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What's It Like Working For Worldcom? 275

Posted by Cliff from the extending-the-feelers dept.
Tetch asks: "I work for a multinational IT company which seems likely to transfer its "network services" team to (MCI-)Worldcom under the terms of a business arrangement (Worldcom's gonna run our company network for us). I'm contemplating transfering from my current position to that network services team but would quite like to know more about Worldcom's corporate culture before taking the plunge (since it seems I'd become a Worldcom employee in fairly short order). Does anyone have any experience of life at Worldcom they could share?" It's always smart to try get an idea of the climate in a company before you you try and sign up.

"Is it all white shirts, and singing the company song at 07:00, or is it T-shirts, jeans, company masseur and free donuts ? Do they work you into the ground till you burn out and then cast you aside with the trash, or do they look after you, nurture your career, notice your contribution without you having to sing your own praises the whole time. Are Worldcom folk *happy* and enthusiastic, content to be a valued part of a committed team effort, or are they cogs in a faceless machine, living in isolation and fear of visits from beancounters looking for yet more cost-savings to make for the stock-holders' benefit?"
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What's It Like Working For Worldcom? More

What's It Like Working For Worldcom?

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  • You've got to be kidding me. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @04:58PM (#2555322) Homepage
    Besides being a totally irrelevant article:

    Getting info about an employer from a discussion board tends to only draw out the people who want to bitch about it (and all companies have disgruntled employees with horror stories). If you really want to know, go visit the place. Insist on getting walked around before the interview to observe and see if it seems like the sort of environment you'd want to be in.

    • Re:You've got to be kidding me. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Doomdark ( 136619 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:25PM (#2555524) Homepage Journal
      Uh, you are kidding right? It may be that disc. boards bring you more exaggerated horror stories and biased opinions, but honestly... Do you think walking around there would get you any more objective information? The best way would of course be to have a friend who works (or worked) for the company, and ask him/her (better yet, more than one...). "Inspecting" the place before (or after) the interview doesn't hurt, but it's unlikely to really tell you all that much about the place (or more importantly the company and its management... which usually is the source of problems)

      However, the person who submitted the story apparently doesn't have the better option(s) available. Asking here shouldn't hurt. So, read Slashdot, go to interview, walk around, try to find someone who's been there.

      • Umm. Actually you'll want to not get escorted around. You want to be deposited with the group you'll be working with and hang for a bit.
      • You have to find the clues, Watson.
        What is on people desks?
        What are the people wearing?
        whats the mood?
        is the restroom clean?(service often begin to feel the effects of change first)
        if you need work, take the job and keep looking. sure its not loyal, but if the company thought it could make money by firing you, do you think they would consider loyalty? no.
    • I completely agree. How is this "news for nerds" or "Stuff that matters"? I couldn't care less about Worldcom and what it's like to work there. I hear people bitching about new articles on Slashdot, but honestly, this is a new low.

      Me.
    • Lately, it seems that Slashdot has been diluting its focus on "News for nerds, stuff that matters". Hey CmdrTaco, note the line where it says "stuff that matters", not only is this article totally irrelevant, there are other sites which cater to exactly these kind of questions. I am betting that no self-respecting geek would have problem finding such sites for himself/herself.

      So, CmdrTaco, whazzup with the irrelevant coverage??
    • Getting bitches about a place to work can be very useful. I'm a contractor, so I change companies quite frequently. More than once I've been taken out to lunch by my new co-workers, and as people do, they started complaining about their jobs. After a while, they realize that they are bitching in front on the new guy. "Oh I guess we're giving you a very bad impression of our company on your first day of work." I always reply "Don't worry. I haven't heard anything new, just the same stuff everyone complains about everywhere. If you had complained about something that I'd never heard before, then I would worry."
  • They are making their money off of consultants they hire out. If you wait for an account for you, you are costing them money and with the current times you are likely to get cut. So, before you move, make sure you are covered for a good while before you 'move on to another project' and end up weighting down a bench.

    See if you can get your 'years of service' in your current company moved to worldcom (hard since its not a buy out) because there are certain benefits that will only kick in with extended time behind out.

    As for worldcom themselves as an ISP, they aren't the best, but definitely not the worst.

    -Kelt

  • You'll probably not see any culture... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by z84976 ( 64186 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @04:59PM (#2555333) Homepage
    If it's anything like the sellouts I've seen working for a big fortune-whatever company, there won't be a lot of change. A year or so a lot of us got "outsourced" to a rather large company. There have been rumors that the rest of us are soon to be IBM employees.

    But I don't think it's going to matter much to you. The people I work with that got outsourced got huge (equiv to 6 mos salary) bonuses and generally make 10% higher salary now. Is it saving my company money? Of course not. Outsourcing never does (don't believe that hype--- outsourcing is done so that you can be EXPENDIBLE and FIRED at their whim). But culturally those people didn't change.

    As a matter of fact, you have to imagine that the larger consulting firms don't really care about you... you're a number to them, a mercenary for hire, working for them this week. So they don't care. Not only would I not expect anything NICE out of MCI, I wouldn't expect anything much at all...

    • Re:You'll probably not see any culture... NOTE (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:48PM (#2555676)
      Worldcom has a LOT of experience on mergers and acquisitions. Don't expect them to sit around and ignore you. They'll move quickly to integrate or to cut.
      • "They'll move quickly to integrate or to cut."

