AT&T Training - Day 16 of 49

Our instructor does it again. We had a customer service test today and several steps of greeting the customer we had to do. I say I got a perfect score but he dinged me on two stupid things. First he said at the end you did not ask me to turn on my TV's. That was not even on the test as a required step he said to say it two hours earlier. How am I suppose to remember that. He said follow the steps. Then second he dinged me for shaking during the test. Come on I was hungry (All I had was bagel that morning) and nervous because this is a pass/fail test. Of course I would be nervous. This is a one of one chance not a typical one in hundreds of customers that I would really deal with.

The one hard thing to this do-it test is we have to wear all the safety equipment and I tell you who is going to wear a hard hat in someones house and second who will where safety glasses well making coax cable or almost anything. They fog up and you can not see a thing.

Who ever invented the Telephone Company's names for equipment and parts must of had a job at a gentleman club or something because there is a ton of words that sound like they relate to sexual or drug things like 1. Butt Set (Say it 10 times fast and see what end up saying.) 2. Then there is POTS (Plain Out Telephone Service) and more but I can remember then right now.

Two good reminders for inside house wiring is tip-top and right-red-ring. The tip wire is on top or left and the ring wire is on the right or bottom. Also red is a ring color since it is the first color in the column.

C3

AT&T Training - Day 15 of 49

AHHH!!! This is driving me crazy. Our instructor tells us one thing then another. A good example is yesterday and today he says bring your thumb drives and laptop so he can give us the powerpoint files so we can follow the modules easier and easy access for out tests since the test later this week is open book. But then yesterday someone in my class walks up then offers to hand him his thumb drive for the files but then he says we will take care of it tomorrow. So I ask him today if I get the files and he says I will give them to you after class so I ask again after class to hear him say after class meaning the end of week. I do not know about you but to me saying END OF CLASS means when we are ready to go home. Besides what about him saying it will help us with out tests. I claims if he gave us them we will take them to AT&T's competitor and say this what they are teaching. Truly that logic is flawed. First would we do that. For how hard it was to get into AT&T and how intense the background check was being a double agent for Comcrap would be a major operation plus all the cover up and LARGE pay for risking getting sued. Later this week we also have a PASS/FAIL test he says you fail you are gone. NO SECOND CHANCE. WHY? He says you must know this but then says it take you a year to remember this. This say one thing then another and this contradiction thing he dose really messes up our expectation of the week. At least we found out he will not be teaching next week. Someone named Bruce will teach us. Well, Three days left then we will be going to Tennessee. No word on the strike but they keep on talking. I do think it would be cool if they strike well I'm gone. I know it would be tight but it would be cool to get a day or two more in Tennessee.

C3

AT&T Training - Day 14 of 49

Today was day 14 (Week 2) of my 49 days of training. I can not wait till this is over. I am not to happy with this new instructor. It seems like he dose not jokes and he is very serious about the tests. I know and hope he is joking. Last weeks instructor is is building training modals like the one below at a different center. Hope he will be back next week.

AT&T Westmont U-verse Premise Wiring Class Room. Live U-verse Feed in Class.

I finally got my paycheck yesterday. We had the biggest problem finding my check because it had my managers name on it with my name in the corner. Because she had me work Saturday instead of Friday and I am not going to drive 45 minutes just to pickup my check. But because my bank closes at noon I have to wait until Monday. It is a good thing my mom offered to take my check to the bank. I have a few things I need to pay for. 1. Ties. 2. Almost $100 for Gas owed to my Dad. 3. Food/Lunch for the next two weeks. 4. Cell Phone. 5. Razers and Body Wash. 6. Upgrade to the new iPhone 3Gs. 7. Build a new server. (Maybe next check).

I went to the AT&T store and was able to get my 18% discount on my cell phone bill. I said something to Joe my class and he says you can not get any employee discounts until 6 months but I got it and my Manager says I can get my U-verse discount after my 6 months of after I signed up. So I have 2 months left. Maybe he is getting that mixed up.

Hope this week goes quick.

C3

AT&T Training - Day 13 of 49

I finally got my paycheck today and it is big. Much bigger then I expected. Yesterday my dad upgraded to the iPhone 3G and yes I know its the old one but it can do the same thing as the new one except for the specs. I now know I want to upgrade to the iPhone 3Gs. I know I will do that with my next paycheck.

Training again next week.

Today by accident we left a traffic cone in front of the truck and ran over it. Once we noticed the cone missing we went back and found the cone in the middle of the road with two teens poking at it. The guy I was with went to get it and there was a LARGE tire track on it. LOL!!!

