11 Boomer Character Traits That Were Developed as Latchkey Kids

Retirely ^ | 2/5/25 | Ron Clendenin

[Brass Lamp]

Yeah, then there was that whole draft thing. Dipshit.

Which immediately resulted in our only lost war. They were the only generation of Americans who could have lost to impoverished sandal-clad illiterates.

[Myrddin]

I worked for Pacific Telephone starting in 1980. It morphed into Pacific Telesis as the deregulation activities proceeded. Initially I was a Toll Central Office Equipment Engineer. It was a good starting place, but not a job with much mobility. I moved to supporting the internal computer systems. Lots of room for professional and salary advancement. New management moved in toward 1988. Hatchet management. Cut costs in return for big financial rewards. My department had 5000 people when I started. They were hacked down to around 500 as I made my exit for my current employer. Almost 34 years has elapsed. It was a good move.

[mass55th]

"I worked for Pacific Telephone starting in 1980."

Rochester Telephone where my sister worked, ended up evolving into Frontier Telephone. She saw the writing on the wall in the early 90's, and retired before Rochester Telephone ceased to exist. It seems that most of the phone companies that evolved from the originals were more interested in quantity of service (making more money) than quality of service.

[Myrddin]

It seems that most of the phone companies that evolved from the originals were more interested in quantity of service (making more money) than quality of service.

I agree. I built a system for PacBell that allowed a customer to interact in English, Spanish or Mandarin Chinese to change 4 common services (speed call, call waiting, call forwarding and one other) without speaking to a human account rep. The change in cost was quoted on the spot and the service change implemented with 30 minutes. The systems that did the switch programming had a 30 minute cycle, so I couldn't go faster. That service covered 80% of the daily work traffic of the account reps. An efficiency improvement. The reps were freed to service the more complex new services like 2B+D ISDN that we were just starting to roll out. I built other similar services before leaving in November 1991. I could see that the loss of other support staff was going to turn into a disaster that I didn't need to experience first hand.