They manage through intimidation and that seems to be the only thing they know how to do. A bunch of good-for-nothing incompetent as-----s who try to hide their lack of knowledge by taking credit for other people's work and threatening anybody who dares complain with losing their jobs. Horrible, horrible people.
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Imagine Christmas dinner in the Texas house. Bwahaaahaaa
Lack of diversity is a good thing. You want to work around latinx and blm’s? You can’t, they don’t work, they’re on welfare because they’re unemployable.
I'm a current employee and I can tell you there is no diversity especially on the sales side. There is hardly any individuals of color or Asians, Latinos, or indigenous descent--less than 5% roughly. Most of the sales reps are young white men and women in their 20's or early 30's. Publishing has this image of sending individuals who represent middle America onto the pristine college campus vs hiring based on experience, performance, certification, etc. This has not changed in the last 30 years. Most of the hiring is done mainly by the District managers whom are mainly white males or females. Publishing has always had the perception that diversity candidates are not interested in publishing sales. Therefore, it gives management the same excuse of a candidate pool that consists of the young white male or female. Or the other plan is to hire the retread Caucasian publishing professional that hops from one company to the other. In regards to layoffs, minorities do seem to get laid off more vs the causasian employees. I challenge current employees to assess diversity on your teams-- it's not happening nor should you believe Cengage is an inclusive organization. It has nothing to do with political ties--just comes down to the lazy DM who wants to find the easiest path to training and who their customers are most comfortable working with -- white Middle American woman or (Asian, Black, Latino) male? My money is on the woman who we all would be comfortable with. Cengage has no idea what unconscious bias is.
As for DM's, they always been terrible. Glorified baby sitters. Just a nature of the role.
I would love to meet this DM from Texas. She sounds like a piece of work.
As to the previous poster's comment about diversity. Here is the sobering truth and I've been in the business for 30+ years.
People of color do not feel comfortable in an industry that is run by lily white liberal elitists.
There are many industries...good industries and businesses that are way more integrated and diverse.
Ever ask yourself why an industry, that purports itself to be so inclusive is quite possibly the worst in that regard? Publishing is not run by a bunch of republicans, thats for sure!
To the DM (or management apologist): this site is about layoffs and this thread in in my opinion discusses how after each layoff, DM's have historically held on to their positions. It just goes to show that they are kept around to push down the toxic culture that upper management instills such as bullying, create lack of diversity, and not be inclusive. One of the posts discusses the DM (from the Lone Star State) as a good example. She has been a manager for at least 10+ years. She has high turnover on her team (even hired her sister once, and who eventually left), customers do not want her in the field, and creates a team culture of bullying in a hostile environment. She seems to survive every layoff and management allows her to stay around. She somehow makes it to the award trip. Management favors her lack of leadership style and strives to clone other managers to be like her. This site allows a forum for the truth to come as there are many other managers like her.
Monkeypox is spread by a certain type of behavior that all DM’s engage in. Monkeypox engagement is real. Be your own pox spreader.
@3fxu+1gSBAHXK It’s called shadenfreude. Look it up. Publishing stooges have always been fun to laugh at. The current Cengage leader may be best ever.
Uh oh one of the skeezy DM’s piped up. Go back to bed sweetheart lunch isn’t served yet…. Presidents club called they want their douche back.
And this site is just a cesspool of toxic and rude employees. If you don't like it, leave. If you already left, what are you still doing here?
How about we use this site to share breaking layoff news instead of retreading the same complaints OVER and OVER. I swear people aren't happy unless they're angry.
Downvotes to the left.
@2vfs+1gSBAHXK You don't want to know how much they paid an agency to come up with the name "MindTap"...
Don’t know what your prob is, cengage literally is two wonderful words combined, ‘center’ and ‘engage’. Where would you rather be? Simple as.
@2fjz+1gSBAHXK Point taken. What I was getting at is LinkedIn is full of Pollyanna sales reps whose profile says “I love learning!!!” Blah blah.
Legacy publishers are so ripe for the taking. It will be death by 1000 cuts.
Cengage spent over a million dollars coming up with that stupid name, BTW.
@2fjz+1gSBAHXK Point taken. What I was getting at is LinkedIn is full of Pollyanna sales reps whose profile says “I love learning!!!” Blah blah.
Legacy publishers are so ripe for the taking. It will be death by 1000 cuts.
Cengage spent over a million dollars coming up with that stupid name, BTW.
@2fjz+1gSBAHXK Point taken. What I was getting at is LinkedIn is full of Pollyanna sales reps whose profile says “I love learning!!!” Blah blah.
Legacy publishers are so ripe for the taking. It will be death by 1000 cuts.
Cengage spent over a million dollars coming up with that stupid name, BTW.
@2lzm+1gSBAHXK Laughing because I was a marketing manager at Cengage and you are absolutely correct. It is the most generic, interchangeable position in the entire company.
Dear 3 career paths guy. Funny because partly true. However, as someone who has been in sales for decades and is still thriving, making 150k and up year after year after year, please know there is still a path forward in higher education sales. You are correct that my customers usually start out with a negative bias against me, and I have to earn their respect by 1) taking no for an answer when no it shall be, 2) being patient, and staying put in one course/discipline area so as to develop a national database of contacts, 3) not working for sh-t companies whose tech is so old it can't possibly be saved. I'm looking at you Cengage --the company with the stupidest and most corporate-sounding name in higher education. Cengage. Sounds like the name for a new dr-g that will fix your eczema in exchange for "side" effects such as hives, kidney failure, and oily an-l discharge--so totally worth it!
Cengage leadership is in an impossible spot, true, but that's no excuse for nurturing as-----s likes MH and his crowd of re--rd minions.
There are 3 career paths in publishing
- Sales. You convince yourself you are a sales rep and make a difference. You don’t. Your customers hate you.
- Product and Marketing. Editors used to be revered. No one ever cared about Marketing Managers. You all have now been reduced to hollow pencil pushers. No one cares…even more now.
- Technology and Production? Who are you?
Our DM out of Texas was worthless, she'd show up every morning hung over, stinking like an ashtray, angry and sick because her red neck boyfriends were always kicking her to the curb so she would punish everyone around her for the constant rejection. All our key contacts told us never to bring her back, she exhausted her credibility around campus in no time... She's still there though causing the most productive to quit, hiring awful people etc. She must have someone above her protecting her.
What department are you in? I like my manager. Wonder if it's a team by team thing.
Its old school east coast publishing culture. Bad behavior by the "enlightened intellectuals" in leadership is not only excused but encouraged. You just can't understand their genius. That's why its OK that they yell at you and degrade you in front of colleagues. You shall tremble in fear in their presence. I've worked in some rough and tumble industries, but Cengage had by far the most toxic and abusive leadership I have ever encountered. It's hard to believe some of them are still bouncing around the industry and haven't been "Me Too'd" yet. And, yes, whatever your political preferences are the hypocrisy of so-called liberals who run these companies is appalling.
There is a reason why most of the district managers have been there so long. They know they cannot operate like this at other companies outside of Cengage and toxicity is supported from the top down. If you look at their tenure, more have been there 15 plus years. It’s an easy job…provide as little support/enablement as possible to the team, do worth less ride along with their reps, and know nothing about the product. The DM job is babysitting 60 percent of the time and the rest of the 40 percent review useless reports on pipeline. Cengage managers know they have it easy so rising as long as they can till they can exit. Unfortunately they have no idea what to do next with the useless industry everyone is in.