truthilicious

The iPhone was definitely the most hyped gadget in the history of gadgetry… with both Apple and AT&T (the sole wireless carrier for the device) spending hundreds of millions of dollars during the build-up to the release of the smart phone.

Once the device had been out for a little over a month and the first bills for the wireless service were delivered, people are shocked.

One woman received a 300 page bill - delivered in a box.

Many more report bills in excess of 50 pages. (Source)

Muhammed Saleem has calculated that, given the number of iPhones currently in service, and an average bill of 50 pages per monthly bill, AT&T will be slaughtering 74,535 trees this year to deliver bills for the über-devices on their network. (Source)

But that’s just the tip of the eco-nightmare-burg.

For years AT&T had been doing something right for both its employees and the environment. AT&T’s telework program was one of the biggest success stories in the business world - greatly enhancing both the lives of their employees as well as having a sizable positive impact to the corporate bottom-line. AT&T was able to reduce its annual real estate costs by $30 million, and manage to get an extra $150 million in extra hours of productive time from their teleworkers. (Source)

Then came the acquisition of AT&T by Baby-Bell SBC in 2005. As with any corporate takeover, the legacy AT&T brass were collectively shown the door while the good ol’ boys from San Antonio grabbed the reins and began the process of swallowing up one of the world’s oldest corporations. Yeee-hawwww!

One of SBC’s trademarks is their “ability” to unapologetically shove their mandates - including their own corporate culture (rife with the politics of escalation without cause and “it’s-my-way-or-the-highway-ism”) down the collective throats of the companies they absorb. Just ask any legacy PacTel or Ameritech employee how things went when they merged with SBC in 1997 and 1999, respectively. Strong-arming the rank-and-file is a tactic that SBC has exploited since day one.

One mandate that the “New AT&T” over zealously pursued before the ink had even dried on the merger paperwork was a policy within their corporate operations divisions to rein in all the teleworkers with the goal of completely disallowing the practice by the end of 2007. The policy outlined in one division was that there would be a list of 12 cities from which that division would operate. For employees in that division, the choices were to be as follows:

1. I f the employee was a “commutable distance” to one of the 12 cities (i.e. 50 miles or closer), that employee was no longer permitted to work from their home office; they would be assigned a cubicle and be told they had to commute.
2. If the employee was not within a “commutable distance,” they were told they would be given 2 choices: relocate, or forfeit their employment.

When the upper management responsible for this illogical, utterly draconian policy was questioned about the business rationale for pursuing this policy, one executive simply stated that the “synergies” they anticipated they would achieve would “offset the costs” of the initiative.

Synergies? Really? Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss would be proud. Actually, he’s probably sitting in a corner office in San Antonio.

This story first saw daylight on May 6 in the St. Petersburg Times. Basically, from what sources within AT&T are saying, this article hits the nail on the head insofar as AT&T’s attitude towards its teleworkers. So far, point 1 from above has already been executed; worker-bees who are a commutable distance to one of the pre-ordained operational hives have been assigned cubicles and told to fold up their home-based offices. Point 2 is actually taking longer for the company to execute because they have realized that a lot of their talented people are not near one of the operational hives, and they would be forced to pay for relocations or simply lose good people.

How does this fit in to the environment?

Well, consider that all the people who currently work from home will now/soon be required to drive to work everyday. That means they’ll be burning a lot more gasoline - releasing all those greenhouse gases into the air. They’ll be adding to the traffic already clogging the streets in the cities where they must now commute, and will contribute to additional noise pollution in those areas as well. There will also be environmental impacts due to relocation of employees; additional fuel consumption, impacts from new construction activities, etc.

Finally, i found it very odd that AT&T actually owns this thing (which is used for promotional events):

Perhaps the aforementioned examples are contributing factors to why John T. Stankey (Group President-Telecom Operations) was so evasive about answering employee’s questions about AT&T’s “carbon footprint” at a recent meeting. Mr. Stankey acknowledged that AT&T has “calculated” its carbon footprint, but he did not want to share it publicly, because the company had not yet determined how to rationalize the fact that the services AT&T sells facilitate the reduction of their customers’ carbon footprints. Yes - you read that correctly: it is the belief of AT&T that they should be able to score environmental points based on how their customers choose to operate.

All I have to say is, thank goodness Mr. Stankey is not an accountant for AT&T!