I rode with Anthony again we did two installs and one repair. My mom put my referral cards on doors in my neighborhood. I made a deal to split the commission with my mom. Things are looking up.

They took the vote and yes we are going on strike if the contract is not renewed by monday. The drivers have to return there company issued belonging to their lockers every night. What a pain. More details to come. I can not wait till next year let along end of July!!!

I just watched a few episodes of a Anime called Chobits and I think its a real funny Anime. I love the theme song. I'm thinking of buying the series on DVD but it is over $100 for all the episodes.

I'm trying to include pictures with my post again but I would like to insert videos down the road.

C3

AT&T Training - Day 11 of 49

It sounds like a strike it quite possible. People are getting fired up and saying AT&T is being greedy. Everyone wants to get paid more and yes I believe we should get paid a bit more. But I believe it should be between $17 and $20 an hour but not this crazy $28/hr. You got to remember we Uverse installers have no education and most of us have to experience. The first thing I hear out of the typical mouth is "Well, AT&T made 4 billion in profit last year they can afford it.". That is not a good reason you got to remember AT&T is not keeping that money they role it in to next year and use it to expand there service. Profit is progress without profit things fall apart and never work.

I heard the rating results from the Obama Infomercial today and it got 4.5 million viewers. Not do blame me. I'm just the messenger but 4.5 is not that much for how much advertising ABC and WLS had. I'm am so glad the American people are starting to wake up on how much of a bad idea this plan is. Yes, I am not the only Conservative to say the current Health Care system is messed up but there is a better plan then what the Liberals want to do.

The installer I road with todays name was Anthony. He was cool and I basicly got to do my first installer almost all by my self. I gave my input and he let me go to town and do about 90% of the install. We had no choice but to run the wires around doorways and though the wall it was a apartment with no basement access. They had a old punch down block that was not labeled so I had put a wire tracer at the cross box and find the incoming wire.

One thing I will be pushing in the next several days in my ability to get paid for referrals. I got a couple hundred door hangers I will hang on some doors in my neighborhood. If anyone is interested in signing up for Uverse please call 1.877.827.5288 or visit http://att.com/uversereferral and use the referral code "JG092M".


Almost everyday I see a airplane leave out of Midway since my garage is so close to the Airport. Every time I see a plane take off. I track it in the sky and pretend that I'm on that plane going to Japan. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. Pray for me that I can get though all this training and that this job WILL WORK OUT and I will make it to Japan. I believe I get to Japan SOON!!! My wish for the next two years is. 1. Get a nice new car. 2. I save enough money by June 2010 to take my 2 week trip to Japan. 3. By June 2010 own at least one property and collecting income by renting it. 4. No later then late 2011 have to ability to leave AT&T to pro sue rental properties and follow my dream of Japan by taking frequent mission trips in Japan... 5. By 2015 get married. (Hopefully my dream Japanese Wife.) 6. By 2020 build or live in my dream home that looks just like or is just a Modern Traditional Japanese House... LIVE ON!!!

As you can see in the Image above that North Korea is so close to Japan and if war brakes out between Japan and NK making travel difficult I would be so upset.

Sayonara,
C3

AT&T Training - Day 10 of 49

I have finally reached the big double digit day of my training. I just got home and I am tired. Since I have not worked a full time job in so long this job is taking a lot of energy plus the heat did not help. Today I found out that we trainees are off Friday have to work Saturday. WHY!!!.

Today I worked with someone named Mark he is cool and I found out he is conservative like me and believes the union is corrupt and he dose not trust that the union will fight to get us the best deal. The only two downsides is he is a chimney smoker and I did not like his training methods. My shirt smelled like smoke and the strong smoke smell made my insides burn. I asked him is he could smoke outside the truck but he did not care. Plus not to mention company policy prohibits smoking inside the truck. Today we did two installs and then one repair. It was pouring rain and the tornado warning were going off for an hour but stop and the HEAT returned.

Also some employees were doing some prestrike before work this morning. So I thought something happened and I was in the not suppose to be their.