        Doubt that. WCOM has just now made a major push to fully integrate what's left of uu.net. Basically that means taking all of uu.net and breaking the individual departments up, then placing them under their "twin" within the WCOM structure.

        Another problem that I've noticed around here (WCOM) is that of MCI. One of the reasons WCOM was able to buy MCI was because MCI became bloated and fat. They had too many people sitting around doing one person's job. After the buyout, MCI was trimmed, but the bad habits die hard and the fat has only grown.

        I've been here for a couple years and feel that I'm in a secure position and department, but that hasn't stopped me from tweaking my resume. I've seen stock options handed out valued at $44.50, but vesting at $21.00, then handed out for the following year at $16 and some odd cents. What's the current street price? Oh, and no raises... not in two years. Being salaried sucks too as several of us typically work at least 20 hours over. Yeah, motivation around here sucks, so does the recognition ("Hey good job, really appreciate it, but can't show it any more than saying 'Great Job'.").

        I've enjoyed working here. I'm fortunate to work with a good group of people and a pretty good management chain. I still enjoy what I'm doing, and I get to work with some fairly interesting technology/notions. Just wishing I got more out of it than sore eyes, frustration and stress.

        "Maybe I can learn how to be a truck driver. Mav, do you have the number of that truck driving school we saw on TV? 'TruckMaster', I think it is. I might need that..."
        • Correct. UUNet was an intention decision to leave as a seperate operating unit, completely outside of the rest of the company.

          I've watched a number of mergers, acquisitions, and spinoffs. MFS, MCI, EDS. With WCOM/MCI, they were merging the corporate networks even before the merger was completed. Teams on both sides that were deemed redundant were reduced to a skeleton level.

          WCOM has had the experience of taking over the network infrastructure department of EDS. They know exactly what they'll need to do in this case, and how the big picture works.

          Expect quick movement.
        • BTW... your perception of pre-merger MCI being bloated is shared throughout the company. Four people and one manager for every job that would take a single person. (Okay, I put a bit of spin on that.) I think also that MCI was more policy/procedure oriented than Worldcom. More "going through the process" as opposed to Worldcom's "just get it done and go onto something else".

          The downside of the WCOM legacy was that they were probably a little TOO thrifty, and not as professional.

          About bad habits/fat grown... a bit, yes. For example, how most all the WCOM's all got pay increases to the MCI levels. And the growth of policies/procedures which slow work down. But legacy MCI has been trimmed in the process.

          But don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVED working at Worldcom, at least where I was. The atmosphere was incredibly good, and I had an awesome manager. I only left when EDS was going to take over my group. After I found out that they didn't run things into the ground, and actually started running IT (and the people) far better than WCOM, I came back to my old job.

          Still enjoy it.

          There are jobs here which are REALLY GOOD. There are jobs here that REALLY SUCK (be it because of a manager, pay, workload, whatever). But for me, WCOM is a very good experience.
          Its a big company. Experiences are going to be hit-and-miss.

          BTW... I feel sorry about your stock options. But back in the late 90's, they really panned out for us. One year, my "standard issue of shares" given to average employees panned out to something in the neighborhood of $10,000 after taxes. Bernie believes in giving shares to his employees. Just the market value of the stock recently has ruined that lately.
          • My perception is pretty much the same. My job is decent and we're a legacy WCOM group, although we're horribly understaffed. Our app feeds data to a number of diverse groups, and since each of them has their own way of doing things and totally different requirements, it can be pretty stressful trying to keep everything running smoothly. But hey, I work with competent people, and our manager does a good job of sheilding us developers from the chaos that comes from trying to keep many diverse groups happy.

            Bottom line: it depends. Legacy WCOM is a decent environment. Our dealings with legacy MCI haven't been all that much fun though (caused our most experienced guy to bail, unfortunately).

            And yeah, don't even think about the stock options.

  • take what you can get! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @04:59PM (#2555334) Homepage
    man, in this job market, if worldcom will pay you for dicking around with computers all day on multi million dollar networks and 16 processor servers... uh take that job.

    better than eating ramen.

  • Ask (Score:1)

    by rnb ( 471088 )
    Your best bet may be to actually ... get in touch with people who work there. While I'm not sure of the specifics of your situation, perhaps you could ask people you currently work with if they could put you in touch with people who work where you might. Send them e-mail and ask around. That's really the only way you'll find out what it's like.

  • Oars (Score:5, Funny)

    by tomblackwell ( 6196 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:00PM (#2555336) Homepage
    Everyone gets an office with a window.

    Unfortunately there's an oar coming through the window. A drummer drums, you grab the oar and row as if your life depends on it. Because (heh heh) IT DOES!

  • Let me go out on a limb here... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:00PM (#2555344) Journal
    1. Those employees that hate working at WorldCom will tell you how bad it is

    2. Those that love working at WorldCom will tell you how great it is.

    3. You will not know who to trust.

    4. The rest of us will be bored out of our minds.

    Thank you.

    • Yeah that's pretty much how it will go :)

      But honestly, I've had lots of jobs in the past, and if they were still all going great obviously I would still be at all of them... that said Worldcom is the only past employer I've had that I would feel the need to publicly bash. They really are rats in the level of how good they try to sound when you're there and how bad they stomp you when it suits them.
    • But at least he will hear the good and the bad about the company. Some companies are simply shit to work with, whilst others are decent or simply wicked. When they were on top of the world, companies like Cisco, Nortel, etc. treated their employees like gods.

      If i were joining a new company, I'd want to hear from the people who love it most, and the people who hate it most. That way you can safely assume that your experience will be within those boundaries.

