Disconnected

About this book

The economy is booming, yet healthy, profitable companies continue to lay off hundreds of thousands of employees and downsizing has become a permanent part of the landscape of corporate America. In Disconnected, acclaimed journalist Barbara Rudolph puts a human face on this new economic reality, through intimate portraits of six people whose lives were irrevocably changed when they lost their jobs at AT & T. When they were cut loose from the corporate fold at AT & T - an American icon that once promised lifetime job security and claimed the unquestioning allegiance of its employees - these six people made a difficult transition from the old world of work to the new one. Rudolph takes us inside the lives of Maggie, a feisty telephone operator whose job was made obsolete by technology; Tom, a brilliant executive who survived unscathed through childhood polio and the Vietnam War, but never fulfilled his early promise; Vince, a soft-spoken manager, son of the first black general counsel at GM, who found strength in his father's legacy; Barbara, a self-sufficient salesperson who learned to move on; Larry, a blunt-speaking, rumpled-looking Bell Labs engineer, who was bolstered by early fame; and Kyle, a strategist who discovered how to land on his feet and look out for himself.