C3

AT&T Training - Day 9 of 49

Well, Not much to say about today. Today I had some guy by the name Marcus. He was cool and seemed to have better control over the situation and was able to give me a whole lot more to do well plus not to mention a 8 Set Top Box Setup...WOW. So far the last 2 crossboxs I saw had 1/3rd new wire code (yellow/black) meaning 1/3rd of the people in that box were on U-verse already. The lady was real nice she keep offering us food but because of company policy had to turn it down. At one point she ask how we worked for 9 1/4 hours with no food. But after that Marcus went to a deli on Archer and Charleston in Willow Springs and they had some really good sandwiches. I got a three meat and two cheese sandwich on wheat and man it was good. This place looks like it been there for 100 years. Hope places like that never close. Willow Spring looks like Cape Cod.

The guys at my work keep telling me that we will be one strike next week and are so worried. I'm not worried about it. There is nothing threat until the 27th is here. I heard though the grape vine that the Union dose not pay you for going on strike but only expects you to show up one day a week. I think to many follow way to close to the Union they act like they work for the Union but they need to realize that its AT&T they actually work for. Mostly these are new guy who get the job and they run around shouting "I'm in the Union you ****** ******". (Yes as you can guess the people at my work use words like that all the time. Surprised they can hold back around customers.) It will be quite interesting if we do end up going on strike and because of it I get to go the Tennessee the whole time my family goes.

I found out a new guy yesterday had an accident and fell though the customers attic ceiling. he scraped his sides falling between the rafters and was rushed to the hospital. No word on his condition and in other news my paycheck will be coming this Friday...YAY!!! I keep telling myself the prize for doing this much work is JAPAN next year.

まにかかる　まろ　あす (menikakaru maro asu),
C3

AT&T Training - Day 8 of 49

Today was my first right along day and it was not so bad. My manager is nice and get along with her so far. I was a bit disappointed the guy did not let me be more hands on then I wanted to be. Like our instructor said these guy was not care less if you sat in the truck all day.

I asked to do stuff but he kept denying. Today we had a large install of 6 Set Top Boxs, Internet and VoIP. AT&T Allocated 8:53 (9 Hours) to this install we got it done in 7 1/2. We got 3/4th the way though and the installer got a phone call the person on the other end told him his Uncle Died (He called him his god father.). We were done before quitting time which would mean we would go on to a second install at 3:30. (he said there was still 25 installs left in the pot.) He called his manager who said he could go home early and she sent me home to. But I could be getting over time the rest of this week.

I NEED A NEW CAR!!!. I was on my way home and out of no where my car quit on me 3/4th the way home. Plus I got me self stuck in the turn lane. Finally a cop came and called a car with pusher bars. He activated the emergency signals on the traffic light and then was about to pushed me into the wendy's packing lot down the road then the cars in the right lanes tried to go since the light was green but the jeep cop (The first cop) ran up in front of the cars honked his loud horn at them. (Sounded like a ambulance horn.) The cop pushed me in the parking lot then drove off.

If anyone has some good leads on a newer Mustang Convertible for under $5000 please let me know. My dad and me went to a dealer in Calumet City on Saturday and they had a 2005 Red Ford Mustang Convertible. So it had the new body style for $12997. It was over my budget but if I was approved for a good payment I would have taken a deal like that since I am making good money with AT&T. I should be getting a $500+ paycheck on friday. SWEET!!!. The dealer said I did not even score but he said they use TransUnion but Experian came back on my credit check with a 643 score.

Sayonara,
C3

AT&T Training - Day 5 of 49

I am now officially certified by the American Red Cross to administer CPR. I am glad today is over with and done. Now I got a two day weekend off. Then report on Monday to my garage for my first week of ride along. Today we got to play around with some Uverse Systems for about 1.5 hours in a different class room since CPR was all we did today. It did not interest me to much since I have Uverse and Know most of the ins and outs. The training center had a iMac to show installers what they look like but my instructor said most installers must ignore mac. He said they had two macs but for some reason one of them has gone missing. Plus a computer........and.......All the HDML Cables...I think they need to look into that....YEP!!!. So any who the mac had Mac OSX 10.4 and had almost two gigs of updates to download. I wish I was done with training since it sounds like the rest of my training is going to be stuff I already know about Uverse.

