June 6, 2012
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Should Employees Name Names to Out God Awful Bosses?AT&T & Pinnacle Technical Reources

Here I am just lying around on my bed and I am practically so disappointed at  how my previous two employers, AT&T and Pinnacle Technical Resources, have treated me. And not just me but several of my coworkers as well. So I am thinking now would be a good time to do the taboo.. which is name names. Someone has to hold these people accountable for treating their employees like shit.

We have families to feed and many of us worked damn hard for these companies.I worked as a “contract employee” (which I later found was a lie the company pushed as we were temps) for AT&T in Dallas, TX. I worked through Pinnacle Technical Resources. Pinnacle Technical Resources is a third-party vendor or contractor owned by Nina Vaca who is supposed to be a “stellar business woman” when, (in my honest opinion) her company isn’t treating its employees awful.

I was hired to work for AT&T at $17.00 per hour. Until the company decided it was better to drop everyone’s salary to $13 per hour. And guess what. If you didn’t agree with the wage decrease, you were terminated. Yep.

I have had awful jobs but this was near the top. AT&T and Pinnacle are both terrible, money hungry employers who treat their people worse than cattle being led to the slaughter (in my opinion). There were no set rules and there was no “employee handbook”.  The rules were made up as one went along. There were terrible managers in the building starting with Kimberly Wolfram, Mark Helm, and so many others. On top of being shitty managers who resorted to intimidation of employees and backroom dealings, these managers due to the environment inside AT&T seemed to all have “God Complexes” and walked around as if they were untouchable and above it all. People were literally afraid to approach these people. These individuals were complicent in pushing employees out of the organization using lying and intimidation. Management was routinely advised to write-up employees (all employees) over any small error, even without a clear understanding of what the error was and without the employee being previously advised of it. Management was informed to “stack the deck” so to speak against employees.

Honestly, Neither Pinnacle NOR AT&T knew what the left or right hand was doing. The atmosphere was so chaotic. When I left Pinnacle, for the first three weeks I woke up shaking at night in my bed. My legs were swollen due to the lack of breaks which therefore resulted in the lack of circulation in both legs.Even though I had brought this up to company management, both AT&T and Pinnacle, neither company cared enough to address it.  I have health issues because of how hostile and stressful the workforce was. Neither company cares anything for employees.

It was not out of the ordinary for employees to be given instructions via email from management which would later turn out to be incorrect, however, these same employees who were following the rules were fired for following those exact rules. To add insult to injury, the company, Pinnacle, uses a law firm out of New York State, which has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and complaints by various states, including they were the subject of an extensive PBS Documentary as this law firm routinely denied claims which should have been eligible for payment, pushing these claims into an appeal in hopes the claimant would drop the claim or rush into a low wage job, as they only make money from how many claims they deny. They are defeating the purpose for the unemployment compensation system by acting so unethically.

I would often see managers lie, choose favorites, and simply fire employees without any notice or explanation of how they erred.

AT&T was complicent in this “hostile” workforce by often forcing employees to work “without break” for 9 to 10 hours per day. Absolutely anything one did, even leaving ones desk to use the restroom, could be construed as a rules violation.

The company turned over 50 to 60% of its workforce every three months as well. Is this normal?

Personally, I am looking at what legal options may be available. More people need to sue the socks off of unethical employers who act unethically towards their employees. Who set their workers up to fail only to push them out early due to the new hire tax credits they get from flipping their workforce.

On top of suing as an option, we need to boycott them as well. Start online media campaigns. AT&T, which has call centers in India and China and god knows where else don’t care about Americans in my opinion.  To AT&T all they want is the cheapest possible labor and using companies like Pinnacle allows them to get out of paying good wages by making pretty much near all jobs contract or temp.In addition to making a low wage, they want their employees to have no rights whatsoever. I could be the poster child for Unions due to how I was treated at both companies.  I also have never worked anywhere where employees were quitting in such high numbers and those who weren’t quitting were being kept in constant fear by half ass managers who really didn’t know what they were doing as well.

I say we stop spending out money with these companies and put the word out through blogs and other social media just what awful employers they are. Lets start a wave of sorts.I plan to let everyone I can know how unethical a company both Pinnacle and AT&T are, especially towards its largely African-American workforce. There is no job security at either company. AT&T made the list for the best company for African-Americans and I plan to personally email the writer and let him know what I experienced and to rethink that list as well as other publications. All I can do is speak out. Hopefully someone will hear.

The words in this blog are the “OPINIONS” of the blogger only.

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