Cengage is putting profits over everything and especially its employees. Nothing is as important as the almighty dollar, absolutely nothing. It makes me sick to see people bend over backward to do their best just to be shown the door as the reward. How fu---d up is that?
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yes it's about the almighty dollar, which might be OK, except that at Cengage it's about this quarter, this year, not about what makes sense over the longer term. That's why the publishing and product agenda is always in flux - which 100% sends mixed messages to everyone internally and puts PMs and content managers in a bad spot with authors. It's also why good people are squeezed until there is nothing left and then shown the door. To save a buck this qtr, this yr.
"Any authentic thoughtful productive people that may have existed as discovered in the archives are long gone, they’re just fairy tales and myths of an unknown golden age."
As a long-gone authentic & productive person with twenty years back in what really was a golden age for a while, I must agree with this. Gosh, Cengage has been such a strange story. It really was a collection of "best & brightest" folks who were scooped up from the competing pubcos to make this Thomson thing work! Silo'ed where it mattered (imprints, content) and collectivized where it made sense (HR, IT to some extent). They produced the content that people wanted to adopt and they had the money muscle to make it happen.
And then . . . well, Thomson became Cengage and it was a downhill sheet-show from there. Those golden, passionate people checked out and headed off for greener pastures where such energies are still well-rewarded and those who missed the early memos were pushed out in favor of cheaper peeps. And now it is all subscriptions and hollow "transparency" and emptiness. Doesn't FEEL that way for new people, I'm sure, but the fumes this company has been running on began being depleted years ago.
It's all so weird and sad, in a way . . .
@IPS
FULL STOP
"It’s advancement via attrition."
That should be the unofficial Cengage credo. So much truth in that statement.
If this industry truly were about profit and productivity it would be a breath of fresh aire… it’s not. It’s about burrowing into the bureaucracy, shoring up your vulnerabilities, building corrupt alliances and stabbing everyone in the back to maintain just the status quo. It’s advancement via attrition. Any authentic thoughtful productive people that may have existed as discovered in the archives are long gone, they’re just fairy tales and myths of an unknown golden age.
"Profits above everything" would make the credo more pithy and less disingenuous.
Educational publishing, despite the fact that it has been full of vapid liberals for decades is one of the most cut throat businesses on the planet.
Cengage is owned by private equity. Private equity firms are in business to make money for their investors over anything and everything. The problem is that Cengage leadership insults its employees by pretending that it's some kind of nonprofit whose mission is to serve education, humankind, blah blah blah. It is absolute nonsense.
I can't tell you how many times I have been on campus and a student or professor asks for "free codes" to access our material. This isn't a library and I tell them that. We are hear to make money and lots of it. I tell that to them straight. This is the real world snowflakes. So stop asking and break out your wallet.
Anyone still at this dump deserves the door. I don’t feel anything for the incompetent arrogant sheep of cengage….