    • Re:Let me go out on a limb here... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:25PM (#2555525) Homepage Journal
      4. The rest of us will be bored out of our minds.
      On the contrary. There's very little chance I'll ever end up working at Worldcom. But I tuned into this item with great anticipation. Worldcom is one the key internet providers, what with their backbone networks [isp-planet.com], data exchanges [mae.net], and ISP operations [uu.net]. Anything they do impacts us all, and insight into their corporate culture is of much interest!
    • Hmm.. I worked at WorldCom back before they acquired MCI (actually, I quit just as the deal was being finished).. I actually liked my job there.. I quit to further my career, but the department I was in was excellent...

      I don't know if my opinion really counts tho.. the department I was in was a seperate company that was purchased and integrated into WCOM. At the time it was a small company, so it was basically just made a department inside of WCOM with almost no changes. The group was an excellent group with great managment (hence why WCOM wanted to purchase them rather than just contract to them).. the job I did required that I worked the midnights shift (I was sorta a program's analyst on a mission critical project that required attention around the clock).. So I worked all night and didn't have to spend much time with the WCOM politics..

      Actually, I miss that job most of all.. we were in a HUGE building, full of cubes that was completely empty.. the particular project I was on was only busy about 4 days out of the month, the rest of the time was spent pretty much idle.. we had a total blast.. we'd go through peoples cubes and rearange them.. we'd have cart races down the barren hallways.. we'd take off for hours and go to denny's in the middle of the night.. there was almost no one else in the building, so we were pretty unsupervised and all college age students.. so we had fun fun fun! :)

      IMHO WCOM was a blast to work for.. but I bet your results will vary! :)
    • 4. The rest of us will be bored out of our minds.

      So don't read the fucking article. Contrary to popular opinion, not every single byte on Slashdot is required reading. Vote with your eyeballs and read something else if that's at all possible.

  • Get out while you can (Score:5, Informative)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:01PM (#2555349)
    I would highly suggest not working for Worldcom. They like a nice PR imagine (see Generation D commercials and whatnot), but on the inside they treat high level technical employees like dirt. I worked there for roughly 4.5 years. During that time, every time they acquired a new company's technical staff, they inevitably found a way to cheat them out of as much benefits as possible before laying them all off at the best time they could find stock-price wise (so that incentive options or profit sharing shares weren't valuable when they were forced to be redeemed). I was an original Worldcom employee, and eventually I suffered the same fate. When the big industry layoffs started they laid off my whole building and forced a short time to excercise then-worthless options which should have been good another 10 years. They did this with no warning to a very advanced research group that was making more progress than 99% of the company, and actually putting out widely-used internal software and showing real numbers for the company. What was preached as a bright and long-term future with the company, and what appeared to be 100's of k worth of stock options turned out to be a quick kick out on the street at their accountant's slightest uninformed whim with just the shirt on your back left.
    • Umm.. ya, and I can make up stuff too:

      I used to work for Worldcom, and they are such a good company, I retired after only 2 years of working there, and im only 25 years old! I had 3 secretaries that were more then willing to provide me with personal 'fringe benefits' as well as a full wetbar right in my office. In fact, they didn't use cubes there, everyone had an office, all 5000 employees. We all got Lamborgini's too. Just make sure you talk to Joe Smith at the front desk, give him that magic handshake, and you'll be setup.
      • Heh....You sound like someone who's never had a real job. There are too many places out there just like the original poster described.

  • old MCI employee (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:02PM (#2555360)
    I worked for MCI after they merged with WorldCom here in Atlanta and it was pretty laid back. I was working on an internal, Web-based, sales app. It was very laid back, though it was still a bit corporate. As long as you got your work done they really didn't care much, but then again I had a great manager who was as laid back as us developers. It seemed that their IT staff in general wasn't of the highest quality, but that could have been just in my location. As far as corporate environments, it wasn't a bad one.
  • ...for some time become 'News for somebody else. Stuff that doesn't matter to me.' Sad.
  • I wonder what the odds are, that some disgruntled WorldCom employees will post horror stories anonymously, WorldCom will get pissed off and try to get a court order to view /.'s log files, to track down these malcontents. Great big battle ensues.

  • What makes you so sure? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Talisman ( 39902 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:04PM (#2555374) Homepage
    Did they specifically state that they plan on hiring you? Most of the time, they simply obsolesce your presence. It's sort of their business plan.

    I'm not ragging on you, but have you gotten any assurances, in writing?

    Talisman

  • Worldcom (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I used to work for one of Worldcom's subsidiaries, a little outfit called UUnet. I left when they bought Digex web hosting and shipped all of our work off to them. I did however have a good time working there and had the Digex buy-out not gone through and my customers were not given away I would still be there. I guess the thing that bothered me most about Worldcom's taking over of UUnet and then killing off the UUnet web hosting with the purchase of digex was the way that they crushed all that was left of the UUnet culture in the process. But that's what happens when companies get bought out.
  • Why do you want to leave your current company to go to a company you seem to know very little about(other than what they do) What are you doing currently and what can you do to make it more fun for you?
  • How the hell is this a front-page-worthy story?

    What's it like working for Burger King?

    - A.P.

