Why do the newer generation of corporate employees (<30) seem to have little connection to this company and view it as a paycheck? I’ve heard the most insane criticisms of management and antipathy towards the firm in the halls of Akard. Was it always like this, or were people motivated by the company and mission?
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Lol, everyone over 30 also hates this company. I can’t fathom why anyone would have any loyalty to this company. They don’t care about any of us and would gladly get rid of us to add a nickel to their bonus. We all give them them the same loyalty they give to us. The only difference for the older folks is that they vaguely remember when the company was halfway decent to its employees over 20 years ago, and the newer folks never experienced it and never will.
This is very sad statement but it is sadly true these days. It was not this way when I started at Legacy T as we had many clubs, athletic teams and a lot of socializing after work and on weekends. Great team building events, Christmas parties and off campus Town Hall lunches at nice restaurants and more. People cultivated real friendships, ate lunch together, and socialized. That culture has literally died.
I go in, work, leave, get paid. If you view your career as anything more than that you're lying to yourself.
It's called "market-based culture." No loyalty on either side.
There are 2 groups of workers. One gets a pension IF they can survive to MR75. And those who don’t.
Those who can get a pension have to eat company shiplap regardless.
Those who will never see a pension can give the bird or just walk.
2 groups 2 different mind sets.
Stanks wants the pension off the books and wants non pension workers who can give him the bird.
The Company moral compass is shot.
I can't say I was ever motivated by the death star or "leadership." I was always motivated by the stuff my team built and the people who used it. My role as a supervisor was to be the anti to the pointy haired boss of Dilbert and run interference so my folks could do the job done the way it needed to be done. And then my org was forced to lay off mid 40% of employees in 2020 in a pandemic shutdown when people struggled to even get unemployment, because some senior vp threw a hissy fit about a program that didnt work out well, and his underling decided to throw most of it at one half of his organization and not the other. That was the day I said FUATT. As a retiree I am happy to take all my business to other providers and to advise everyone I know to do the same.
@fc glad you’re making that kind of money. Most people aren’t that work here. The longer someone stays the less they make over time. You asked why should you talk to people? It’s called networking and you never know what that person you spoke with might be able to help you out with something here or down the road at another company. Or vice versa. It also can help you advance your career. People promote other people they know. Not to mention, it costs you next to nothing, yet is the impetus for everything. I guess I’m old in my mid 40s, but that’s how the world works. It’s who you know. I’ve taught that same lesson to my kids their whole lives. Yes get the good grades, that opens doors, get to know people, learn to socialize and make connections. The connections are the most important thing. So learn to talk to people instead of ignoring everyone. It will take you a lot further in life.
Companies are to blame for their employees apathy. If they went back to treating their employees right and respecting them, then they would feel a greater connection to the company. Right now we work for Hi---r, why would I care about them.
@OP Man, this pi---s me off. Guess what, friend. Us 'older' guys hate it also. Our company drives the agism that is happening here. Of course younger people are nervous. Its basic math/science/biology/whatever. Young people don't stay young people. And the notion of what 'young' means is subjective. We are told that we need to get rid of yesterday's employees. What does that mean? Is that the 35 year old who has been here since he was 18 or is that the 45 year old who was just hired last year? Which is it? We like to yell out insults based on people's age but, that doesn't answer the question. Is a 50 yr old guy who looks 35 and can bench 250# a boomer? If he likes alt, has a few piercings, and goes to shows. does that change things? I mean, what is young vs. old? Who is good for att and who is bad? Do we just start firing people after they get 5 years of experience so that we are always keeping new blood in the company? Or do we adopt age based hiring practices that reject people over the age of 39? Again, what are we? what do we stand for? What is our mission?
Of course people hate working here because att hates us. Its a 2 way street. If your GF is sh-----g your buddy, are you cool with it because she is hot and she still gives you a little? What if she weren't hot? What if your buddy is a slob? AT&T is a slob and a hot GF at the same time. They give us a little but they treat us like dogshi7.
Instead of getting mad, we call each other names and talk about deepthroating shoes.
This is why we fail. You are seeing it today, right here, 5 Aug 2026. Write it down.
I am a management retiree (end of 2021) after 30 years. Started with SWBT as part of SBC with Whitacre as CEO. Back then it felt like the company valued employees and it was a great place to work. As the merger mania escalated the culture got diluted and when Stephenson became CEO it really started deteriorating. Stephenson and Stankey had/have no regard for employees not in the executive suite. Benefits just kept being removed and bad decisions were made by executives with seemingly no repercussions for the decision makes but lots of fallout for regular employees. Stankey and former HR SVP actually released a recorded message saying they did not see any employees working at AT&T as a long term career so they were structuring work environment and benefits based on average job length of 5 years or less going forward. A once great company turned into a modern sweatshop…it’s a job not a career. When the company has no loyalty to the employees it is no surprise that the employees have no loyalty to company.
Why wouldn’t you hide at your desk with headphones on, do your job, then go home?
There’s no value in speaking to anyone in the office.
Most of the people at my office aren’t on the same team and have no bearing on my career or position.
There is no mentorship or reason to socialize in the office, it’s a waste of time and effort - just like being in the office.
Ofc my peers feel the same, and many millennials…
This company su-ks, leadership su-ks, it’s a $200k /yr paycheck and that’s it.
