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What's It Like Working For Worldcom?
Tetch asks: "I work for a multinational IT company which seems likely to transfer its "network services" team to (MCI-)Worldcom under the terms of a business arrangement (Worldcom's gonna run our company network for us). I'm contemplating transfering from my current position to that network services team but would quite like to know more about Worldcom's corporate culture before taking the plunge (since it seems I'd become a Worldcom employee in fairly short order). Does anyone have any experience of life at Worldcom they could share?" It's always smart to try get an idea of the climate in a company before you you try and sign up.
"Is it all white shirts, and singing the company song at 07:00, or is it T-shirts, jeans, company masseur and free donuts ? Do they work you into the ground till you burn out and then cast you aside with the trash, or do they look after you, nurture your career, notice your contribution without you having to sing your own praises the whole time. Are Worldcom folk *happy* and enthusiastic, content to be a valued part of a committed team effort, or are they cogs in a faceless machine, living in isolation and fear of visits from beancounters looking for yet more cost-savings to make for the stock-holders' benefit?"
I would highly suggest not working for Worldcom. They like a nice PR imagine (see Generation D commercials and whatnot), but on the inside they treat high level technical employees like dirt. I worked there for roughly 4.5 years. During that time, every time they acquired a new company's technical staff, they inevitably found a way to cheat them out of as much benefits as possible before laying them all off at the best time they could find stock-price wise (so that incentive options or profit sharing shares weren't valuable when they were forced to be redeemed). I was an original Worldcom employee, and eventually I suffered the same fate. When the big industry layoffs started they laid off my whole building and forced a short time to excercise then-worthless options which should have been good another 10 years. They did this with no warning to a very advanced research group that was making more progress than 99% of the company, and actually putting out widely-used internal software and showing real numbers for the company. What was preached as a bright and long-term future with the company, and what appeared to be 100's of k worth of stock options turned out to be a quick kick out on the street at their accountant's slightest uninformed whim with just the shirt on your back left.
11*43+456^2
I worked for MCI after they merged with WorldCom here in Atlanta and it was pretty laid back. I was working on an internal, Web-based, sales app. It was very laid back, though it was still a bit corporate. As long as you got your work done they really didn't care much, but then again I had a great manager who was as laid back as us developers. It seemed that their IT staff in general wasn't of the highest quality, but that could have been just in my location. As far as corporate environments, it wasn't a bad one.
I used to work for one of Worldcom's subsidiaries, a little outfit called UUnet. I left when they bought Digex web hosting and shipped all of our work off to them. I did however have a good time working there and had the Digex buy-out not gone through and my customers were not given away I would still be there. I guess the thing that bothered me most about Worldcom's taking over of UUnet and then killing off the UUnet web hosting with the purchase of digex was the way that they crushed all that was left of the UUnet culture in the process. But that's what happens when companies get bought out.
- Private industry gives you more work and usually more challenging work than the government. Conversely, private industry pays better in general. I took a pay cut when I left Worldcom for NASA but I haven't worked a single weekend or evening so far (and it's been over a year now).
- I was a network engineer and they worked me to death. They use salaries to avoid paying you overtime when you get paged in the middle of the night and have to come in at 2am to babysit a router (it happened to me several dozen times). I don't mean to imply that I am p-whipped but my wife forced me to quit that job.
- Worldcom is in a competitive industry and they treat their employees like dirt. You'd be better off working for AT&T, who is the market leader (so they have more cash to throw around).
- Worldcom laid off 1/3 of my office (not including me). How did they do it? They deactivated the employees' access cards so they couldn't get back in after lunch. People got their belongings shipped back to them after several weeks. You be the judge.
- Worldcom consistently screws with payroll to save money. One of my former co-workers noticed one day that the company was taking out a few extra percentage points for Federal income tax, but that extra money didn't show up on his W2. He believes that the company adds a few dollars here and there to payroll deductions as a source of profit.
I could go on, but I won't. It's a Bad Place to Work(tm) and I'd never work there again. Even if I was desperate.~wally
I would have to say that having MCI/Worldcom/UU.NET run your network is paramount to being blacklisted.
As far as I remember, MCI/Worldcom/UU.NET has never shut down a spammer's site that they hosted. They nicely got the dialups under control, but web sites are a different matter entirely. They are very grey, if not almost completely, black hat.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
UUnet shuts down more websites in a month than most companies have. Don't let this raging kook tell you otherwise. UUnet/WorldCom is quite good at handling abuse issues. Just because UUnet/Worldcom won't give this loon a personalised report about spam, she(?) bitches about it. I can only guess it is because she does not know just how big the company is and what all they are responsible for.
