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Having grown to maturity as a regulated and protected monopoly, Bell has never really had to sell anything, and some of the company's attempts at consumer marketing have been disappointments. For example, while a number of aggressive young companies were designing and promoting imaginative and increasingly sophisticated telephone receivers and terminals that could be connected to Bell System lines, AT&T was stuffing its 1,500 retail PhoneCenter outlets with uninspired designer phones in the shapes of Mickey Mouse and Snoopy. Says Rosemarie Tevelow, who oversees Bankers Trust Co.'s investment portfolio of 5.2 million shares in AT&T, the second largest block held anywhere: "I am only modestly bullish on AT&T's future. It is hard for me to put a value on a stream of products as yet uninvented, a marketing operation as yet not in place, and a distribution system that is still largely nonexistent. Conceptually, AT&T's potential is tremendous, just so long as you are aware that if you buy into the company now you are buying a concept and nothing more."
Another challenge facing AT&T as a result of divestiture will be to assure continued effective management of both the main company and the local operating firms that will now go off on their own. Said Morris Tanenbaum, AT&T's executive vice president for planning: "In the past we built a network around as much integration of operations as possible. Now we will have to divide everything into two pieces. We will lave to bring this about in a graceful way so that it will have no negative effect on users. That will be a tremendous job."
The route to senior corporate positions in AT&T has traditionally passed through Bell System subsidiaries and field operations. Illinois Bell, for example, was long a proving ground for executives on the way to AT&T corporate headquarters in New York. In the future, a top job there could mean the end of the line, not a transfer and a raise. Similarly, AT&T employees in years to come may find that the route to the chairmanship passes through Bell Labs or perhaps the company's finance or planning departments.
Some company employees see the coming changes as the end of a golden era and the beginning of a period of uncertainty. Said Delbert Staley, president of New York Telephone: "I cannot say that I will be left in an unhappy job. It is just that after 35 years in the Bell System there is a feeling that something has been lost." Said Greg Anderson, 30, a telephone repairman with Pacific Telephone and Telegraph in San Francisco: "The workers are troubled by the lack of information. There has just been none. The whole thing has been pretty shady." Added Leonard Moody, 38, a systems repairman in Los Angeles: "I think the telephone company is one of the few things in this country that still works. People complain about it, but the telephone service is something the country can be proud of. Why try to fix something that already works?"