Sayonara,
C3

AT&T Training - Day 4 of 49

Well again another day in the can. Tomorrow I will be dropping by blockbuster after class to pick up my last paycheck. Bummer it will only be about $100 about that allow me to buy a lunch all next week during my ride allongs at least and renew Rush 24/7 (I am dying to listen to Rush Limbaugh after class.). Today as you might know was about Customer Service and we finished Electrical Hazards and Asbestos. We had two test and I believe I passed them both. The thing I like about this job so far is the potential for growth is hugh plus in the past the government required AT&T hire only people with training for telecommunications but AT&T went to court and said that first Comcast (The Largest Midwest Cable Provider) and Time Warner (South Cable Provider) is allowed to hire people without training and the government was allowing them in get into the phone business taking away customers from AT&T. So according to my instructor don't surprise if in 5 years AT&T takes a lot of us good Uverse installers and promotes us to installing Uverse for Businesses and High Rises or even better. Uverse lets people like me without training to get our foot in the door and clime the ladder as high as most of there usual employees like INR (Install & Repair). We are currently on a separate contract but in the future we might be moved to the AT&T CORE contract which would double our pay since Uverse is becoming the backbone of their service.

Sayonara,
C3

Chicago Teaparty

Today I got this (Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd:, You know what I mean.) email from my grandmother about the Chicago Teaparty. Look at how many people gathered in Obamas home state, a democrat state. The state run media will not report this because it reflects negative things about Obama. Insist on limiting all politicians to two terms. Copy & Paste this post into a Text Document, add your comments, print and then send it of to your congressman, White House or whoever. We would like to see more people join in this July 4th in Chicago for even larger protest.

AT&T Training - Day 3 of 49

So another day another $100's. I have made about $400 since Friday so my paycheck next week will be nice quick nice when it gets to about $600 before taxes. Today was my driving test and my instructor was quite laid back. You could tell he was tired from the last two days. He said he is used to getting in for 8am class but they changed it to 6am on him. The driving test was easy since the only requirement was drive about 3 miles and don't die or kill someone and you basically past. Me and one other guy went first out of 6 people and when we got back we joked with the next two and said how hard the test was and how the instructor was yelling at us and they believed us. We were laughing like crazy. We also practiced making coax and cat5 cables for almost an hour that is why a say it was laid back. I already known how to make both (actually all my cat5 don't like to work.) but the cat5 refresher was good because he gave some pointers that helped me a lot. So now I can make a perfect cable. So tomorrow is just around the corner.

AT&T Training - Day 2 of 49

So today was day two of my 7 weeks of training. I am sort of depressed/tired (or what ever you would call it) because even though class was fine driving home was honorable. I decided to take 355 home this time and as soon as I entered 55 south a traffic jam for 6 miles. I wish they could put electric signs at the entrance to expressway to let you know if there is a traffic jam. I hoping to hear the traffic on the radio before I entered the highway but it was to later they finally said it as soon as I was on 55. ("A BIT LATE!") It turned out some guy flipped his semi over on 55 as I drove by it was a massacre. The semi was in 4 many be even 6 pieces. Plus it started raining as a waiting in traffic. HEAVY.

Then traffic was clear on 355 but when I got to 80 it was backed up too because of the semi scale. After the scale the highway was clear. So I just got home and I am ready to take a quick nap.

Today I got my schedule for the remainder of class this week. (And for the heck of it here is today and yesterday.)
Monday - Tool Safety
Tuesday - Ladders (Hard Test for just Ladders)
Wednesday - Driving
Thursday - Customer Service
Friday - CPR (I'm going to become CPR certified)

Then coming Monday is my first ride along (That sounds fun.)

As I mentioned before the union contract expires on June 27th, So I also found out today that every time in the past the employees have ended up going on strike. And it lasted as long as 3 and half weeks. But if you got to work you got to work. My instructor said that if you past the picket line the union will charge you a 1000 dollar fine you got to be kidding me. So there is no point to working he said. He also said this will be most boring week by far because it is the only one with so much lecturing and testing. Bummer he will not be here for week 3 and 4 of training.

I heard a rummer that 3 weeks after the 7 weeks training when we get our trucks and tools we will be partnered with someone. So basically two installers will visit one install with two trucks.

Sayonara til tomorrow.

AT&T Training - Day 1 of 49

I tell you waking up at 4:30am sure makes you tired later. I almost to tired to type this post but I can't sleep or else I might not be able to sleep tonight. So anyways I got up and ate, got dressed and then drove there. I missed my exit for the Stevenson expressway as stupid as it is the next exit is ogden and so I ended up heading down ogden then backtracking south because I overshot 61st Street buy almost 20 streets.
Then got out of class and realized I left my headlights on and drained my battery. I wish my car would ding when the car is off and the headlights are on. I can not believe how many people rely on roadside assistance. I asked 50 people and no one had jumper cables. finally on of the instructors know where a old pair were in workshop. Then I drove home and my car was acting funny and got stuck behind a guy waiting till the last second to accelerate to highway speeds and left my car stuttering because I need to slowly speed up this made my car act funny for miles after. I'm doing it again tomarrow. I calculated 35 miles one way so that would mean I will burn a tank of gas every 3 days. I guess I will have to barrow money from dad again still 10 days till paycheck.

