The Plane with a Blue Air Phone

Today I see so many posts from my Verizon colleagues saying their final good byes, exiting with the voluntary separation. Many of them had spent their lives working with this great company and as I read so many of those inspiring and humbling stories, I couldn’t stop but remember the day I had joined this company, what was known as GTE at the time. Joining GTE for me, in essence was arriving to this country – and as I grew with Verizon, I was growing to be an American.

Here is a piece of memory I remember so vividly:

I drive along the beach, dotted with sun bathers, the road jammed with cars, bicycles, motorcycles, trying to make their way thru the pedestrians moving alongside the road, oblivious to the traffic, walking carelessly, men and women clad in swim suit. I am as out of place as I could possibly be, brown skin, shy, lanky – and wearing a suit. No, not a swim suit, I am wearing a business suit at the Clear Water Beach on the west coast of Florida. I park the car, and step down to feel the air in my over-size suit.

No one minds – because this is America, the land of the free, I have been here only for 3 months, and it is my first out of town journey by myself – and I am sensing the strange taste of freedom, not that I have not come from a country that is the largest democracy in the word, but the freedom here is liberating – in a strange undefined way. I wonder if it is because every-one is a stranger or is it because no one really, minds, frowns, gives you that look if you showed up on a beach on bright sunny afternoon – in a business suit.

Or is it – that I do not care, since I just had finished the interview with people at Temple Terrance, in the GTE campus, and I am fully confident that I would be getting that job in this state of bright sunlight – the Sun Shine state, the beautiful city of Tampa.

When I took that plane to Tampa, it was the first time I had seen the GTE logo, the company that had their phone installed in the airplanes – the Air Phone. I felt proud to be interviewing with that company – who’s logo was on every seat, that blue GTE logo, on the back of every seat of that plane, the phone what no one ever seemed to use. But it gave GTE more brand visibility than the Direct TV would ever get from the TV screens installed on the back of the airplane seats these days. A lot has changed since then, the Air Phones disappeared completely and as GTE merged with Bell Atlantic to form Verizon, it would become a company I would not even have imagined it would.

I wonder what impressed the guys at GTE who took my interview, my oversize suit or my oversize confidence – when I had finished the technical interview I had been taken to meet the head of the department, which I had taken as a sign that the interview had gone well. I still remember, Reza Mohsin, smiling at my suit and telling me that I can take the jacket out now, since I have finished the interview.

Reza, who I would continue to admire during my GTE days and long after he left – there are a few people you meet during your career who have lasting impact even with a short period – Reza is definitely one of them. I was starting in a relatively new and small team in GTE, but the team had taken on a large challenge. Legend had it a challenge which was attempted over 20 times and failed every time. When it comes to a startup culture within a large company – this team was it. Among many things I was influenced with Reza was his ability to see the bigger picture – he would tell me to zoom out – every time I found myself in the forest and he found me counting the trees. Our path diverged when he went on to work on his start up and I had decided to stay at GTE – I haven’t met Reza in person since he left, but we have kept in contact thru social media. Over 20 years I have met a large number on people, who have influenced the way I work, but Reza would always hold the position – the first person I had looked up-to!

(Reza hope you are reading this :-)

Over last twenty years I have been inspired by a great many leaders and colleagues in Verizon, and its those people who make up a company. Each of these people have had hand in shaping the future of the great company what we know today as Verizon. No matter how small or large a tenure they have had.

To me personally the GTE story, has been a story of a fresh-of-the-boat immigrant who happened to take that plane with the blue GTE logo, not knowing where would it take him.

With that plane he took the journey with a company that shaped the digital landscape of this country as it transformed itself from a plain old telephone company, to fastest internet in the country to 5G. 

As each of us, who have left this year, design the next chapter of our lives, I hope our Verizon beginning (or GTE, or NYNEX, or Bell Atlantic and many many more going all the way till the Ma Bell..) continues to inspire and provide the foundation upon which we would be writing our own 2.0 stories.

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I am working on a crowd sourced book, where I would be sharing my stories during my Verizon days and would source the insights from your comments.

Be a part of the book, If you liked this story, please share your comments , and insights and inspirations or your own story in the comment section.

My aim is to compile a book for which you are the author of the collective.

Stay tuned for more.