Working for AT&T Wireless

I joined AT$T Wireless in the second half of 2000.The transition to AT&T wireless was made easy by a guy named Don Johnson.He used to call me Doctor Tambe all the time and I always wondered why.I had worked with him at Circuit City and during the period that employees were leaving Circuit City to join Sprint Spectrum,he left and joined AT&T wireless instead.While I was at Sprint PCS I was always in contact with him and he said that anytime that I felt as to join At&t Wireless I should let him know.I did let him know when the time came that I wanted to leave Sprint PCS and he was the one that told me of an interview that was being conducted in the Beltsville area to hire new employees for AT&T wireless.He even told me what store to insist on going to.At the time he was the Assistant Manager of the AT&T store in Rockville but he pushed to get me hired in the location in downtown Washington DC in which a friend of his was the manager.
I started working there, in the Connecticut and L street store located in NW Washington DC.I worked with them for a period that lasted for four years.My employment with them ended sometime around October of 2003.

The Training
As soon as I was hired,I was placed on the sales floor.Shortly after, a training schedule was made for those of us that were hired into the company.Training took place at the branch headquarters in Beltsville,Maryland and it was done for a period of one week.The trainer came from Atlanta and she was pretty good in looks and knowledge.I won a umbrella in training that I ended up using for an extended period of time before it was giving away by somebody that thought the umbrella was outdated.

The Original Staff
When I got hired, the store manager was Paul and Nathan was the Assistant Manager.The lead sales person was Robert.There was Dwee,a guy about my age originally from Vietnam.He would tell us some horror stories about his family's move to the US.He ended up taking a vacation to his home country during the period that I worked with him.
There was me,Eric Tambe,there was Maya Martin,the lone female member in the staff at the time.There was Darrell,there was a Lebanese fellow called Gilbert Maaloff that I had known back in my days at Circuit City.There was another fellow with a military background named Gary, divorced with a beautiful daughter that he talked a lot about.The staff composition would change after some time.
Robert was the first to leave.He was replaced by Dion Wiggins who had attended Norfork State University in his college days.He like to talk trash about how Norfork state had a better football team to my Howard University.
Then Paul would also leave for a store in the Virginia area.Dwee went along with him.Nathan also left for his own store in the Georgetown area of the city.He was replaced by John.A guy called Dwayne Freeman came in with very little cellphone knowledge but did well for himself with time.He spend a lot of time talking about his ex-wife and his son who lived with him in Washington DC.
A new store manager named Robert came along,an African-American.
A young lady named Shantee Haynes came in just about the time that Maya Martin left.Shantee Haynes was about twenty five and good looking although we did not get along on the first day at the job.She came in from within the company,the store located in the Ronald Reagan building in DC.There was another Robert who came in in sales and lastly there was Ike Wardley who came in from the West Coast.He like to talk about his California Angels and the Williams sisters who play tennis.

The pay structure.
The pay structure consisted of an hourly rate of just under 11 dollars an hour.This was less than what I was used to while working for Sprint PCS but the money was going to be in addition to a sales commission.The sales commission was broken down into different categories that included pay for all the phone accessories that you sold.The company paid you also for upgrading customers telephone.This was unlike the case in Sprint PCS where they did not pay you for selling the equipment.
There was pay for selling the services.These were the rate plans.The rate plans ran from the $29.99 range to $199.99 rate plan.AT&T wireless did not have an accelerator rate for going past your target amount of cellphone sales.I believe this is where the major difference is between the two companies in terms of potential earnings.For the close to four years that I worked with AT@T my gross salary was around 50,000k a year.That was good money and I did not have any complain with the company in that area.There were other benefits like health care that the company took care of.AT&T wireless had bonus performance plan which if reached, the company pays money to the employees.About twice we got checks that was close to 2500 dollars.On the down year it was about 1450 dollars.

I missed this one.
This one took place before I joined AT&T Wireless.What happen is that when AT&T Wireless was lunched, the company wanted to keep track of its performance,so it lunched a tracking stock that is different from that of the parent company, AT&T. This happened during the period of the dot-com boom so the idea was very appealing to a lot of employees.Stocks were issued for a price of thirty dollars per share and you were required to purchase at least one hundred shares in order to participate.So a lot of employees including managers went for the offer.The employees that I talked to said they put in about 6 grand into the stock.
AT&T wireless stock was suppose to fly like its Sprint PCS and Nextel counterparts but it never did.The stock stayed around the 29 dollar mark for a long period of time before heading downwards.By the time that AT&T Wireless announced its merger with Cingular Wireless the asking price was just under 15 dollars a share.This caused a lot of stress to a lot of employees in the company at the time.If you have ever bought stock with the hope of seeing the price go up and see the reverse happen,you would know what I am talking about.The employees that stayed with the company got some relieve though in the form of performance bonuses that were issued each year that AT&T Wireless produced some good earnings.That helped eased some of the stock pain.

