Today’s featured image is one of my desk at Digital Life one year ago today. Ah, the innocence of rubber duckies, lightly-salted almonds, and not having a clue what was in store for me….
Or for Digital Life, for that matter. I don’t think that, at least after the first year of my employment there, I ever made much of a secret of the fact that I thought upper management was taking a great idea at Digital Life and ruining it. When I left Global Network Operations for the DL gig, I did so in large part because I thought I was getting in on the ground floor of a project that would actually make life better for a lot of people. The buzzwords back then (2012?) were “Living In Place,” and I honestly believed that DL could change the way people live.
See, the big idea was home automation that could be monitored. Monitored by oneself or by someone else. So that, for instance, elderly parents could continue to live in their own home and their children or other designates could help to keep them safe. Your 89-year-old mom leaves the iron turned on for 6 hours? No problem – you can shut it off with your phone. Fires, water leaks, gas leaks…all of those things that you want to know about would be detectable and actionable from anywhere in the world. DL was literally almost called “Living in Place,” with the idea that you didn’t have to be at your home to run it. You didn’t have to put the folks into assisted living. You didn’t have to worry about your cats. Nearly everything could be automated, and our platform was going to offer that automation and continually improve upon it.
Then the bigwigs got involved. They saw that there was a very large portion of the American populace without home security systems. They saw that ADT was making a truckload of money by playing to people’s fear. And they decided that Digital Life was going offer some home automation, sure – but first and foremost, DL was going to be a home security system. And not just ANY home security system, but one that was hopelessly understaffed, wildly overpriced, and pathetically devoid of anything approaching high quality or creativity. Living in Place was secondary, as evidenced by the fact that new automation devices were not investigated or added to the list of supported devices. Decent cameras. Learning thermostats. Third-party door locks. Voice recognition modules.
You know….the kinds of things that Google is currently dominating the market with.
It was all about police, fire, and rescue. Riding on the back of an antiquated system that was developed before digital switches. Literally – software had to be developed to mimic physical switches so that cellular technology – which had damned near completely replaced landlines – would work. And AT&T didn’t even take ownership of the software. They farmed it out to a company that no one has ever heard of.
And for all of this mediocrity, they charged the customer significantly more than, say, ADT.
So I was among the first wave of DL employees to get the boot. Got a text yesterday from the area manager of the call center that I supported. He’s in the third wave. Looking for a job now. The call center will close on 4/28. National sales will cease early this summer. Digital Life, with all the promise it had, is or will be on the auction block.
And the sad part is that I doubt anyone will buy it. That ship has sailed. While AT&T dawdled and screwed around with home security, Google and a few others got serious about home automation and living in place. And the little people – the middle managers and the front-line people who tried to make Digital Life a great thing, are now seen by other AT&T affiliates as (I quote the area manager) “bad meat.” I experienced a bit of this myself, but thought maybe it was just me. It wasn’t. Those who are being laid off have virtually no chance of being picked up by other departments within AT&T. A lot of long careers, like mine, are just going to end.
You can bet that the upper management people will not find themselves in that situation.
But back to my own life. Just as I’d gotten used to getting up early, hitting the road, and beating the traffic in both directions, my hours got changed. Rather than working from 7-3 with no lunch, I got put on a 9-6 shift. Sure, I could make it 9-5 without a lunch; but honestly, what’s the point? Beating the 6 o’clock traffic by leaving during the 5 o’clock traffic? No difference. My commute now – in both directions – sucks.
I’m also on the phone about 8 hours a day now. The headset doesn’t come off. I’m the secondary contact for one company and, as of yesterday, the primary for another. I’m on the clock – and documenting it – just about every minute that I’m in the office. There is no room for creativity and very little for curiosity. A ticket is opened and my job is to close it as quickly and quietly as possible.
Yawn. I’m still looking for/thinking about other things to do.
Had a crown fall out during the drive to work last week. Naturally, right? After my AT&T dental insurance is over and before my The X Company dental insurance kicks in. And it was on Thursday morning, which meant that my dentist – who doesn’t work on Fridays – couldn’t see me until yesterday. So I took an extra hour at lunch yesterday, went to said dentist, got the crown reattached, and paid $71 for the privilege.
Got back to the office and was handed my insurance card two hours later. Figures, huh?
On the plus side, my dentist may call to have me fish some wiring in his house this weekend. He recently got a new cable box, with HDMI only, and his house isn’t wired for it. Guess what, Doc? I make $150/hour for systems installation.
One good thing about the new hours, by the way, is that I can get decent walks in each morning. Except for today, that is. It’s raining pretty hard, and I’m just sitting in bed typing. Or I was. It’s 7:00 now, and I’ve got to hit the road pretty soon if I’m going to make it the 10 miles to the office by 9:00.
Laters, y’all!