  • I used to work there (Score:5, Informative)

    by Walter Bell ( 535520 ) <wcbell&bellandhorowitz,com> on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:10PM (#2555421) Homepage
    As a former Worldcom employee (now working for NASA) I have a few observations to share:
    • Private industry gives you more work and usually more challenging work than the government. Conversely, private industry pays better in general. I took a pay cut when I left Worldcom for NASA but I haven't worked a single weekend or evening so far (and it's been over a year now).
    • I was a network engineer and they worked me to death. They use salaries to avoid paying you overtime when you get paged in the middle of the night and have to come in at 2am to babysit a router (it happened to me several dozen times). I don't mean to imply that I am p-whipped but my wife forced me to quit that job.
    • Worldcom is in a competitive industry and they treat their employees like dirt. You'd be better off working for AT&T, who is the market leader (so they have more cash to throw around).
    • Worldcom laid off 1/3 of my office (not including me). How did they do it? They deactivated the employees' access cards so they couldn't get back in after lunch. People got their belongings shipped back to them after several weeks. You be the judge.
    • Worldcom consistently screws with payroll to save money. One of my former co-workers noticed one day that the company was taking out a few extra percentage points for Federal income tax, but that extra money didn't show up on his W2. He believes that the company adds a few dollars here and there to payroll deductions as a source of profit.
    I could go on, but I won't. It's a Bad Place to Work(tm) and I'd never work there again. Even if I was desperate.

    ~wally

  • Bad company move (Score:3, Informative)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:11PM (#2555432) Homepage Journal
    I would have to say that having MCI/Worldcom/UU.NET run your network is paramount to being blacklisted.

    As far as I remember, MCI/Worldcom/UU.NET has never shut down a spammer's site that they hosted. They nicely got the dialups under control, but web sites are a different matter entirely. They are very grey, if not almost completely, black hat.

    • Bull Shit! (Score:3, Informative)

      by 13013dobbs ( 113910 )
      UUnet shuts down more websites in a month than most companies have. Don't let this raging kook tell you otherwise. UUnet/WorldCom is quite good at handling abuse issues. Just because UUnet/Worldcom won't give this loon a personalised report about spam, she(?) bitches about it. I can only guess it is because she does not know just how big the company is and what all they are responsible for.
      • Right. thats why I used to get 7 spams/day/account out of uu.net customers. thats why uu.net continues to host so many companies that sell spamware so everyone can get even more spam.

        I bet they only shut down spammers who haven't paid pink contract fees.

        someone here once gave me the solution to dealing with uu.net. forward all spam to their sales people. funny, it worked. one complaint and the new spammer deletes me from the list. (the spammer doesn't go away - a trap account continues to get the spam, so uu.net does jack)

        uu.net is huge, and responsible at one time for 70+% of all spam. granted their network is huge, (basically the entire east coast I believe) but it doesn't excuse their blind eye to spam issues.

        also, abuse@uu.net no longer accepts complaints from spamcop. what does that say about them? every read the auto reply from abuse. pretty obvious they don't care.

        the only way to solve their spam problem is make the spam a bigger headache than the revenue it generates.

        disagree if you like, but I have the emails from uu.net to back it up.
      • Yeah. Right. When I visited the company in my own back yard. (Yes, it's an hour drive or so, but both UU.Net/WorldCom is in Virgina, accessible by Metrobus).



        Now take a look here: [google.com]
        DejaGoogle Search: uu.net in news.admin.net-abuse.email A ton of discussion about UU.NET, and that a blacklist is going to go up soon. 21.700 articles.



        [google.com]
        All the spams and reports, current, ever posted to NANA.sightings. Hmmm, I guess the dialup blocking preventions are *NOT* working. PAGING JOHN ST CLARE TO THE PINK CURSODY PHONE!

        • Here is a free clue: "UUnet does not exist. They are called WorldCom now."
          As far as NANAE goes, no one cares what a bunch of kooks say in lusenet. And no sane admin that wants to keep thier job is going to black list all of WorldCom (aka AS701). If you want to block it on your low-rent ISP, that is fine, I doubt that WorldCom will care. Your customers might care when they find that most of the internet is not available to them, but that is between you and your customers. With respect to your acerebral comment about port 25 filtering not working, there are several ways for a spammer to get around that: insecure formmail scripts, SOCKS proxies, WinGates, SMTP servers on non-standard ports, etc. But, I can see you are too busy frothing on NANAE to figure that out. Also, his name is spelled St.Clair and there are no pink 'cursody' phones at WorldCom. And there are no pink contracts either, if you have proof of one, post it somewhere, otherwise STFU, loon.

  • I dont work there, but I wouldnt either.. (Score:4, Flamebait)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:15PM (#2555458) Homepage
    I have seen *seven* rounds of layoffs in the last year and a half here at the world headquarters for Worldcom. In that same period, they opened hiring nine times for the very positions that got laid off.

    In other words, they strive to minimize costs by reducing the number of benefits-deriving employees.

    As a stockholder, that might be nice, but as a potential employee, that is a warning sign NOT to work there.

    I know several people that have gone to work there, been laid off, and then called for the SAME position not three months later.

    Its ridiculous.
    • I've never worked there, but know of one person who got laid off permanently, and another who still works there and apparently doesn't think it's bad work.

      However, my opinion on the work situation for any sufficiently educated person is this:
      The bigger the company is, the bigger the headache working there becomes. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that big companies don't give out first rate benefits a lot of the time, but because they have to focus on the shareholder's interests (becuase there are so many shareholders to please), the easier it is for them to jerk employees around.