“ they are just desperate to get GenX off the payroll.”
I think you meant Boomers, still a ton of them working here in their 60s and 70s. Gen X is retiring in their 50s, the oldest are just hitting 59. You don’t see too many Millennials here anymore as most have already left the business (no pension plans keeping them here). As for the Gen Z’s, you see a few, but most hide at their desks all day with their headphones on and don’t speak to anyone in the halls or the break room.
@e7 there is just a job, no career exists in AT&T
I go in, work, leave, get paid. If you view your career as anything more than that you're lying to yourself.
It’s kind of impressive that you manage to have your head in your a-s and a boot in your mouth at the same time.
The under 30 crowd is a much smaller cohort of the population than Millennials or GenX were. No company is going to have the luxury of mistreating them if they want to be able to hire and retain any of them. Leadership knows this, they are just desperate to get GenX off the payroll.
You're being trolled. There is literally no one, especially not boomers who experienced the era of divestiture, would have written this nonsense. You've been pranked!
@OP What makes you think that the "open distrust, criticism, and disengagement from work" is limited to new employees. I have been with AT&T for 20 years, and I quit in place 3 years ago thanks to the culture Stank has implemented.
@c4 He's just a pot stirrer. Nobody believes that, not even boomers who subject to the mass layoffs of the late 1970s-early 1980s
Lmao this is hilarious.
The boomer mind cannot comprehend!
I don’t know, didn’t we tell you all this would happen if you did RTO, mass layoffs, benefit cutting, tracking, and all the other authoritarian bullsh-t leadership has done?
The younger generation doesn’t put up with bullsh-t, we aren’t slaves.
Maybe you need to shut the fu-k up and listen.
I have been with this company for over 25 years. I have no connection to it. They hate me, and they taught me how to hate them.
The < 30 group is on to something.
I don't even see older workers having a connection anymore either. Everyone pretty much is disgusted by the place and ONLY uses it as a paycheck. Whether that's waiting to retire or waiting to find something new. As others have said, this is the culture stank has created and openly has expressed as much.
There is no age group of employees that think being treated the way we are at AT&T is okay. There are only enslaved immigrants with no choices. I hope OP gets mugged in the parking deck.
Why do the newer generation of corporate employees (<30) seem to have little connection to this company and view it as a paycheck?
I recall leadership from the top literally saying you can’t have a 30 year career here. That they prefer the gig economy where they pick us up and let us go as needed like we’re uber drivers
If I’m a drone in secure 7a why would I believe it’s anything but a paycheck ?
And that’s nothing new. Dilbert is based on pacbell. You’re just naive.
Easy answer. It’s because the current generation of corporate leadership are mostly sh-t heads full of themselves without any interest in identifying and developing employee talent. This is compounded by a generation of entitled sh-t heads that live in the parent’s basement at 30 - that if hired expect to be coddled. Both parties need to get their sh-t together otherwise we’re all headed down the sh----r.
Have layoffs of productive employees increased or decreased in the last 20 years? This question will answer your question.
@OP grandpa nobody wants your loyalty not even the CEO. This is a market based operating model which means do your job that you are paid to do and collect the check. No emotions. Time to send you to the retirement home you’re done.
WOW. Op , try to just lick the boot, not
stick their whole leg in your mouth.
Starts with the home, then schools. I america, were taught that this country is a hitter and the corporations ONLY steal on the backs of works.
And covid when the gov handed them money for nothing. Gen Z and later millennials also don’t know how to do much that isn’t software driven.
Ask the balding screaming buffoon.
All I see from “leadership” is division, inflation, lies, corruption, and destruction of value. Why would anyone feel differently?
Stankey’s culture! He destroyed a once great American company with RTO, FTW, H1B, and the notorious 8/1/25 email. The damage created by all these things can never be undone and people will never forget how they have been treated. Time is running out to reverse course, but you know he’s too stubborn, selfish, and proud of his destruction. Sad! It’s starting to get ugly.
I don’t think this is a generational problem as much as a predictable result of the culture leadership has created.
When employees are told by the CEO that “loyalty is dead”, while at the same time being mandated to the office five days a week, monitored through presence reports, and managed more by compliance than outcomes, no one should be surprised when they start treating the job as exactly what leadership has signaled it is, a “market-based” transaction.
That’s where the 8 & skate culture comes from.
People stop going above and beyond because there’s no incentive to. They badge in, do their eight hours, badge out, and go home. Discretionary effort disappears because trust and respect disappears.
Younger employees, especially, aren’t going to sacrifice flexibility, relocate their lives, or build their identity around one company just because that’s how things used to work. They expect trust to go both ways.
Right now, most employees don’t feel like that’s the relationship being offered.
We are a market based culture now. Your loyalty is no longer wanted. Pretty sure our CEO said just that. If you are still here based on loyalty, you are probably past rule of 75 and should speak with a Fidelity advisor about your retirement options.
@OP It's a two-way street.
The distrust, criticism, and disengagement you see will dissipate when leadership starts demonstrating (via both words AND actions) trust (NOT distrust), praise (NOT criticism), and engagement (NOT disengagement) towards their employees.
If you really have to ask this, it's past time to pull your head out of your a-s and look around. Should be easy, even for a dimwitted bootlicker like you, to start connecting some dots.