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the OTHER way... as an ex-employee (who was NOT laid off) I can say that their management staff is incompetent, Bernie Ebbers is a fool, and you will be happier somplace else.
They have no desire to be competitive and even the management jokingly says WorldCom is a training ground for other corperations. If you MUST go ther, get as much training and money as you can then expect to leave in 1 year, as that is all they want you for.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It depends where you work, and if you are at a legacy MCI site or a legacy WCOM site. I worked at the Cherokee plant in Tulsa, with about 4,000 employees. I did both t2 deployment and fiber monitoring in the NOC. It was one of the main locations of legacy WCOM.
As far as I could tell, the culture was cool until the EDS deal. They took most of their tech staff and switched them to EDS payroll, which resulted in a massive loss of stock options, authority, and senority. I know many people who left WCOM at that time.
They weren't the best pay in the world, and the loss of stock hurt. Then again, that was when their stock was $70/share...Another thing to watch for it that WCOM makes no counteroffers when you try to work somewhere else. There are many people here who shuffle from WCOM to WCG, then back...raising their pay $15,000 in a few years.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
Describing the working environment at Worldcom is much like the blind man describing the elephant. There are many reasons for this.
First, you've got your different departments. Like IT, or Network Engineering, or Local Service, or a number of other departments. Each kind of sets it own tune.
Also, your direct management will play a big part in your environment. For example, I see people in the building (during the summer) wearing shorts, t-shirt, and a do-rag or cap.
Third, it also depends on the legacy of the site that you are absorbed into. The true Worldcom side is probably much more laid back than the former MCI side. Of course, UUNet would be different, too, as would legacy MFS (local service). So your location is going to determine which of the merged groups you get into.
So, you've got your department, your local manager, and your merger legacy which all plays a very important role on how your environment will be.
Just to give you my story, when I was a Worldcom employee under IT Infrastructure, the local management was 'uptight'. The department and legacy company (true WCOM) was relaxed. So, only jeans on Friday. All the other days were business casual. Comp time was free flowing. Schedules were laxed. But pay was stingy.
Under EDS, this has changed greatly for me. The local management is relaxed. The legacy (call it EDS now) is... uh... still trying to get a handle on that one. EDS is more feudal in that you work for an 'account' more than you work for 'EDS'. Department is very good. Work at home relaxed. Pay increased significantly. Good deal all around.
[BTW, would you mind emailing me the name of your company?]
Best thing to do is to find out what entities you will be merged into and explore from there. There isn't much way to describe the company as a whole. The only thing I've seen over the past few years is a some shrinking. It is easier to find a parking spot.
Sorry I cannot give a pat answer.
I worked at MCI when they were being courted by BT and subsequently bought by WorldCom. There was a lot of talk about how benefits would change but be fairly equal. All decreases in benefits would be offset by increases in stock options. :)
I left just about the time the actually awarded stock options. (7-8 months AFTER the merger during which time health benefits went down the toilet. Less coverage, much more money) The thing with the options was that they vested over three years. You could excersize them one third per year. So I would have to be there for one year to get any benefit from them. When I decided to jump ship all of my co-workers thought I was insane to give up all those valulable options. None of them have excersized any of them to this day.
The reason I think this is relevant is to show you how brainwashed the employees of an absorbed company can be. Don't drink the cool-aid and keep your eyes open.
I did like working for the company in general as my co-workers were some of the most competent people I have ever worked with. They took responsibility for their jobs and were proud of their work.
So, my overall message is it is a good company to work for, but don't buy into hollow promises.
It Depends.
The answer you get is going to be horribly weighted by somebody else's baggage, the circumstances under which they were hired, or fired, even where they were located.
I worked for the Investor Relations department at the corporate headquarters in Clinton, Mississippi. Small department, great people. I loved my job and the people I worked with. The dress was corporate casual, and regular casual on Fridays.
I worked with the Bernie Ebbers, the CEO for a few projects. He's a very nice, polite guy--driven, but many entrepreneurs are like that. Also, he's very tall.
The IT department in Clinton is staffed with great people, the network/Internet/Intranet guys are top-notch and well managed. I still go bowling with them occasionally.
However, some people don't have such nice memories. When Worldcom bought MCI, there was quite a clash of cultures. MCI's IR department had 2.5 times the number of people, and didn't do as good a job as Worldcom did. All of them were laid-off in the merger. MCI had something like 5 corporate jets. Worldcom had 2 corporate jets. Bernie sold most of MCI's immediately. Former MCI people were undergoing "attrition" at a fearsome rate. Worldcom's culture was of a gritty startup, almost. You worked hard, but you were compensated for your effort. MCI was much more corporate, only their stock price reflected that "corporate" wasn't cutting it.
