Thread by @CandiMathis, Thread on why I keep ranting about the Nashville bombing. My mother [...]

Thread on why I keep ranting about the Nashville bombing.

My mother used to do building maintenance for BellSouth in Nashville when it was in Green Hills. When they built the Batman Building, they contracted out the position (she hated that, lol) and she had to do "real work."

She started out as an operator at South Central Bell like her aunt. She worked directory listings. She's worked at Green Hills. She worked the "Batman Building." She retired from the Data Center in Brentwood.

I spent my 20s "in love" with a supervisor at Bell. (Bad choice.)

My stepfather retired from BellSouth (turned AT&T). I don't know how to tell you what he did because I don't really understand it. Just that he's a genius. He started out with Ohio Bell. He worked on the installation side.

His daughter and her husband both work or have worked with Bell. I, along with my BFF, former sister in law, and step sister, worked for a local exchange competitor. I was in service delivery.

I took that job after leaving BellSouth Mobility.

My oldest friend's mother retired from BellSouth also.

My aunt has worked for just about every CLEC there is AND from Bell. She's been on every side from provisioner to project coordinator.

Dinner conversation most of my life involved phone lines.

My parents (that's Mom and step dad) were heavily involved with the Telephone Pioneers of America. My mother was the Chapter President.

To say I spent my childhood at volunteer events with Bell families is NOT an exaggeration.

My life is peppered with Bell (now AT&T).

I have not worked in telecommunications in 20 years.

Yesterday I started asking on different platforms for someone in the field to tell me what that building actually held and how an outage of this magnitude happened, and y'all....

some of the answers.

I saw a girl on Facebook telling me that 911 goes to call centers all across the country and then they call the police and notify them. Sounds like something she got from a show.

I've seen mansplainers.

I've read the dumbest shit.

And I STILL.want to know how one building can be given THIS much power with no recourse. How 911 is that easy to take out. Why our communications are THAT vulnerable. And I still fucking hate AT&T.

I HATE AT&T.

I will always be partial to BellSouth because it provided my childhood and it provides the good life my parents live. I will always be partial to Southwestern Bell because I've worked with contacts there.

I loathe AT&T for many reasons.

I don't want to get into a Twitter discussion about the Telecommunications Act of 1996 or how we ended up there. Or how breaking up companies monopolizing your long-distance or your local exchange carrier....

eventually led to acquisitions and mergers of landline and cellular where AT&T is more powerful than it ever was as a long distance carrier, just know that I fcking hate them.

But when I'm asking for input from other technicians and Telecom employees.....

I'm actually asking for just THAT.

This shouldn't have happened. How can we change it. How can we prevent it?

And why aren't we ALL talking about the weakness this has exposed?

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