May I welcome myself to my own blog,to share a load they say is to halve it.I may be the only person who reads this but may I say if one person extra does and understands where I am coming from my work is near completion.
I left BT at the end of November having served the company for over 33 years,to be more precise 33 years and 6 months. I must admit during that period I did take approximately 5 to 6 days sick leave (my last boss who admitted to me found herself surprisingly pregnant after being with the company for all of 6 years took 6 months off).
I am proud to have worked for such a company but my going was not without sorrow and a little ire. The manner and process of my departure has left a bitter taste to this day.
The company in my opinion has tried to re invent itself over the last few years and unfortunately it is failing,miserably.Ask a BT person what they think of 21CN (this is the marvelous new equipment that will cost BT in the region of £12-£15 billion will have a return of investment of £1 billion per annum therefore taking 15 years to pay for itself). The joke is that BT have a £5 billion hole (possibly more, creative accounting) in the pension fund and BT have promised to fill that hole, you guessed it over a 15 year period.
The best part of this is that anybody can ask BT how the progress of this tremendous 21CN white elephant is gettin along.Questions such as how many customers are benefitting from this technology 6 months down the road from it's launch.
But ask yourself this question over the last 5,10,15 20 years how many companies have looked into bidding for BT.What is the price of a share in BT. How are they performing,what is behind the facade.
Did you know as the UK quietly celebrates the Falklands war the Conservative government at the time allegedly sold BT to fill the coffers emptied by the huge cost of such as short engagement.Does anybody remember Mercury ?
Senior BT managers are conspicuous by his absence in the business world,BT buys organisations for amounts that are equivalent to a few hours revenue looking for attention and potentially trying to placate the market with thoughts that they are a dynamic organisation.Ofcom plays the music and BT has to dance to whatever tune is being played.
Think about this BT buys its "airtime" off of BT (BT Openreach).BT Openreach the seller has more money than they can handle therefore this side of the house is very rich,BT the buyer is the poor relation and both sides work for the same master.
I have spoken to other organisations that try to run telecommunication businesses and they pale in the shadow of BT relying on price everyhing else coming a distant second.I loved BT and I worked for BT but they are geting things wrong.
One manager was brought in on the spefic understanding that he would slash and burn staffing levels. He did not disappoint.Six months into his tenure 60% of the Corporate Field Sales Force were wiped off the face of the map being replaced by the same amount of people working out of an office in Bristol, fresh recruits mostly lacking in background in the telecommunications market.Customers wanted to know why the person who they could talk to on a face to face basis was replaced by somebody on the end of a phone and somebody that did not have the experience of the contact they had lost.
6 month after this debacle and the manager who was recruited to carry out this somewhat PR disaster disappeared.
So where is BT now, one of the biggest companies in the UK, as safe as houses in my opinion, there are more managers than you could shake a stick at and the staff just keep their heads down waiting for the next proclamation.
The workers in BT are well respected, ask any customer and they remember the engineers in particular, never met a bad one myself. The middle management unfortunately still hold the power in BT.
My last Deputy General Manager (I will just give you his initials MD)advised a full room of people that one product was definately not fit for purpose and recommended that his team approximately 20 people should not sell this product,yet 10 months down the road I still see BT advertising the same product as a panacea for business.

I am still looking for work, as I am over 50 there seems to be a reluctance in the business world. I went to see one such organisation called Glamorgan Telecom, I was told that there were only three other applicants and that either way I would be told yes or no as to my succes or failure. I am still waitin for the call....

I will write to myself again real soon.