Did Cengage just recently have a live national engagement summit? This is the company that just laid off a bunch of people and then spend hundreds of thousands "learning" and "celebrating successes"? I saw pics on LinkedIn and saw the usual congratulations, lack of diversity, and meaningless product sessions. If Cengage did have a face to face meeting, please use this post to comment on the stories and events of the meeting if you attended.
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For those who have never seen the video of the Cengage San Francisco office...here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZlm9W9RHIg
The office closed a year later and none of the employees in this video are no longer on staff. Great investment MH.
There will still be NES just like there are always going to be the reward trip so the executives can bring their families.
@2qjm+1kacwaz5. Love your post.
My favorite was always the "cool people" would come into a session late, sit in the back with their arms crossed and then get up after 15 minutes and leave.
People actually make bonus?
You should have seen "girls gone wild" before IPhones. Oh those were the days!
As much as I would love to, I can't blame anyone for throwing down the corporate card. Stick it to the man!
Do you think it will be the last NES ever?
2 things Cengage will spend endless amounts of money on:
- Yearly sales conference
- Coastal office space
I remember when they moved from Belmont to downtown SF and built a state of the art office during or right after bankruptcy. They paraded us midwestern rubes through it to show off how we were a tech company now because the office had pods and some chalkboards. The place was a disaster within a year because Cengage didn’t pay anywhere close to competitive salaries in San Francisco.
I was at the meeting and yes, word was it was prepaid before covid and canceling would have lost more money. Here were my takeaways:
- sessions were boring as usual....I feel bad for the presenters as they put a lot of time into planning and rehearsing only for folks not paying attention or checking their emails.
- there were a lot of attendees outside of sales present but sitting in the back. We weren't sure who some of these folks were.
- Lots of bu-t-kissing as usual and folks showing value for their job.
- There were regional dinners which was surprising...some groups went to Top golf and wasted more money outside the meeting.
- Cengage is still the whitest company in North America. Not a spec of diversity especially in sales. In Cengage's defense, all the other publishing companies are just as white.
- D-mb awards ceremony once again...lots of standing up for individuals who probably will be gone in january once they get their bonuses.
- more bu-t kissing
- The older ladies treated the meeting as their covid escape and went "Girls gone wild" ...there are pics.
- never got to meet the DM from Texas....is she still there?
- and yes, lots of executives and senior managers using the corporate card at the hotel bar till 2 am. What else is new?
They must be the only people celebrating learning. Virtually all college kids blatantly cheat.
Where was the summit this year
Its at least $1mm a day to do this. Unless they have dramatically cut attendees.
I heard that it had been booked in pre-Covid and they couldn’t cancel it without losing a ton of $$$. Could be wrong.
I worked at Heinle during the bankruptcy years. A higher-up actually owned a stake in a bar and would bring us all there following any functions. Everything was expensed.
We even had a yearly holiday party at Hanover House, which is above Cheers, that was an open bar/buffet. Remember, at this time Cengage actually hosted a company-wide holiday party, usually on Spirit of Boston.
So if you worked at Heinle we spent two days at holiday parties and everyone would work from home the day after. It was basically an extra week off around the holidays.
We even did two Heinle parties one year. A night at the Omni Parker with rooms for all and then the traditional Hanover House party, then the Cengage cruise.
@zaz+1kacwaz5 Hit the nail on the head. At Cengage, you are either a grifter or a sycophant. And I don't say that as an insult, because I was both at various points. For a few years I was a sycophant that actually believed we had innovative products in our pipeline that instructors and students would benefit from. Working on a project in the for-profit market (before it imploded) opened my eyes to the grift. Here were "schools" who existed solely to hoover up federally backed student loan money from marginal students in exchange for absolutely useless degrees and a mountain of debt. Everyone involved knew exactly what the scam was including Cengage leadership who relied on the market for a significant portion of sales at the time. It was great for Cengage because they could stuff textbooks (also paid for with loans) into the for-profit channel that the schools usually forced on the students. The students usually came from poor, unsophisticated backgrounds and couldn't see the scam until it was too late. The entire experience completely turned my stomach and made me realize I was a grifter too.
There's nothing more jarring than realizing you work in an industry that creates avoidance products. Do a quick search on Twitter for "Cengage" and you'll know what I'm talking about. Cengage's customers despise them and want nothing to do with what they are selling.
The business is a cesspool of "get what I can, while I can." It goes all the way up to so called "leaders" at the highest level. Grifters is a beautiful term as it is true. It's pathetic, but as an outsider now, who spent years in this business when it was Thomson, the train wreck is impossible not to watch.
The funny thing is the same stuff....and way..way worse, went on at Thomson. We were just crushing our numbers so we all thought we were geniuses. News flash. We weren't. We were grifters too.
Getting out of that business was the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to actually work. I also made significantly more $$.
Of course they did. There was an extravagant NES when the company was in bankruptcy. We were at the hotel bar one night and my frat boy VP got wasted and expensed an entire bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue just because he could. The company is led by grifters.