Update 4

So now I am officially an employee of AT&T. The orientation was from 8am to 4pm. Now I got 7 weeks of training. I got to attend class 6am to 2pm and then ride along between 7:30 - 4?ish. I wish the class room training was set at the same time. So here is my training schedule.
Week 1: 6/15 - 6/19: Class Room
Week 2: 6/22 - 6/26: Ride Along
Week 3: 6/28 - 7/02: Class Room
Week 4: 7/06 - 7/09: Class Room
Week 5: 7/13 - 7/16: Ride Along
Week 6: 7/20 - 7/23: Class Room
Week 7: 7/27 - 7/ 30: Ride Along
Because of the 4th of July the training is pushed back one day and we get Friday thru Sunday and I will be going to Tennessee for the 4th in my own car. After the 7 weeks I will be officially done with training and will have my own (company-issued) AT&T truck, laptop and tools. Sweet. We don't get GPS devices so I think I will buy one my self in a few weeks to make things easier. The contract with the union is up in 14 days (June 27th) and AT&T still have not come to an agreement on a new contract and the employee are seriously going to picket if it is not renewed. The AT&T Teachers gave us 30-minutes to read the Code of Conduct and had us sign it. Then they had the Union come in between 11:30 - 1:00 and they feed us pizza. (LOTS OF PIZZA) I even took home a whole pizza. One of the high lights of the orientation was the Union came in and basicly said that AT&T will try to screw us over but I don't think its that serious. The guy said "They will ask you to sign a Code of Conduct soon and make sure you note by your signature that you were instructed to sign without reading." and when we told him we already signed it he freaked out and said "If you do anything they don't like they will hold that signature against you." maybe they did try to rush us to sign it before the union stepped in but I don't blame them after the AT&T people came back half the class was in a riot thinking they had been had. One guy asked "Were we tricked into signing something?" I can not believe people anger. I read the Code of Conduct and it was typical stuff like smoking, drivers license and benefit rules. If you are doing everything right you have nothing to worry about.
I will get my first pay check June 26 for one week and one day. That is a nice paycheck since I made about $100 dollars alone yesterday. The guy was not sure but he thinks we get 50% off our Uverse service. AWESOME!!! There was 19 people in the orientation but only me and two others were going to the bedford garage. I see some of the other people in westmont in one of the three classes. Two in the morning 6am to 2pm then one at 3:30pm to 11pm. We get 6 company shirts every year and we get a jacket in 6 months. There is so much I could say but there is so much.Well down to the last thing first we all got to the training center at 7:45am and enter a buildings waiting room on the AT&T grounds (The building had the address on it they gave us.) We waited and waited then at 8:00 we were wondering why the door was unlocked and no security on duty at the front door. I called the lady in corporate and she said the teacher was looking for us. At 8:05 a lady with a AT&T shirt on came walking in and ask if we were there for the orientation. She said for the last year they have been doing the orientation in the main building. (Still wonder why the door was unlocked and no employees were in the building.) She walked us almost a half mile to the main building. Weird!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOO...

Pray that my car will continue to run for the next few weeks as I drive almost 40 minutes every day and it will cost me almost 10 dollars in tolls a week to drive there.

THIS IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!

Quick Update 3.1

Well, I have decided to hold out as long as I can with getting a new car. I got an email from Sylvia instead of a call and it said I had some new hire forms to fill out online. I thought that was something I was going to be doing on Friday but I guess not. I got to be in Hoffman Estate on Friday at 7:45am sharp. It is a 1:10 drive away up on the north side near by Mitsuwa (Japanese Grocery Store) in Arlington Heights. Then After that I start training in Westmont a 45 minute drive start Monday at 8am.

Quick Update 3

I will be hearing from Sylvia from AT&T next week with details on my Friday (June 12th) orientation. My dad and I will be going car and boot shopping this weekend. I just put in my letter resignation on tuesday and..........oh, I originally said someone asked me to work monday though wednesday help close a store but she called me monday morning and said she made a mistake and no longer needs me. So I ended up working wednesday night only no Friday either. I was a bit nervous about training but someone at my church on Sunday give me some good advice and said her experience with company training is they want you to pass so they trying to make it as easy as possible. That made me feel better about it.

Hey, I said it was a quick update.