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Any old Ma Bell people left??

Discussion in 'Non-Vegas Chat' started by Jerseyguy2, Oct 9, 2016.

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  1. Jerseyguy

    Jerseyguy MIA

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    My older sister worked for them back in the day. She really had pride in the company and the job she did.
    She marveled about going up to Bell Labs and the amazing work they were doing back then.
    So this morning Verizon invites me to take a survey with a promise of rewards,now like a fool ,I'm thinking maybe something off my next bill or something usefull. No,its discounts on a bunch of infomercial heath aids like testosterone boosters. They hit a new low .
     
  2. Joe Strummer

    Joe Strummer VIP Whale

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    As Dylan sang............... " I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm, no more."
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    I wonder if one would fail a drug test after ingesting a testosterone booster ?
     
  3. Breeze147

    Breeze147 Button Man

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    Is that anything like Cialis?

    How can you beat a drug that cures the frequent urge to urinate AND gives you a boner?
     
    • Funny Funny x 1
  4. Jerseyguy

    Jerseyguy MIA

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    Breeze to me it's just a bunch of snake oil. I pee less when I drink less coffee and beer( I love both) and the other thing is Mrs. JG's department and she handles the responsibility well(did I really say that?).
     
  5. bubbakitty

    bubbakitty Doing retirement again and happily so....

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    I play golf with a ma bell ex almost weekly. He doesn't miss it but did get good retirement. Whenever someone new is playing AND younger (which isn't too hard) I will ask him (in front of new guy) "What was it you used to do with the phone company?", usually about hole 4.
    He used to go out on 'field trips' to splice the new phone cables together where one spool ran out and another was begun. Sitting on a stool with an umbrella in a ditch matching wires to their proper mate. Invariably the response is "You did what?"
    Messes the guy up for the rest of the round (on a stellite? You went into space?). We are a fun group.
     
  6. bluesdude

    bluesdude VIP Whale

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    My late father was with AT&T and had a great retirement package. One we will never see again in our lifetime. He retired in his late fifties in the mid 80's with 30+ years under his belt.
     
    Dead & Co with my son! June 4 or 5th - June 8th
  7. azlefty

    azlefty VIP Whale

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    My parents used to tell people to give someone a phone call when they would travel to the city where they lived, which nowadays seems so wierd.

    My grad school professor worked at Bell Labs for about 30 years. He often remarked that life is pretty good when you don't have to worry about competition. I think my family paid about 20 cents a minute for in-state long distance and about $1 a minute for interstate long distance, plus $100 a year to rent the phone. In today's dollars that's about $1, $5, and $500 respectively, which leaves plenty of money for pensions and labs research. The phones only did 3 things - make and receive phone calls, and survive falling off a building. The push-button phones probably still work but I don't use them anymore.
     
  8. Joe

    Joe VIP Whale

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    Back in the 70s and 80s our camera cables had 80 pins. We had one guy in the engineering department whose specialty was splicing those cables when they broke.

    Back to Ma Bell...I remember them charging for an extension phone. I would lie and say it was an answering machine. They could ring down the line and see how many devices were connected and charge you for extra phones.
     
  9. 93 Octane

    93 Octane Chief Bottle Washer

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    My father had friends who lived 100 feet apart but unfortunately the county line ran between them thus considered long distance by the telephone company and subject to long distance rates if they wanted to talk
     
  10. Busyman

    Busyman VIP Whale

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    The retirement packages that last few times from Verizon were pretty good.

    You got a fully vested pension at 30 years. You got full healthcare.

    The bonus was you got $2200 for every year of service up to 40 years plus $50K on top.

    pension + healthcare + $2200 every year + $50K

    The thing is that now, copper is no longer king. Fiber and wireless are. High speed data services bring in the money on the business side.
    Where I live, the DC area is recession proof on that front being at the hub of government. However, all area don't fair the same.

    The last strike was a successful one but it lasted 6 weeks.
     
  11. DaiLun

    DaiLun R.C., L.C., and A.A.N.G.

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    And they did that by measuring the load on the line. I still have the Bell manual that describes how putting 110VAC across a pay phone line will cause the coins to drop into the refund chute.
     
  12. hawki39

    hawki39 Low-Roller

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    Talking about phone durability....my mother broke in half the hand set of a Bell wall phone over a woman's head <-- she was screwing around with my father and my mother got a bill for a ring he bought the girlfriend. My Mom also got the ring back. LOL I am fairly sure she had a concussion....those things were indestructible.
     
  13. mdee

    mdee VIP Whale

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    And I'm trying to figure out why I get Direct TV Ads inside my AT&T Cellular Statement!
     
  14. Busyman

    Busyman VIP Whale

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    ATT owns DirecTV.
     
  15. merlin

    merlin MIA

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    I heard they would like to transition away from satellite broadcasting and return all those customers to cords...something tells me that's not the brightest idea.:thumbsdown:
     
  16. Busyman

    Busyman VIP Whale

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    Weird, I heard the exact opposite.
     
  17. merlin

    merlin MIA

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    It was a headline a week ago, they wanted to get rid of the satellites, that would mean a cord, right?
     
  18. Jerseyguy

    Jerseyguy MIA

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    They sent me the survey a second time,idiots,I guess they werent happy that I didnt buy any Ginkoba or any of that other shit.
    This time I gave them the lowest marks and in the comments section I blasted them for getting into the healthstore business.
     
  19. Busyman

    Busyman VIP Whale

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    Post a link
     
  20. hammie

    hammie VIP Whale

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    As it's known today, AT&T is a product of the spinoff of the regional Bell companies (Bell Atlantic, Ameritech, US West) back in the 1980's. It was called Southwest Bell with headquarters in Dallas and in 2005 it bought its former parent, AT&T Corp., then renamed itself and used the same logo.

    So now I'm a Verizon customer, which I guess is the merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX regionals. I have their Fios service bundle: phone, cable, HS internet. Back in the 80's, we had to pay for long distance and even calls to the next county. Heck, I remember paying $1000 around 1986 or so for a Motorola car phone and $.50 a minute for service. Today, I use Cricket wireless (owned by AT&T) and have 5 phones for $100 a month.
     
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