      My roommate works for a small Java programming shop (~20 some employees total), and they've had their share of missed and delayed paychecks, but he still enjoys working there. Why? Because the company president takes him out to lunch sometimes to discuss how the company is doing, because the work he does is his own, he takes credit for it, and everyone recognizes a strong work ethic when he exhibits it. That sort of thing happens less and less the larger the team, department, organization, and/or company gets. Keep that in mind, because Worldcom is a VERY big company, and I think there will be plenty of stories from people stating how they were eventually 'upgraded' straight to the street to improve cost-cutting measures.

      So which would you rather have: a relatively secure salary and benefits and a boring to miserable work experience in a big company, or an exciting and rewarding, although sometimes financially shaky, work existence in a small company?

  • Go to http://www.fuckedcompany.com (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:17PM (#2555470)
    This may sound like a joke but is not really one... Go check out FuckedCompany [fuckedcompany.com] and see stories about your new employer. Then go and check out what people have submitted. Usually there are (in addition n+1 trolls etc) a few company employees who share their war stories. Of course it's not the most objective source for information (everything's anonymous for starters), but really... it does tell something about the way company treats its employees.

    If you can't find any entries (unlikely, for bigger companies), it indicates that either:

    • Company's doing fine, everyone's happy, or
    • Employees are clueless dolts that have never read FC. :-)
    Needless to say, it's more likely to be latter than former.

    ... and if you want to browse the pages from work, perhaps consider using SafeWeb [safeweb.com]...

  • Ok.. ok.. so does anyone work for that OTHER company where things are wonderful? Does such a place exist and are they hiring?

  • run very fast... (Score:3, Informative)

    by night_flyer ( 453866 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:37PM (#2555603) Homepage
    the OTHER way... as an ex-employee (who was NOT laid off) I can say that their management staff is incompetent, Bernie Ebbers is a fool, and you will be happier somplace else.

    They have no desire to be competitive and even the management jokingly says WorldCom is a training ground for other corperations. If you MUST go ther, get as much training and money as you can then expect to leave in 1 year, as that is all they want you for.
  • I worked for Worldcom. It was the first job I got when I left school. Since I needed money bad, I took the job. But the interview should have been a clear sign that not only is it going to be a waste of time but also major stress for little money.

    The best advice I can give you is, no matter what big company you will work for it's all the same. You are treated like shit and in the case of Worldcom, you will be just another number. If you don't do it, they will replace you in a heartbeat with someone that knows less then you, but they will make more money. It's not what you know, it's who you know and how well you kiss ass (if that's your thing).

    I don't like to be taken advantage off, so any chance I got to screw with middle-management i took it. In the long run, I left that company because of shitty hours, poor pay, and the way management treats people like shit. Now i work for Lucent Technologies. Much better. But they have their problems too.

    In a nutshell, no matter where u go, u will run into some bullshit. If u think u are gonna learn anything there, haha, u better think again, cause the talent that Worldcom has is horrible. How that company stays in business when the CEO used to be a gym teacher is a mystery.

    smith&wesson:
    original point&click device
  • I used to work for Lucent and Worldcom actually had a department that tested products before buying them. This was a network router that could do up to OC192. Not sure what has become of it, or in other words, to hell with Lucent.

    But back to the main point, it seemed cool to me if you worked in the area of new equipment and software evals. I'm glad to see they have that kind of stuff and don't just rely on Lightreading.com

  • From a Worldcom Consultant . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jgaynor ( 205453 ) <{gro.ronyag} {ta} {noj}> on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:41PM (#2555634) Homepage
    I consulted at Worldcom in Spring and Summer 2000 at their offices on Centennial Road in Piscataway, NJ. I was part of the Private Network Engineering group, which gets the bigger and more complicated clients.

    Here's what it was like when I worked there, followed by what I HEAR its like now:

    My work time was split up between drafting customer documents like pretty network maps, configuring routers/switches, and participating in teleconferences to help techs around the world install that equipment after its been shipped. The work was fun if youre the engineering type - but youre not a paper pusher. your creative side has an outlet too as most documents require some artistic skill to appease clients.

    The environment was standard cube-farm. I came in contact with project leads and managers all day, and none of them wore anything dressier than slacks. Its a real khakis and polo kinda place. My co-workers were very helpful and even took the time to explain new technologies to me If I was unfamiliar with them. Its not very cut-throat and I was suprised at the HUGE mix of people and educations that did this highly technical work confidently.

    Engineers have access to training labs stocked with some pretty serious new equipment. This was probably the coolest thing about Worldcom - the free training. Shared on the network were SCADS of e-training courses from top vendors on subjects as diverse as design, configuration, and administration. We'd have trainers come in on big projects if we were going to be introduced to new vendor equipment. A few times a year you can ask for an outside training course and youll probably get it.

    Overall I really liked it and would highly recomend the Piscataway, NJ or White Plains (Rye), NY worldcom offices to anyone involved. Actually the Rye ofice was mad cool with beer on "managers' sick" days and nerf weapons out the wazoo.

    Ive heard Worldcom has been plagued with problems lately though. Theyre low on funds to the point taht they sometimes can pre-order the equipment theyll need for a customer. Many of my old co-workers are watching DVDs for days on end for lack of clients. Lets hope the market comes back up for em.

    -My 2 cents and THANKS JIM NOCELLA for gettin me that job :)

  • It depends where you work, and if you are at a legacy MCI site or a legacy WCOM site. I worked at the Cherokee plant in Tulsa, with about 4,000 employees. I did both t2 deployment and fiber monitoring in the NOC. It was one of the main locations of legacy WCOM.

