So, I’ve officially been christened an employee of AT&T. I went to orientation yesterday at 8 AM and was there until 4 PM. The only next step is getting through training, which starts tomorrow and runs for 7 weeks. The class will be 6 AM to 2 PM and my ride along days will be 7:30 AM to about 4 PM. I wish the classroom training was set later like the ride along, doesn’t make a lot of sense. So here is my official training schedule:

Week 1: 6/15 – 6/19: Class Room
Week 2: 6/22 – 6/26: Ride Along
Week 3: 6/28 – 7/02: Class Room
Week 4: 7/06 – 7/09: Class Room
Week 5: 7/13 – 7/16: Ride Along
Week 6: 7/20 – 7/23: Class Room
Week 7: 7/27 – 7/30: Ride Along

And with the 4th of July, the training is pushed back one day and we will have Friday off. This means I can still go to Tennessee with my family for the 4th but I’ll have to take my car since my family will be going for longer. After the 7-weeks is up, I will be officially done with training and will have a company issued truck, laptop, and tools. That’s super sweet. We don’t get a GPS, so I might finally buy one for myself in the few weeks to make things easier. Also, I was informed that our union contract is expiring in 14 days on June 27th and AT&T has still not come to an agreement on a new contract. Sounds like picketing is quite possible is the contract is not renewed.

The craziest thing that happened was when the AT&T staffing reps came in and gave us only 30-minutes to read and sign our code-of-conduct books. After that, the union was given the lunch period to give an orientation between 11:30 AM and 1 PM. They came packed with pizza, — my favorite — tons of pizza! I even got to take home an entire leftover pizza. Once the union orientation got underway, they tried telling us how AT&T will try everything they can to screw us over, which I feel is a bit of exaggeration. The union rep said, “They will ask you to sign the code-of-conduct book soon and make sure you note by your signature that you were instructed to sign without reading.” When one employee informed him that we were already instructed to do so, he absolutely freaked and said, “If you do anything they don’t like, they will try holding that signature against you.” I mean, again a bit of an exaggeration but great job AT&T for showing the employees on day one that you were underhanded. But I honestly don’t blame AT&T, they’ve probably had this happen before, the union has a huge anti-company speech and then the new hires were nearly impossible to work with after. It’s like signing up for a cult but your being paid by the cult’s number one enemy. After the union finished and the AT&T staffing reps came back. Half the class was near rioting thinking they’d been had. One guy even demanded to know if we were tricked into signing something? I really can’t believe these people’s anger. It’s really uncalled for. I quickly went over the code of conduct and it seemed fairly typical to me like the usual, no smoking, valid drivers license, and benefits rules. If you’re doing everything above reproach then what do you have to worry about?

So in other news, my first paycheck will arrive on June 26th and be for one week and one day. That alone will be a nice paycheck since I made about $100 yesterday alone. Also, looks like employees get a discount on U-verse but the guy wasn’t sure of the rate but he thinks it’s around 50% off. There were 19 people in my orientation and only myself and two others were going to the Bedford Garage. Some of the people from orientation will be in my class at Westmont during the morning class. The rest will either be in the other morning class — 6 AM to 2 PM — or the evening class. — 3:30 PM to 11 PM

We get 6 company issued skirts every year and either a light or heavy jacket after 6 months. Anyways, there is so much else I could share but where to start and finish. So I’ll finish with how the morning started. I and some others got to the training center at 7:45 AM, the place was set up almost like a campus with several AT&T outbuildings and we went to the one with the address number we were given, it even said training center on it. Standing in the building waiting room, at about 8 AM, we finally started wondering why the building was unlocked, with no security, or any other staff present. Curious what was going on, I called my contact Sylvia and she said the orientation staff were looking for us and couldn’t find us. At about 8:05 AM a woman with an AT&T shirt came in and asked if we were there for the new employee orientation. She said the last year, they’ve been doing the orientation in the main building. Still was wondering why the building was unlocked without staff on duty. She ended up walking up what felt like half a mile to the main building.

Please pray my car will continue to hold up for the new few weeks. I got to drive almost 40-minutes every day and I have nearly 10 dollars in tolls a week. This is the first day of the rest of my life!