ex-verizon employee

[janeelaine]

one of my regrets is having worked for verizon. blackberries existed back then- 2010- and android had JUST hit the scene. verizon didnt have iphone back then. most people still only had texting phones, with a full keyboard, and many still used flipphones. no one i knew, except one person, had a smartphone yet. oh, the days of yore.

i thought the gig would make me good money or something because we had to dress nicely. lol, it didnt pay well like id hoped. i was young and didnt check things like that. i was ready to work up that corporate ladder (didnt happen).

i also enjoyed looking brainy. working with phones all day and solving peoples problems. i was proud.

i struggled hard for the first 3 months. but then under pressure i finally emerged as a decent verizon store worker. with each smartphone sold- slowly at first- i was adding another level of pressure to the wave of change. everyone being stuck on their screens outside the home as well as inside.

now after ive learned where smartphones are really headed, im so ashamed!

i had no idea. i hated "big-corp" type companies but back then i hadnt really considered verizon being evil...

i helped probably hundreds of people take the leap from reg phone to smartphone. many were hesitant. more of them, though, were excited to "upgrade," however they felt a little intimidated. i helped make that process easy. it made me feel cool and i was proud.

i switched my whole family to verizon.

and now i realize that smartphones are a huge link to hell on earth, and im horrified that i was a pawn in that game to convince us we need this junk.

i could barely afford rent and was making so much money for verizon, and now, i know its much worse than being used. i was being used in many more ways than i could have imagined.

im ashamed that i gave them so much of myself. and if not me, it would have been someone else, sure.

but this was my place, and i repent of it. i didnt realize my sin. but it was sin nonetheless.

the 2nd year i was there, ipad arrived on the scene. at that point, verizon also had iphone, so we received ipads to sell as well. ive been grateful we had one there to use for the store, because due to that over-use, i quickly decided i didnt want one. it was an overpriced huge smartphone basically but without calls. i was able to see it for what it was and it didnt glimmer for me like it did for most others. when people bought one, they saw it all sleek and brand new, so it seemed special to them. i strongly feel that if i hadnt been selling those, using one throughout each day, i would have been lured by them, and jealous that i couldnt buy one. im glad i didnt have to feel that jealousy. those things were $1000! i dont know what they are now.

a coworker and i participated in a company-wide contest or whatever where we made some home videos, like casual commercials, demonstrating ways you can use your ipad. i still have those vids and they make me cringe. i was hook, line, and sinker. i dont think we submitted them in the end though... hard to remember.

i thought these devices, even if ipad was frivolous, were great advances for the future. and, they WOULD be, if evil forces werent in charge of them.

so i guess thats my story.

 

[Kaatje]

You did what you thought was best at the time, dear sister, and now you know better.
I don't judge you. We all make mistakes, and we all sin.
If you repented and took it to the Lord then that is enough.
God forgives you, and He throws your (and all our sins) away in the ocean.
So don't go there an try fish them out. You'll only take on baggage that you need not carry.

Bless you dear sister, for sharing. Love you,

Kaatje (Erika)

 

[Baby Yoda]

I don't see any sin in your story at all. Just a maturing. (And I do miss my Blackberry!)

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

The technology in and of itself isn't evil or bad. Just how people might use it.

The technology you see as evil did some good for at least one person.

My very elderly Dad had an (early model) iPad, which allowed him to send and receive email and do a few other things that made his life better (staying in contact with friends and distant family). Having a full-blown computer would have been very confusing and frustrating to him. He was too senile and tech-ignorant to deal with FB or any kind of cell phone (including my non-smart flip phone) and needed help with the cordless land-line phone.


Old people sometimes can't see well enough to use the screen on a smart phone, but the larger screen on a tablet allows them to participate in zoom calls with family, friends, doctors, etc., watch a streaming church service, watch related pictures while an audiobook is playing, watch movies, etc. If one can't see well enough to see the TV well, a tablet can make a huge difference because the person can hold it or place it where he or she can see it well enough to enjoy things.

These devices were lifesavers during covid, as elderly and other vulnerable people, who were stuck at home, or people quarantining, could still interact with others. Those who became isolated from everyone and didn't have access to technology and communication networks suffered, and many became mentally ill from the lack of contact.


As far as working for Verizon, specifically, for the most part working for any for-profit business is the same. The bottom line is what drives corporate practices. This means that the sales force, regardless of what products (things and services) they're selling or how they're doing it, is the base that keeps the company going. It looks different in a small Mom-and-Pop shop, but at the end of the day, they're in business to take care of their families. They likely have more personal relationships with their customers and may be more flexible in how they price or do things, and they may genuinely care for their customers' well-being, but at the end of the day, they have to pay bills, too, so there are some things they can't do (or do often), in order to stay in business.

You have nothing to be ashamed for. You got a job, which you thought might lead someplace better, and it didn't. Some jobs are like that. However, you learned some things, which will allow you to better analyze future jobs for a good fit before even applying for them.

The only way up a corporate ladder is to start someplace that has a clear path up. This often means working at corporate HQ, or maybe a very large regional HQ in the case of a huge corporation. Who one knows is a HUGE factor in getting in and moving up. FWIW, pink collar ghetto jobs (secretary, receptionist, administrative assistant, clerk, office manager, etc.) are virtually always dead-end. Even if you get to "know everybody," know the corporation inside-out, have the requisite credentials, know and can do the job one is an assistant for, and apply for available openings, once in the pink collar ghetto, one is always perceived as an assistant, and not the person for the job one was the assistant/support person for, or an available equivalent/similar job.

Even working one's way up a corporate ladder, one is always still selling products and/or services. The higher one gets, the less personal contact except with very "important" clients, and the more one's work affects the corporation and its employees as a whole. No matter how ineffective a Salesperson selling goods and services in a retail store is, he or she can't make a corporation go out of business, but a senior vice president doing serious wrong and/or making bad decisions can. The stress just gets worse and worse the higher one goes because the demand for perfection, performance, and productivity gets more and more demanding because the consequences of poor performance get bigger and bigger.


I worked in full-service (Standard Oil/AMOCO) gas stations that had comprehensive repair shops as a teen. Even if I had stayed with one station my whole life, the most I could have even hoped for would have been station Manager, but even that wasn't likely because that was always someone in the family that owned the station. Definitely not anything up the corporate ladder. And I wouldn't have wanted to be the Manager, because of the paperwork headaches and not getting to work on cars as much. My favorite station paid the mechanics well, and even us flunkies started out better than minimum wage and got a $0.25 an hour raise each time we learned to do something new. I started at $2.00 an hour and by the end of the summer was making $4.25 an hour. In those days, that was actually a living wage, as nice 1BR apartments were about $125 a month, and 2BR weren't much more.

 

[Baby Yoda]

he technology in and of itself isn't evil or bad. Just how people might use it.

The technology you see as evil did some good for at least one person.

Agree!