    As far as I could tell, the culture was cool until the EDS deal. They took most of their tech staff and switched them to EDS payroll, which resulted in a massive loss of stock options, authority, and senority. I know many people who left WCOM at that time.

    They weren't the best pay in the world, and the loss of stock hurt. Then again, that was when their stock was $70/share...Another thing to watch for it that WCOM makes no counteroffers when you try to work somewhere else. There are many people here who shuffle from WCOM to WCG, then back...raising their pay $15,000 in a few years.

    • in otherwords, WCom University :)

      been there, done that... started out OK, went to pot in a hurry... which mod were you it?
    • I did the WCOM to WCG deal to avoid EDS. Actually, I planned on staying at WCG. But I enjoyed the working environment at WCOM much better, and as it turned out, about six months after EDS took over, things started looking up. And pay (the big factor that had people mad) was raised across the board.

      NOTE: EDS really knows how to run an IT department. Get this... they actually buy things if they are needed! But the "Look at the extra money left over in my AFE!" slush-fund went away. It was a great way for managers (and project managers) to buy toys or other things that the department actually needed.

      EDS shares are doing well, too, which made people FAR better off than their WCOM or WCG shares today. You might take another look at EDS and see how it is today.
  • Back before Worldcomm acquired them, I worked at MCI and it was pretty much the white shirt be there by 7 kinda place. One of those offices where everyone talks about their golf scores. I picked a hell of a lot about networking up there, but mostly by osmosis as I spent the majority of my time nursing their lame-ass provisioning database, since little things like customers upgrading to a faster circuit would tend to lose that customer's IP addresses. I wouldn't be inclined to work for them again.

  • Worked at WCOM / working at WCOM under EDS now (Score:5, Informative)

    by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:43PM (#2555641)
    Describing the working environment at Worldcom is much like the blind man describing the elephant. There are many reasons for this.

    First, you've got your different departments. Like IT, or Network Engineering, or Local Service, or a number of other departments. Each kind of sets it own tune.

    Also, your direct management will play a big part in your environment. For example, I see people in the building (during the summer) wearing shorts, t-shirt, and a do-rag or cap.

    Third, it also depends on the legacy of the site that you are absorbed into. The true Worldcom side is probably much more laid back than the former MCI side. Of course, UUNet would be different, too, as would legacy MFS (local service). So your location is going to determine which of the merged groups you get into.

    So, you've got your department, your local manager, and your merger legacy which all plays a very important role on how your environment will be.

    Just to give you my story, when I was a Worldcom employee under IT Infrastructure, the local management was 'uptight'. The department and legacy company (true WCOM) was relaxed. So, only jeans on Friday. All the other days were business casual. Comp time was free flowing. Schedules were laxed. But pay was stingy.

    Under EDS, this has changed greatly for me. The local management is relaxed. The legacy (call it EDS now) is... uh... still trying to get a handle on that one. EDS is more feudal in that you work for an 'account' more than you work for 'EDS'. Department is very good. Work at home relaxed. Pay increased significantly. Good deal all around.

    [BTW, would you mind emailing me the name of your company?]

    Best thing to do is to find out what entities you will be merged into and explore from there. There isn't much way to describe the company as a whole. The only thing I've seen over the past few years is a some shrinking. It is easier to find a parking spot.
    Sorry I cannot give a pat answer.

  • I figured it out!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by fwc ( 168330 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:50PM (#2555684)
    You know, I just figured out why there have been so many "what is it like at..." or "I'm looking for a job where should I go" postings recently...

    Obviously CmdrTaco and the crew have figured out that VA isn't where *THEY* want to work any more and are trying to figure out where to go next.

    It's the only explanation that fits...

    Now, on a directly related topic, I wouldn't trust anyone at WorldCom/UUNET/ALTER.NET to run *ANY* of my business traffic. Every time I have a problem getting somewhere it inevitably ends up being a problem on the ALTER.NET backbone, and if they treat their employees like their employees treat people who call their NOC *I* sure wouldn't want to work for them.

  • Be Careful (Score:4, Informative)

    by jdurchen ( 520904 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @05:53PM (#2555705) Homepage
    I worked at MCI when they were being courted by BT and subsequently bought by WorldCom. There was a lot of talk about how benefits would change but be fairly equal. All decreases in benefits would be offset by increases in stock options. :)

    I left just about the time the actually awarded stock options. (7-8 months AFTER the merger during which time health benefits went down the toilet. Less coverage, much more money) The thing with the options was that they vested over three years. You could excersize them one third per year. So I would have to be there for one year to get any benefit from them. When I decided to jump ship all of my co-workers thought I was insane to give up all those valulable options. None of them have excersized any of them to this day.

    The reason I think this is relevant is to show you how brainwashed the employees of an absorbed company can be. Don't drink the cool-aid and keep your eyes open.

    I did like working for the company in general as my co-workers were some of the most competent people I have ever worked with. They took responsibility for their jobs and were proud of their work.

    So, my overall message is it is a good company to work for, but don't buy into hollow promises.

  • Just a bit of advice about big companies like Worldcom: they love to treat employees like dirt. If you go to a company like that, expect to be nothing but a number, overworked at the excuse of a salary until the day they lay you off so that the CEO can save the company $2 millon and gives himself a $3 million dollar raise to celebrate.

