Joe Mallahan has put a lot of emphasis on his corporate-leadership experience at T-Mobile even though his campaign and T-Mobile are maddeningly vague about what, exactly, that experience was. (Odd for the candidate promising to "drive accountability," isn't it?)

What kind of budget did he oversee? How many people did he directly manage? How diverse was that group of people? What was his job description?

When I asked T-Mobile last month for a story on Mallahan and organized labor, corporate HQ sent me this response:

In response to your questions about Joe Mallahan, please refer to the following information, attributable to “T-Mobile,” not to any individual.

“We're pleased that T-Mobile employees are engaged in public service and are participants in the democratic process. We respect Joe's efforts to run for public office; he's currently taking a leave of absence from the company during his campaign. Beyond that T-Mobile has no further comment."

Thanks disembodied voice attributable to T-Mobile, not to any individual. But all I wanted was a job description. Is that too much to ask?

The Mallahan campaign furnished this description. It's better, but still a little vague (and too narrow—what was the man doing before 2008?):

Vice President of Operations Strategy
2008 to present

Led a team charged with identifying and executing breakthrough profit drivers and customer experience improvements in all aspects of T-Mobile’s Customer-Facing Operations, including retailing (1,700 company-owned stores and 5,000 dealer locations), customer care (19 company call centers located all across the United States and several service partners call centers in North America and Philippines), Supply Chain (3 distribution centers), Handset Financial Services (Installment Plans and Insurance), automated customer service systems (web and interactive voice response systems), product and service development (IT and Network Engineering).

Mallahan has said he carried the title "Vice-President of Customer Delight." (Those "Customer-Facing Operations" must've been extra delightful.)

This weekend, the New York Times ran a story (in "the Haggler" column by David Segal, no relation) about a deeply undelighted individual who had a rotten—and borderline litigious—experience with T-Mobile's "customer-facing operations."

A woman gets some calls from a law firm trying to collect over $1,000 in bills for a T-Mobile phone she never owned. She and her husband—who is a bankruptcy lawyer—can't navigate the bureaucracy, get trapped in "an exit-free Labyrinth of Great Anxiety," and call in the Times. When the journalist shows up, the T-Mobile p.r. machine springs into action and cleans up the mess.

Fair enough. But what remains is the question that is a consistent theme of this column: Why, oh why, do companies seem to rouse themselves only after they get a tap on the shoulder from someone in the news media?

... and given that the company had the name, address and number of Ms. Kramer-Bryk’s lawyer — her husband, William Bryk — didn’t T-Mobile have all the information it needed to resolve this problem before the Haggler arrived?

It sure seems so, as the company proved by resolving this matter after the Haggler intervened.

So back to you, Mr. Zaccara [head of external communications for T-Mobile]. No doubt, sorting through thousands of supposedly fraudulent claims is arduous and complicated. Surely the company has no intention of turning anyone’s life into an exit-free Labyrinth of Great Anxiety. But here’s a woman married to a bankruptcy lawyer and even she can’t get relief. How come?

“Thanks again for bringing this issue forward to our P.R. team,” he wrote back, switching seamlessly into brush-off mode. “I’m glad we were able to expedite things with our legal and risk management teams. We have apologized to Ms. Kramer, as you know, and believe that we have done everything we can to rectify the situation.”

Yes, it's just one lady and Joe Mallahan isn't personally responsible for her troubles. But it's his department, and since he's asking us to evaluate him on his corporate-leadership skills, we've got to take our information where we can get it.

UPDATE

And, uh, the Better Business Bureau gives T-Mobile an F.

BBB Accreditation
This business is not a BBB Accredited Business.

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BBB Rating for T-Mobile

Based on BBB files, T-Mobile has a BBB Rating of F on a scale from A+ to F.
Reasons for this rating include:

* Number of complaint(s) filed against business that were not resolved.
* 23592 complaints filed against business
* Failure to respond to 2 complaints filed against business.

Looks like their "customer care" and "Customer-Facing Operations" stink.

When people criticized Mallahan for working at such an anti-union business as T-Mobile he said: Hey, not my department, not my fault.

But when your department is customer satisfaction/delight/care/"-facing operations" and the BBB gives you an F... what then?

I've got some emails in to the Mallahan campaign to find out.

(The BBB, by the way, has given AT&T Wireless an A+.)