We had a DM put Apple trackers in reps cars because she was mentally ill. We all knew she was doing this but I’m curious if any one else knows any other DMs who were also engaged in spying ?
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This practice is being promoted even beyond Cengage. If this is indeed being done, you likely wouldn’t have a case and will eventually encounter the same thing at other companies. It’s in the name of efficiency and maximizing impact. For example, being able to plan out meetings based on a formula of location and sales opportunity.
Review anything you signed regarding travel, car use & privacy. Different states have different privacy laws so do some research there too. Secret trackers from an employee are bad business.
Damages can be many things.
Consult with some attorneys. You might have the most success with ambulance chaser types but they serve a purpose too.
I’m in sales. But really I’m just a data entry clerk. This place is a joke and so is my district manager. It’s pathetic. I’m wondering where all this section data goes cuz I’ve never had marketing or my mgr offer any pathway to increase my revenue with all this data entry fe--s
@bhuf+1jzic0Yo. Roughly the same profile for DM's during the Thomson days. Difference was we/they succeeded in spite of ourselves. Acquisitions, price increases, undeveloped internet and demographics were why.
Typically what would happen is a rep would get lucky with a huge adoption...think calculus at Penn State or something like that. They would get rep of the year, despite the fact that other than sampling books in, they had little to do with the adoption as it was most likely a roll-over of Stewart Calculus.
They then would get promoted and then spend eternity making lives miserable for others as they had no real talent, other than being good at sampling, paperwork and bumbling around college campuses uttering "have you made your adoption decision yet? Oh, its my book? GREAT!!! I'll be sure and run to a a pay phone and report that to my manager!!! (Who then would call their boss taking credit.) How many sets of transparencies and desk copies would you like?"
There really was no difference from today...except people were making sales numbers.
Winning cures all and these days no one in educational publishing is winning.
It was the easiest and fun job on the planet. I couldn't believe they actually paid me and gave me a free car to make my number, nice bonus and work 20 hours a week 6 months a year. It was incredible. Those days are long....long gone. But darn were they fun. We all knew the gig would be up someday.
I wish I could've been around to experience the Thompson days. I've only experienced incompetence and down right nastiness coming from DM's, I've had several here in the mountain region. Not impressed at all, many of these appear to have been recruited from dominoes pizza or some random bar, no intelligence, no manners, just mean unfit, over weight alcoholics most likely kicked out of their sororities for good measure...
Vibrant? Ha! Cengage has never been that. Thomson/ITP was, for a brief while, but they blew it.
The Thomson fam bought up several market-leading imprints and brewed a homegrown one of their own (CT) and they sought to centralize all of the commonalities - warehousing, tech support, etc. But they maintained each of these acquisitions as silos, so that the indi company cultures were preserved. The likes of Wadsworth and Southwestern and Delmar were allowed to continue doing what they did best - and all was well for a very brief and glorious period.
The financials did not work I guess, at the end of the day. Private equity stepped in, stripped the company, and today those once-glorious imprints have all been mushed into the meaningless blob that is "Cengage." The technology is aged and creaky and poorly maintained, the focus is on subscription and holding the line against leapy income losses in U.S. HED, and entire universities are now serviced by one generalist rep that knows next-to-nothing about their titles and a phantom crew of product people who wouldn't recognize an actual Editor if one bit them in their under-paid white butts (and yeah, they're still all white).
I do hand it to Hansen & Co, they've kept this wobbly ship afloat for the past 5-7 years and that has to be recognized. But at what cost? I guess that is a question for each individual to answer for themselves.
Vibrant? When? The 1980’s? The Thomson days were fun but it was all acquisitions and price increases. If you are talking Brooks/Cole or West Publishing days, sure.
I'm absolutely shocked this is happening at Cengage. What the heck happened to this once vibrant publisher I was so in love with? These DMs are complete bottom feeding low life's...
I would have taken the air tag and put it into a water park! My guess is this was Texas or Florida.
The problem with a case like this is that there haven't been any actual damages and it's not likely that the manager did anything that was illegal. Immoral maybe, but not illegal.
The parties who feel violated can sue Cengage, but any lawyer isn't going to take a case like this on a contingency basis because it's got very little chance of winning. I'm guessing the party who feels wronged makes Cengage money so unless they have wealthy parents or are married to someone with a good job I don't see them coming up with the $20,000 - $30,000 retainer and the $100,000+ it will take to fight this.
Cengage has corporate counsel and more lawyers on retainer. Look at how se-ual harassment claims panned out at Heinle, and those allegations were proven to be true. Nobody even lost their job.
The big question is what are the actual damages and was the conduct illegal?
Where are these dms? Which territories
No one is defending them. But what she did was not criminal nor did it expose the company to liability.
I would fire her in 2 seconds if she worked for me. My guess is if she is crazy enough to use air tags on reps, she’s nuts enough to waste a ton of their time and money in litigation should they fire her.
Either way you are right. They are gutless with no moral compass.
Look at all the rats come out to defend these egregious pathetic clowns who spy on their own people.
The company owns/leases the car and has the legal right to track it. UPS, FedEx and most police departments do this. As do courier services, pizza delivery, etc…..
Now the DM was personally doing this, not the company. If there were any liability, and it would be a stretch, she could be liable but what would the wrongdoing be? I don’t know if what she did in her capacity was actually illegal.
Doesn’t seem like a case a lawyer would take.
Honest question: is there anything explicitly illegal about this? One can argue the relative morality of such a move, but are there any actual laws or company policies that might prohibit a practice like this one? Company phones are easily tracked, for instance, and this has been going on for as long as companies have been issuing phones.
They'll ask to go to The People's Court thinking Roland Freisler will be presiding.
Any lawyer who uses a lame insanity defense or low IQ defense isn’t worth hiring. The entire organization is complicit in hiring and supporting these pathological DM rejects.
They will just say she was mentally ill and they have no control over peoples state of mind. It’s a waste of your time. And trust me, I would love to see it succeed but there is no way.
I had this experience too and putting apple trackers under the floor mat by an incompetent buffoonish DM is an indication of their desperation and lack of leadership. I want to be depositioned and I want to participate in any lawsuit for damages. Also, I have no problem with company fleet tracking monitored by said fleet, but there’s something illegal unethical and downright psychological to have some low IQ underperforming inadequate DM or RVP spying on their reps. This is a clear violation of company ethics and guidelines and these incompetent laughingstock’s need to be punished. We all know who you are.
Greetings,
The Cenforce needs to be tracked. An ‘out of the box’ idea that I’ve been pondering recently would give each employee a free tattoo of their EIN. Tattoos are very popular, and by offering ‘Free Ink Friday’s’ we could show our appreciation to our workers.
If a company car was tracked there is very little recourse, as Cengage owns the car and has the right to know where it is.
I did have this experience. How do I contact you?
Good luck with that.
It's time to take these corrupt worthless dm's and rvp's down. They are the obvious parasites burrowed into Cengage. Full investigations and class action law suits incoming.
Termination time sweeties.