kind of sad to see the aftermath of the
ugly tech debacle. 

     Just the view of a cleaning guy in a Central
Office.  Heck, I might as well be sweeping up old
worthless stock certificates ;-)


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