When Management Should Be Fired..Immediately!

Pay close attention AT&T. If you monitor mentions on social media print this one in Red.

I received several emails starting early this morning. The subject lines were some variation of "What Should I Do"?

The emails all related to the AT&T area manager telling all employees of the sales call center that they must report to work today. What's wrong with that? Just one little thing. Amarillo, Texas is in the middle of the worst blizzard we have had since 1903. It started at 6:00 last night. By 10:00 PM all of our freeways and highways were closed due to whiteout conditions. Schools closed from New Mexico to Kansas. City offices, DPS, courts closed and only essential personnel at the local nuclear plant and hospitals asked to try and report. Office of Emergency management telling people to be sure they have water drawn in empty milk cartoons in the event of power failures and be sure flashlights are handy.

One young woman emailed that she had called, told this idiot woman that she was not going to leave small children at home alone in the midst of a dangerous storm , if he could get through the five foot drift blocking her garage. She was told she would have to take a vacation day. My emailer does not have vacation days available. When she told the manager she had no vacation the manager told her that was not the manager's problem, but my emailer would have an attendance occurrence in her personnel file sice she was not at work. The manager was told that the snowplows had been pulled out of service because they could not keep up with the blowing snow and we have hurricane winds at the airport with the airport closed.

Now AT&T, if you happen to pick up this post, I have a question. Do you really empower your managers of sales call centers to demand that 75 people put their lives at risk to come to work when the police are insisting that people stay off the streets because there are only two emergency units running, trying to reach stranded people or people in crisis who need to be transported to the hospital.

Further, AT&T why is this person with no common sense being allowed to threaten people with discipline that might result in a job loss when a city of 200,000 people is for all intents and purposes shut completely down. Is there not one person in your Dallas office with enough sense to call this lunatic and terminate her over the phone before she intimidates someone into trying to get to work for fear of losing their job and instead loses their life.

Wake up AT&T the conditions here are on the national news and it is getting worse by the minute. Fire this lunatic. We have 17 inches of now and winds at 52 miles an hour. For the record, I have advised these people to call their union rep, your internal complaint line, the PUC and. Labor lawyer..not necessarily in that order.

But most of all, I have advised these people to use their own good sense, listen to local authorities and above all do not leave their homes.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 25, 2013 at 4:32pm: Oh, and AT&T, as of an hour ago the national guard has been called out to try and rescue people who are stuck on city streets. With any luck at all your area manager is one of them they won't find and she can spend a cold night eating peanut butter.

Comment by Todd Wilson on February 26, 2013 at 11:09am: The risk of personal safety makes this a no-brainer decision. I'd just use the snow day as an opportunity to start looking for a new job, regardless of disciplinary action.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on February 27, 2013 at 10:30am: Exactly why I don't miss the midwest. :) Any AT&T updates Sandra?

Comment by Amber on February 27, 2013 at 10:55am: Sandra, it's so sad that some people have NO common sense, I wonder if any at AT&T rectified what this manager was doing. A few things it made me remember:

We had a huge hurricane & flood when I lived in Savannah, GA. There was no way to get to the office because roads were closed. My boss didn't expect me to come in, but did call me and give me a list of leads over the phone so I could still make sales calls. Before home computers,etc. were commonplace so he read the names and number to me and I wrote it all down. (Note: I had 2 of my best months back to back because of those calls!)

We had several inches of snow and some ice here in Baton Rouge, which is so rare that we have no resources to clear roads, etc.The entire city was pretty much closed down. A bunch of bridges were closed, my district manager not only made us go to the offices but those that lived on the other sides of the bridges obviously couldn't come and had to use a vacation day. (We had 2 great people quit within a month of this, I don't think it was a coincidence.)

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 27, 2013 at 11:15am: This witch is incorrigible. Yesterday city officials and the police department were telling people. do Not, repeat, Do Not get on the roads unless it is an emergency. The mayor even made the statement, "what is it people do not understand about stay off the roads until emergency personnel can get this cleaned up, our snowplows are stuck"

She told the people they were required to report to work or they would have to take personal time or be written up for attendance. One lady who lives outside the city asked her if she was aware that I-40 was still closed and the national guard and DPS were not letting none evn trucks through. This idot's response again was, "that's not my problem, the office is open and you are required to be at work". The employee took a breath and said, " you are insane, I will not be there because I cannot get there." Several others did the same.

It boggles my mind that anyone would blatantly ignore the city , police, and emergency management orders to stay off the roads and tell employees to come to work. Schools and most businesses were closed for the second day. I understand that the union is filing a grievance as are individual employees. Probably the only thing that will happen is that they won't be written up but this manager has insured that 75 people who report to her now know that she is crazy as loon and hate her sorry butt.

One has to wonder what is wrong with upper management at AT&T to allow someone to risk the safety of people in the face of a situation so dangerous that the national guard is called out.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 27, 2013 at 11:25am: I can't wait until I get the next sales call from AT&T, I get about three a week. I am going to be sure that I am assured this call is recorded for quality assurance purposes before I start to talk about Ms. Renteria considering herself more of an authority on safety than the police department.

Comment by George Pitts on February 27, 2013 at 11:38am: This is insane! I don't understand how or why someone would do such a thing. Is your life that horrible where you wish to make everyone as miserable as you. To me this has alot to do with personal issues and mental health it seems in this case. Don't know how on earth someone like that can be in any leadership position where they can make calls like this. If someone was to be injured or loose their life would AT&T be responsible?

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 27, 2013 at 11:40am: This has been such a bizzaro storm that we have cattle walking over fences on the drifts. In town we have people trying to find dogs who were let out yesterday, ran to top of a six foot drift and bailed out of backyards. Come on spring. Snow is one thing. Snow and 75 mile an hour winds are a ho of another color.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 27, 2013 at 12:03pm: Good question George. This woman has done several other nutty things based on what I have heard over the years from employees. She is one of those who never graduated from high school has been with that company for over 20 years and finally got into a management spot.
Her management style seems to be witch hunts and petty power trips. The office here has gone from around 150 to aprox. 75 so who knows what the thinking is. Maybe leaving her in this spot is a way to get people to quit so they don't have to lay people off and close this office. If that is it, it sure seems to be working.

As to liability, I don't know. I suspect that the "out" would be that it was up to the employee to decide if it were dangerous for them so they could have taken. Vacation day or a write up instead of putting themselves at risk of injury.

I sure don't tell AT&T how to run their business but my people were told to stay home. In my opinion no one should be put in a position to risk their life, injury or be pressured to leave kids alone when schools and daycares are closed. Common sense and listening to emergency first responders trumps getting to an office for sane people in my book.

Comment by pam claughton on February 27, 2013 at 12:20pm: Wow, that is truly insane, and imagine the repercussions should someone attempt to get to work due to her orders and end up injured or worse? We had a bad blizzard a few weeks ago and the Governor here banned the entire state except for plows and emergency workers, no one allowed on the roads at all. There was a stiff fine for anyone who did and was caught.Sounds like she is on a very sad power trip.