Man Who Didn’t Have a Phone or a Place to Live When He Got Hired by AT&T Now a Corporate Director (Exclusive)

Climbing the corporate ladder can be a difficult task for even the most seasoned professionals. George Robey IV had a steeper hill to climb than most, but that didn’t stop him from accepting the challenge.

Robey grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he faced many trials and tribulations early on. He says his parents gave him and his siblings “the best life they could,” but that things weren’t always easy.

Before long, Robey says he was wandering the “wrong path” in life and often went against the guidelines set by his parents.

At one point, Robey and his family moved to Gaithersburg. “That’s where things got really busy in my life,” he tells PEOPLE in an interview for his 40th birthday.

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Robey was kicked out of his home “in late 2006, early 2007.” He lived in a pre-paid truck for a while and would sleep in the woods “from time to time.”

“Anywhere I could sleep or find a good place that was good enough, I would kind of sleep around and stay there and stuff like that,” Robey tells PEOPLE.

Just “a few months later,” Robey found out his girlfriend was pregnant with his first child. Although delighted by the news, Robey says he suddenly felt “a lot more pressure” to make ends meet.

George Robey.

Courtesy of George Robey

A short time later, Robey stumbled upon his big break when he saw an AT&T “glowing” sign nearby. “When I saw that sign,” he says, “I believed.”

Robey marched into the store and asked the employees if the company was hiring. It’s a day he says he’ll never forget. “I looked terrible when I walked into that store,” Robey recalls. “Most places would condemn me.”

The employees told Robey that they were indeed hiring and someone went to get their manager, Yassir Querishe, with whom Robey still has an “incredible relationship” “to this day.”

“It was really cool that the store manager at the time didn’t judge me and gave me a chance to change my life,” says Robey.

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Querishe did not hesitate to help. He encouraged Robey to apply online, but Robey did not have a computer to do so.

Thinking on his feet, Robey visited a public library and paid a small fee to use their computers. He printed out the application and returned it to Querishe the same day.

Querishe reviewed the application before raising the last issue. “Everything looks good,” he said, “but there is no number to contact you.”

But Robey didn’t have a phone. Thinking quickly, he stepped outside the store and spent the next two hours asking passers-by for any money they could spare. He ended up “scrounging up” about $25, which he used to buy a GoPhone and an “in-store” plan.

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Robey then punched the number into the app and gave it to Querishe. For the next two weeks, Robey feared that AT&T would never hear from him. But to his surprise, one afternoon his phone rang. It was Querishe, offering him a job.

Then Robey realized he had to overcome another obstacle: finding the right clothes to wear.

Robey was at the church later that day when he saw a man preparing to donate “a bunch of clothes.” He was “a few sizes bigger” than Robey, but Robey didn’t mind at all.

AT&T store in Gaithersburg.

Google Maps

Robey was able to land an interview and was eventually offered a job at AT&T. Afterwards, Robey was asked why he wore the same suit to every interview, so he revealed his secret.

“You just hired a homeless man,” Robey told his interrogators. “You just changed my life and gave me an opportunity that most people don’t think you can get after hitting rock bottom.”

That admission didn’t change anything, and the group told Robey they were “thrilled” to have him on board.

From there, Robey began working his way up the corporate ladder, starting at the Gaithersburg location. After five years, Robey was promoted to assistant store manager, a position he held for six months. He spent another six months as Bennett County’s national accounts executive, but eventually “missed being in the store.”

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So Robey returned to his previous role as assistant store manager for another six months before being promoted to store manager, a role he held for the next five years. After that, Robey took over the “business side” of AT&T “for about a year and a half.”

Then, shortly after the pandemic began, Robey says he was offered the opportunity to run his own store in Washington, DC, which had been closed for several years. Not long after that, Robey got the phone call he had been working so hard for: an opportunity to move to Atlanta and become an assistant director. Of course, he accepted.

“[It] is still, sometimes even today, surreal because that’s where I started, what I went through,” he tells PEOPLE.

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Robey says he owes “so much” to the company “because they’ve opened doors in my life to things I never thought I could touch.” He believes AT&T’s leadership has helped guide him over the past decade and a half, to the point where some of them are “almost like family.”

“AT&T never judged me and they gave me the opportunity to continue, so that’s a wonderful thing,” Robey says.

After getting back on his feet, Robey was also able to mend his relationships with his father and now-deceased mother, who “never gave up” on him no matter what, he says. “Mom always felt that I would overcome any circumstances I would find myself in,” he adds.

The main key to growth, Robey says, was going to therapy. He cites Charlamagne Tha God as someone who inspired him to do this and believes that dealing with past traumas helped him heal.

“Once you begin to understand your mind, life begins to make sense,” explains Robey. “You can change your life in the blink of an eye if you want to.”

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Now Robey hopes to help inspire others and show kids that there’s more to success than being in the spotlight.

“I want to inspire kids to realize that you don’t have to be a ball player or a musician or any of that to change your life,” Robey says. “There are companies here looking for the following [Robey] which they want to give a chance… It’s okay to be different.”

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Source: HIS Education