AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else [telecom]

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Gearing Up for the Cloud, AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else

By QUENTIN HARDY

DALLAS - Thirty-four years ago, Kevin Stephenson got his younger brother, Randall, a job with the telephone company.

Kevin, then 23, and Randall, 22, had tried selling cattle feed with their father near their home in Moore, Okla., but that didn't pan out. Kevin was hired to do accounting at a local Southwestern Bell office. Randall, who was in college, needed a bit more help. "He had trouble getting hired," Kevin said. "I talked to someone I knew in personnel."

The brothers had different tastes. Kevin liked to be outside, and now, at 57 years old, he works in Norman, Okla., fixing the decades-old copper lines that still connect to landline telephones in most homes as well as to modern Internet conduits like high-speed fiber optics. Randall liked numbers and stayed indoors, rising through the management ranks.