Unfortunately, MCI's marketing department stayed around. This is where you get those really shitty "generation d" commercials. And also why the web site sucks so much now.
This was a few years ago, but from what I can tell, the culture hasn't changed that much--at least, not in Clinton, MS. Other locations are different.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
"They'll move quickly to integrate or to cut."
Doubt that. WCOM has just now made a major push to fully integrate what's left of uu.net. Basically that means taking all of uu.net and breaking the individual departments up, then placing them under their "twin" within the WCOM structure.
Another problem that I've noticed around here (WCOM) is that of MCI. One of the reasons WCOM was able to buy MCI was because MCI became bloated and fat. They had too many people sitting around doing one person's job. After the buyout, MCI was trimmed, but the bad habits die hard and the fat has only grown.
I've been here for a couple years and feel that I'm in a secure position and department, but that hasn't stopped me from tweaking my resume. I've seen stock options handed out valued at $44.50, but vesting at $21.00, then handed out for the following year at $16 and some odd cents. What's the current street price? Oh, and no raises... not in two years. Being salaried sucks too as several of us typically work at least 20 hours over. Yeah, motivation around here sucks, so does the recognition ("Hey good job, really appreciate it, but can't show it any more than saying 'Great Job'.").
I've enjoyed working here. I'm fortunate to work with a good group of people and a pretty good management chain. I still enjoy what I'm doing, and I get to work with some fairly interesting technology/notions. Just wishing I got more out of it than sore eyes, frustration and stress.
"Maybe I can learn how to be a truck driver. Mav, do you have the number of that truck driving school we saw on TV? 'TruckMaster', I think it is. I might need that..."
Go to vault.com. They can answer, in general terms, "What is it like working for company X?" Go to the "research" section. You'll probably want a free account. Oh, they sell a book, too. Actually, it doesn't look like it'd be bad at all. The message board and site's text that describes WCOM is a little stale,
If I remember correctly, they haven't changed their 401k benefits since I left. Something like 1:1 matching, up to 4 or 5% of your pay. Very nice.
I'm a WorldCom employee. I work at the world headquarters in Clinton, MS. Overall I'd say my experience with the company has been good. I've been a little nervous when the layoff-fairy has visited us, but who wouldn't be?
The atmosphere at the company seems to vary from department to department. The dress code in most of the IT departments seems to be pretty lax. I can get away with wearing jeans and a t-shirt. It's possible shorts are allowed at some of the facilities, but not at the corporate headquarters where I work. My department is fairly close knit. We don't get paid a whole lot but we also have been sheltered from the layoffs (lower salaries mean smaller targets at layoff time). However, what we do get paid is pretty reasonable for Mississippi, so I can't complain too much. The company has pretty good benefits. The stock options currently aren't worth anything, but I expect that to change soon. The 401k plan, insurance, etc. are all pretty good deals (there are other perks like $25 of free long distance amonth, too). Another one of the benefits is that the company has paid for every training class I've wanted to take (even if it was training in something that didn't directly relate to what it is I do). I'm allowed to run whatever OS/software I want to as long as I get my work done. My department (like any department) has it's good points and bad points, but I'm glad I work where I do, and the friends I have in other departments seem to like where they work, as well. I'm sure there are some bad departments in the company, but I think overall WorldCom is a pretty safe bet (particularly for IT positions).
It really appeared to me that WorldCom took over MCI and then basically cut off funding for any new projects. Budgets were incredibly tight for those two years, and we could barely afford to keep existing projects going. I think they somehow expected to continue making money off of MCI without any expectation of keeping abreast of the market or competition.
Not only did they trim staff, they also went to great lengths to cut trivial costs associated with office atmosphere. For example they stopped stocking hot chocolate and coffee in the break rooms. At one point we didn't have toilet paper for a couple days and people seriously considered the possibility that WorldCom had stopped funding even for that!
Both years I was there, there were huge layoffs around Christmas time to make the books look good for the end of the fiscal year. Then they would hire on huge amounts again in the spring, mostly people previously laid off. Because of this, a lot of people felt really insecure about their jobs. I saw many many many cases where employees were spending more time gossiping about layoffs than working, because it was such a crazy situation.
MCI/WorldCom was also layered with way too many layers of management. There were bosses whose only job was to communicate information between a VP and five or six managers. It was really crazy.
MCI/WorldCom was also somewhat formal, they had "casual Friday" when it was okay to wear jeans, etc. Very uptight compared to a left-coast startup but not as bad as a big consulting company or bank. Good luck!