Comments on: T-Mobile cutting workforce by 1900, shuttering call centers

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:25:03 +0000

That’s the first thing I said in the lead of story, after mentioning the closing of the call centers, Zacqary. I definitely sympathize with your concerns about not reducing people to statistics, but there is only so much info I can put into a short headline.

By: Zacqary Adam Green

Zacqary Adam Green — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:06:12 +0000

The headline appears to communicate, “1900 people lost their jobs.” No, actually, 3300 people lost their jobs. The 1400 new ones are at other facilities, likely far away. So there’s not going to be a lot of overlap between the 3300 and 1400.

That means the actual number of flesh-and-blood human beings whose lives are about to be disrupted — potentially devastated, based on their financial and health situation — is definitely higher than 1900.

I know that this is business analysis, and not a story of human suffering, but must these things be mutually exclusive? Is it too much to think about the very real people involved when we decide how to phrase our statistics?

By: zacqaryfoi

zacqaryfoi — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:05:19 +0000

By: Veterans to Work

Veterans to Work — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:15:02 +0000

This is a strategic move against the CWA. Call centers offshore were not affected at all. What T-Mobile should have done is hire returning US veterans to fill these positions and take the tax credits from both the Fed and States to compensate for the first year. The last time I looked I really don’t see allot of people offshore using T-Mobile services; I believe most customers are in the USA. Please T-Mobile take a look at using Veterans for these jobs. It’s the moral thing to do.

By: don

don — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:44:03 +0000

1,900 lost jobs is fewer than would have been lost had the merger with AT&T happened.
My most recent experience with T-Mobile’s customer service was when I wanted to cancel a phone line in my family plan that had been abandoned for an iPhone. I was sold a $20 Samsung phone for that line, but I didn’t need a data plan. Imagine my surprise when it had both a data plan AND an activation fee.

By: deeceefar2

deeceefar2 — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:31:11 +0000

Let us hope they can keep their great customer service, but some how I doubt that. I haven’t had any complaints about Verizon’s customer service so far, but T-Mobile’s was awesome, and all things equal would be a reason to pick them. Unfortunately they haven’t invested enough in their infrastructure, so all things aren’t equal, and their customer services doesn’t help them as much as it should.