DISCONNECTED: How Six People FROM AT&T Discovered THE NEW Meaning OF Work In a Downsized Corporate America [Hardcover]

Barbara Rudolph (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 1998

The economy is booming, yet healthy, profitable companies continue to lay off hundreds of thousands of employees and downsizing has become a permanent part of the landscape of corporate America. In "Disconnected", acclaimed journalist Barbara Rudolph puts a human face on this new economic reality, through intimate portraits of six people whose lives were irrevocably changed when they lost their jobs at AT&T.

When they were cut loose from the corporate fold at AT&T -- an American icon that once promised lifetime job security and claimed the unquestioning allegiance of its employees -- these six people made a difficult transition from the old world of work to the new one. Rudolph takes us inside the lives of Maggie, a feisty telephone operator whose job was made obsolete by technology; Tom, a brilliant executive who survived unscathed through childhood polio and the Vietnam War, but never fulfilled his early promise; Vince, a soft-spoken manager, son of the first black general counsel at GM, who found strength in his father's legacy; Barbara, a self-sufficient salesperson who learned to move on; Larry, a blunt-speaking, rumpled-looking Bell Labs engineer, who was bolstered by early fame; and Kyle, a strategist who discovered how to land on his feet and look out for himself.

These are moving tales of resilience and triumph, terror and redemption. With empathy and a reporter's instinct for telling detail, Rudolph eloquently portrays the full impact of downsizing on her individual subjects and their families. Each struggled to reclaim a sense of self in the wake of this loss. Each emerged with radically different notions of loyalty, commitment, and personal responsibility.

Many of us have made this journey; many others will. Through these six lives, Rudolph sheds new light on the connection between work and identity, between who we are and what we do. What does it mean today to be a company man or woman in an environment defined by bald individualism and emotional detachment? And most important, how do we find security and meaning in the unmapped territory of the new world of work? The people who survive share something precious, Rudolph concludes: "They have come to comprehend their value, independent of their corporate identity. They have claimed their personal dignity."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If there was ever a company that epitomized corporate downsizing, it's AT&T. Between 1984 and 1995, the company managed to slash some 120,000 jobs, and in 1996, in a bit of bravado and posturing for Wall Street, it announced the elimination of another 40,000 jobs (the final number, however, was considerably less). In Disconnected, author Barbara Rudolph looks at the lives of six white-collar workers--a telephone operator, engineer, salesperson, business strategist, corporate planner, and an assistant staff planner--who in AT&T's terms were "accepted for the package," "involuntarily separated," or in real terms, were fired.

Rudolph argues that the American workplace has undergone a profound and lasting change. In the '50s and '60s job security was part of the social contract in a "world of three television networks and one phone company, a single computer giant, and a small clique of regulated airlines." These days, that contract has all but disappeared in the wake of much more fluid and competitive global business environment. She writes:

"Like many of their peers, these six came to see the organization as a kind of family. If they did not perceive it as benevolent, they assumed that it was more or less benign. They imbued it, too, with a rationality and coherence that did not actually exist. They lost sight of the fact that a company is not a purposeful entity but merely a set of shifting alliances that mix people and power, ego and intellect."

At the heart of Disconnected is the story of how these six workers moved beyond the initial insecurity and pain of their joblessness to redefine themselves, find happiness, and at least for five of the six, move on to new and productive careers. Disconnected is a useful primer to the inevitable career changes that most of us will have to undergo as the workplace lurches forward into the new millennium. --Harry C. Edwards

From Publishers Weekly

Until just a few years ago, AT&T epitomized corporate America?the monolithic giant employer where people worked until they chose to retire. However, AT&T, along with many other established large corporations, felt pressured to downsize to survive the new competitive marketplace. To an outsider, this meant hearing about generous buy-out packages; here, journalist Rudolph shows the day-to-day impact on six former AT&T employees. Rudolph profiles four men and two women from different parts of the country who all lost their jobs during the AT&T reorganization. In fact, two of the displaced workers ended up getting positions with companies spun off from AT&T. The stories are poignant because, although there was advance warning of the layoffs, these people weren't really able to prepare themselves for losing their jobs?either practically or emotionally. They felt a certain betrayal and questioned whether they could ever again feel that sense of security or connection. "The coincidence of losing his father and his AT&T career on the same day was a potent symbol for Kyle. 'Was I saying goodbye to my real father and my pseudo-father?' he asks himself." Rudolph's subjects are surprisingly candid about their situation, including one man who has been subsisting on short-term jobs and family support, so the book offers some insight into the plight of the middle-aged displaced worker. But the audience may be limited, since many long ago discarded the idea that identity can be derived from corporations and replaced it with the belief that workers must be their own company.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1St Edition edition (August 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684842661
• ISBN-13: 978-0684842660
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #365,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving, sensitive, and compelling set of portraits..., September 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: DISCONNECTED: How Six People FROM AT&T Discovered THE NEW Meaning OF Work In a Downsized Corporate America (Hardcover)

Barbara Rudolph has accomplished a very difficult task: she has completely humanized the relationships between people and their work, and has gotten six long-term, loyal employees of AT&T who were downsized (fired, dismissed) after many years of service to reveal their thoughts, feelings, fears and triumphs in the aftermath of that blow to their self-image, their self-esteem and their security. It is less an attack on America's corporate culture than it is a tribute to the essence of the people who are the real shapers of our economy and our culture. Rudolph, who according to the bio on the book,has been a business writer for major publications, obviously understands the corporate culture and sets her human stories in a very professionally rendered account of the changing nature of employment and of the corporation as family, then she introduces her subjects to fill in the important aspects of our attitudes toward work and the identities we shape through it. It's wonderful. And, I was first attracted ot the book by the back-cover blurbs from Richard Sennett and Earl Shorris, whose recommendations are once again justified.