    Unless you are young and looking to learn, look for small companies. If you have a high tolerance for BS, get into goverment contracting or work for the government directly. The pay is not as good, but in the long run you will be much happier.
  • You have a unhealthy attitude in this job market. You shouldn't care who you work for. A company is a company. You should care 1. If this job will help you improve your career and 2. IF this job pays well. That's it. Everything else is irrelevant.
  • At WorldCom they rotate you through the telemarketing division to do that for a while. That would explain all the worldcom calls I get. Should be fun!
  • I had been using MCI World.com as my long distance provider for some time. Lo, and behold, they slammed me into having local service with them too. I wasn't happy about this and called Ameritech to have my local and long distance service changed back to Ameritech and AT&T. On my next phone bill I discover that I don't have AT&T, that I've been slammed into long distance service with MCI World.com and they're charging me 4 TIMES AS MUCH for phone calls - why? As the MCI operator explained to me, it's the slam rate ... now, how I can be slammed when it's actually a case of never being switched when I requested it, I don't know. I had my service with them disconnected and called Ameritech to have them switch to AT&T for my long distance.

    Guess what? I get my next bill and there's 135 bucks worth of charges from MCI World.com, at their ridiculous "slam" rate, including 30 1 minute calls my wife had made to her grandmother's house after she had gotten a stroke and gotten no answer. These were 50 miles away and charged 3.41 apiece. 3.41 for listening to a phone ring a few times! I called Ameritech and told them that I wasn't paying them for these charges, that I wanted AT&T and if they screw up my service one more time I'm going to rip the goddamned phone jack out of the wall and get a cell phone and screw them.

    Alright, you're probably wondering - what the hell does this have to do with working for them? Ask yourself two questions - if they do this to their customers, hell, people who don't even WANT to be their customers, how are they going to treat their employees? And if they treat the public in such a dishonest and greedy grasping manner, why would you want to work for them anyway? There must be an honest company you can work for. Hell, even Microsoft is a little more honest and competent than this.
  • I've worked at Williams Telecommunications, WorldCom and Sprint and they are much different environments. WorldCom's whole culture is merger, merger, merger. The first merger was LDDS and Williams Telecom and that is when the WorldCom name came about. Actually, even before that, I believe, LDDS was formed from mergers of RBOCs and such. After LDDS and WilTel merged, then came the MFS and WorldCom merger then came the MCI and WorldCom merger. I was even at Sprint when WorldCom and Sprint where talking merger. At the time, I was not a proponent of the merger and was joking to people that I was being stalked by an entire company. ;-) My experience at Williams Telecom and Sprint were was a great experiences, but I can't say the same for my experience at WorldCom. ** Everyone I came in contact with in WorldCom was very much in CYOA (cover your own ...) mode and running scared. ** That can sometimes be a good thing, but I don't believe it was in this case. Of course, since I haven't worked extensively in every part of WorldCom (nor could anyone) and it has been a few years, I can't guarantee you that your experiece will be the same. ** I'm sure there are some vary good parts of WorldCom, but I wasn't in them. ** Good luck! I think you will need it to get into a good area!

  • From Former WorldCom Employee (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I worked for WorldCom before the merger with MCI down here in Boca Raton, FL. I have to say that it was THE best job I had. I did LAN and Computer support for 16 sites down here. My boss was in Tulsa, OK and he only bothered me once a month when he would call me to ask me if I needed anything. I had my own office, which was huge and all the old computer I collected I networked together in my office so I could learn more. I didn't have to punch a clock since we had a support queue and as long as my tickets were closed in a reasonable time, they didn't care if I worked from home or not. Awesome company to work, I'm sorry that I ever left the position. BTW I left because my dad needed help at his company. Had nothing to do with WorldCom.

  • 4 years, still goin.. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm a former uunet employee, so not worldcom proper, so i can only speak from that experience. If you have clue, and manage to find yourself in the right group, it's a decent place to work. The network is huge. The training labs have more equipment than many ISPs, let alone the actual experimental labs. The network is fast, built with bleeding edge hardware, and you can bet that if it's deployed on this network, you can rely on it.

    The company is global, which means (or it used to) that if you felt like working elsewhere, you could. God knows that the working atmosphere in Europe is much better than North America. =)
    I work with brilliant people, and I've learned lots from them. Even if we're now officially worldcom, and part of Generation D (*gag*), and it's easy to feel like a cog in a big wheel since there's 15 departments in engineering, 93245 levels of management, stock options that are not even with reach of the Kursk salvage team, FUD concerning whether or not you're going to be employed 3 months from now, marketing focussed ways of life (I really really wish I'd bought those UUNET boxer shorts when I had the chance), and, well, I could go on, but, I still like working for the company. Why? No larger network exists, no other company still has the kind of resources we do, the big iron, the sheer scale of everything, and the people i work with. Every time I think about going somewhere else (who doesn't) I think "where?" and often draw a blank.

    Like any large company, it'll depend on who you end up working for as well. Maybe everybody will suck, or perhaps everybody goes out and shoots some stick after work. You won't know until you look.

    If you're going to work for worldcom proper, bear in mind that internet culture didn't extend to telcos until recently, so they're still coping with the shock of learning that ATM is *not* the future of networking. I'd check out the office you might be working for, and the people there. if it was uunet at one point, your chances of getting along are better, but that's just a guess really.

    Just 'cause WorldCom is laying off people everywhere doesn't mean they suck. you could be working for the airline industry. you could be working for Nortel. Everybody is laying off.

    To conclude, you won't find me telling you to run away as fast as you can. check it out.

