Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: Craig Jackson drilex1 Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phreaks of the Monolithic Era of Telephony Message-ID: <12475@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 22 Sep 90 16:03:05 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA Lines: 47 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 670, Message 2 of 9 In article <12329@accuvax.nwu.edu> asuvax!mothra!bakerj@ncar.ucar.edu (Jon Baker) writes: >> [Moderator's Note: The fact that some employees of AT&T in the past >> acted like jerks is not a sufficient reason to have broken them up, >> that's for sure. PAT] >Sure it is. Such behavior is the lowest-level manifestation of what >'the company' had become. Directly or indirectly, this activity was >representative of the company's attitude and philosophy - the overall >AT&T gestalt, if you will. >[Moderator's Note: Then we disagree on the extent of the 'jerk-ism', >and its prevalence in the old Bell System. My experience was that the >fools there were only a very small percentage of the total work force. >Most of the people were hard workers, dedicated to the welfare of the >customers. I agree that really serious forms of jerk-ism, like breaking into people's calls from the frame, was uncommon before, and is probably uncommon today. I suspect that milder forms of jerk-ism, like listening to those calls, was as common as idle time in the frame. The breakup seems to have reduced that idle time, judging from telco employment statistics. Electronic exchanges have also contributed to this -- by eliminating most needs for monitoring personnel, less people are standing around the frame, busy or not. Pre-breakup telco personnel were dedicated professionals, at least when they weren't on strike. But there probably were too many of them, and the subset of them who worked in the business office all too often were not interested in serving the customer, but rather the company. About the breakup, I don't think it was morally necessary. I do think that it was necessary to remove all monopolies, local and long-distance. (The fact that the local monopolies have not been eliminated does not change my opinion.) I also think that given the political clout of the higher echelons of AT&T, something like the breakup would have been necessary to get through to them that things were supposed to change. Craig Jackson dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com {bbn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}