The Coverage area.
For a change with AT&T wireless there was no issue in terms of coverage.The company had its own digital TDMA network and an agreement with Cingular wireless for its customers to roam while out of the AT&T network.We hardly had any complains about drop calls and lack of coverage in some areas.Some of the popular plans that we offered included something called the digital one rate plan.There were price plans for for $59.99,$89.99,$149.99 and I believe another for $199.99 each.What the price plans did was give the customer nationwide coverage no matter where they were in the country.They only get to pay the single rate.The rest of the plans, ranging from 29.99 to 199.99 dollars were plans for local and regional coverage.The local plan covers mainly the DC metropolitan area while the regional plan gives you coverage for the whole of the North East US region.Long distance calling and at times nights and weekend promotions were included in the plan.Roaming within your coverage areas came free of charge.
What the long distance calling allows you to do is to be able to make a call say from Washington DC to somebody that is based in say Denver.
While working for Sprint PCS and now for AT&T wireless, what you realize is how far the cellphone was replacing the traditional land line telephone system.Because both services had long distance included in the service plan,you could basically make all of your calls using your cellphone.For the employees,we were provided with both a free cellphone and a free monthly service plan that included nationwide usage and long distance calling.AT&T wireless later on gave us free data capability.So we could surf the net from our cellphones.I believe that before I left Sprint PCS they gave us free data capability phones also.I used mine mostly for keeping track of stocks that I owned at the time.

A typical week during my time at AT&T Wireless

A typical week for me would include getting up in the morning earliest at 6am if I am schedule to work the 9am shift or getting up around 9am if they have me coming to work around 11am in the morning.I would get up,take a shower.At times I would get something to eat or I would head to work and buy lunch in one of the many restaurants that are present in the work area.
Once I got to work though, it was all business on the days that I was scheduled.We had a sales quota and I always try to beat it before the month comes to an end.We had some down time at work and that is when you get to check out the news.World news,local news, sporting news,those are the favorite areas that I check on the website.In addition to working Monday through Friday,the stores were opened on Saturdays.On Sundays we were closed.On the Saturdays that I was scheduled to work I would drive to downtown early to try and get free parking.The Saturdays were usually slow days because most of the people that we sell to in Washington DC were employees of the Federal government.On weekends you would hardly catch them around town.So the Saturdays you hard to will yourself through the day,spending quite a few hours at times just looking at the clock.
The days that I was not scheduled to work I try to get in some excercise,playing soccer mainly to keep in shape.I used to love it when I was not schedule to work during the weekend.That is because I loved to go to the club during this period of time.If they had me off on Saturdays,you know that I would be heading to a club called Dream Night Club,located in SE Washington DC.That would not be the end of it.On Saturday nights it would be time to head to NW Washington DC, this time to a night club called DC Live.Both clubs were great and you had like the most beautiful people in the world attending week-in,week-out.So during this period of time the weekend nights were never a period that you were going to catch me at home.A typical time for me to get home at times during the weeknights would be sometime in the 4am time period.I was just having fun with the night life.This would continue until the period that I left the company.

Why I left AT&T Wireless.
I had a total of two sales managers while working for AT&T Wireless.The first one we got along pretty well,the second one the relationship was just indifferent and later degenerated to a point that I had to leave the company.There was harassment and threats of we are going to fire you which is something that I am not used to in my professional working life.It got to the point that I just had to leave the company.Something that I did in October 2003.It was bye bye AT&T wireless after about four years of service with them.

Arbitration
About I year after leaving the company, we had to come face to face again in arbitration. This was because I collected unemployment benefits that were funded partly by the state and partly by my former employer that was AT&T Wireless. After about four payments the company filed a complain with the state that they are not going to continue the payments. The controversy was whether I left the company without any legitimate reasons. In the arbitration, the company claimed that they had offered me a higher position within the company and I turned it down. I do not recollect at all when the offer was made. We met at arbitration and the company won.They had a lawyer to lay their case and I was not to familiar with the arbitration process and I went there to defend myself.
Anyway that was the end of the relationship with AT&T Wireless. The company had since merged with Cingular Wireless who were a long time rival and the Wireless part of the company is no longer independent. There is just one giant company now called AT&T like it used to be in the past. They sell land line, wireless and internet services to individuals and businesses.