  • Standard Nerd Answer (Score:5, Informative)

    by rho ( 6063 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @06:33PM (#2555929) Journal

    It Depends.

    The answer you get is going to be horribly weighted by somebody else's baggage, the circumstances under which they were hired, or fired, even where they were located.

    I worked for the Investor Relations department at the corporate headquarters in Clinton, Mississippi. Small department, great people. I loved my job and the people I worked with. The dress was corporate casual, and regular casual on Fridays.

    I worked with the Bernie Ebbers, the CEO for a few projects. He's a very nice, polite guy--driven, but many entrepreneurs are like that. Also, he's very tall.

    The IT department in Clinton is staffed with great people, the network/Internet/Intranet guys are top-notch and well managed. I still go bowling with them occasionally.

    However, some people don't have such nice memories. When Worldcom bought MCI, there was quite a clash of cultures. MCI's IR department had 2.5 times the number of people, and didn't do as good a job as Worldcom did. All of them were laid-off in the merger. MCI had something like 5 corporate jets. Worldcom had 2 corporate jets. Bernie sold most of MCI's immediately. Former MCI people were undergoing "attrition" at a fearsome rate. Worldcom's culture was of a gritty startup, almost. You worked hard, but you were compensated for your effort. MCI was much more corporate, only their stock price reflected that "corporate" wasn't cutting it.

    Unfortunately, MCI's marketing department stayed around. This is where you get those really shitty "generation d" commercials. And also why the web site sucks so much now.

    This was a few years ago, but from what I can tell, the culture hasn't changed that much--at least, not in Clinton, MS. Other locations are different.

  • I actually work at wcom... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12, 2001 @07:44PM (#2556234)
    No one will read this, of course, since I'm posting anonymously but what the hell... no one else that works here appears to be posting.

    What's it like working here? To make a long aswer short, it depends who your manager is. I'm lucky enough to work for people who let me run Linux on my desktop even though it's not "officially supported." (Windows is the official desktop OS).
    Other people, however, have horror stories due to the regulations in their particular group. I'm sure this is the way with most large companies.

    HTH
  • Since a number of people have given mention to the "Tulsa" or "Cherokee" site, I thought I'd make some mention of Tulsa. I agree with the other posters, in that it is a laid-back site. But don't be fooled, they get the work done.

    The city is a good one to live in simply because of the cost of living. You'll find most prices to be quite low. Gasoline, unleaded, is currently $.97. Housing is very inexpensive compared to other places. Say, a 1400 sqft home would go for around... ballpark... $80-120k.
    Tulsa is a good place to work at.
  • I know a marketing droid for them, and he's crying in his beer over the stock price. Pay's not so good to hear him tell of it, so stock is what makes the payscale.
    It's important to remember that customer service is part of what a company is. If it sucks, chances are that they have pissed off someone you may want an interview with at some point.
    If you don't have a job now, then take it. You can sleep in alleys, but ya gotta eat. If you are one of the fortunate that are working, you may want to give this a pass.

    I have WorldCom for LD, and I get nasty calls to collect before the bill even arrives in the mail. They keep wanting me to go direct debit, but if they can't get their billing cycles right, what makes them think I'll trust them with my bank account? I'd change, but since I make about 2 LD calls a year, it's not worth it to me.

    • I'd change, but since I make about 2 LD calls a year...
      You know, you don't have to have any LD company at all. Saves you the monthly fee, but you have to dial one of those 1010 prefixes every time you make a LD call. Probably worth it if you only make 2 calls a year.

  • There is a site which specializes in these Q's (Score:3, Informative)

    by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Monday November 12, 2001 @08:22PM (#2556383)
    Go to vault.com [vault.com]. They can answer, in general terms, "What is it like working for company X?" Go to the "research" section. You'll probably want a free account. Oh, they sell a book, too. Actually, it doesn't look like it'd be bad at all. The message board and site's text that describes WCOM is a little stale,
  • If I remember correctly, they haven't changed their 401k benefits since I left. Something like 1:1 matching, up to 4 or 5% of your pay. Very nice.
  • I started at MCI right when they got taken over by WorldCom, and worked there for about two years after that in two different groups, and I saw how things worked in several Colorado locations (Denver and Colorado Springs).

    It really appeared to me that WorldCom took over MCI and then basically cut off funding for any new projects. Budgets were incredibly tight for those two years, and we could barely afford to keep existing projects going. I think they somehow expected to continue making money off of MCI without any expectation of keeping abreast of the market or competition.

    Not only did they trim staff, they also went to great lengths to cut trivial costs associated with office atmosphere. For example they stopped stocking hot chocolate and coffee in the break rooms. At one point we didn't have toilet paper for a couple days and people seriously considered the possibility that WorldCom had stopped funding even for that!

    Both years I was there, there were huge layoffs around Christmas time to make the books look good for the end of the fiscal year. Then they would hire on huge amounts again in the spring, mostly people previously laid off. Because of this, a lot of people felt really insecure about their jobs. I saw many many many cases where employees were spending more time gossiping about layoffs than working, because it was such a crazy situation.

    MCI/WorldCom was also layered with way too many layers of management. There were bosses whose only job was to communicate information between a VP and five or six managers. It was really crazy.

    MCI/WorldCom was also somewhat formal, they had "casual Friday" when it was okay to wear jeans, etc. Very uptight compared to a left-coast startup but not as bad as a big consulting company or bank. Good luck!

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