Thursday, March 19, 2009
Thursday | March 19 | Your News & Comments
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58 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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I never thought I would see morale so low as it is now at my IC. This downturn isn't over, and yet corporate is making changes that are permanent and won't be unwound even if the economy recovers next year.
ReplyDeleteSomething for the worker bees to keep in mind when they're pondering what surprises Gannett HQ might have in store for you in Q2 (if any):
ReplyDeleteFurloughs were the only payroll-cutting measure Gannett employed in Q1. The thing about a furlough is it is a measure exclusive to the specific quarter in which it is enacted. It is roughly an 8% payroll reduction for that particular 3-month period. Once March ends, that 8% is back on the payrolls unless new measures are enacted.
With this in mind, whatever you're thinking might happen, you can guarantee it will be at least an 8% cut. Once that 8% goes off the books, I can assure you Gannett isn't going to let it go back on. Gannett's employees will never see that 8% again. In fact, with revenues and the stock price continuing to drop, it's fair to say the cuts will almost certainly be deeper than 8% this time around.
Posted on the other entry... just FYI..
ReplyDelete_____________
Call highlights [for what it's worth]:
Still a huge amount of growth left in Career Builder.
CB passed Monster in 2006.
HR Consulting program being sold around the recruiting process to target accounts.
Social networks are real. Have FB partnership.
Employment will come back in 2010.
In newspapers in first two months of 2009:
Retail declined 23%
National declined 32%
Classified declined 46%
Overall... just bad.
Circulation revenue up 1% YTD.
National: volatility tremendous.
3 of 17 categories at USA TODAY up... total ad inches down 30-35% at USA TODAY.
Circ. down substantially at USA TODAY. Revenue better per copy, but not overall.
Dickey: 25% of costs in production and circ. excluding newsprint.
[basically getting out of printing and delivery... making this someone else's problem]
21 newspapers being printed by another newspaper.
25 production sites [notice he does not address these locations as newspapers] being reviewed for combination or printing at other locations.
Regional toning centers... saving $3.2MM annually.
Tuscon: will continue publishing beyond 3/21 pending sale.
GMartore: Newprint: prices have declined during Q1. Domestic prices are down. There is an E/W price divide. We expect newsprint prices to fall throughout 2009.
[Newspapers are Information Delivery Vehicles. Gannett is moving away from talking about them in terms of delivered copies to your door.]
Martore: Capital spend: $100MM instead of $150MM... mostly at Career Builder.
Debt: May 2009. $565 due. Won't have issues with paying.
Dividend action was a prudent step to maximize flexibility.
We will focus on paying down debt.
_________
Questions: unusual balance sheet... 80% of debt comes due in 2011 and 2012. What is the plan to retire this debt? $100MM in cash is given up in the dividend. How can we have confidence that you can get through this? Will EBITDA go up that much by next year?
GM: Clearly, we have a number of initiatives that we are working on right now that I can not talk about.
We are not focusing on increasing EBITDA and that will get us through this.
The dividend is what it is now, and we will see where it is in the future.
Cal, Nev, Ariz, Florida... question: These markets are significantly impacted. In fairness to Detroit, Michigan fits into this as well. That does not change the fact that we monitor it.
CD: We will continue to size our expenses to our revenue opportunities.
Bob Dickey: Consolidation on printing and distribution processes. Trying to keep this momentum moving forward.
Regionalize around Indy and have more hubs. Everything from copy editing to sales and marketing. #1 thing is regionalization.
Can we consolidate call centers?
[these are very small cost savings in terms of total dollars... probably give up more than gain in these silly expense savings channels... but they do justify management jobs.]
USA TODAY using partners to pick up delivery.
1/3 of our printing agreements have been renewed in order to save money at USAT.
Newsprint... using lighter basis weight. Shifted to narrower webs.
[more one time savings initiatives... after year one, they don't matter.]
CD: We are always looking for ways to save money.
Anything is up for consideration. Free in on-line has become a challenge. We are going to pursue every option. We are taking a hard look at opportunities.
[lots of CEO speak here... making no sense.]
Craig Moon: Detroit piece... when we looked at the opportunity... how do you re-size... how do you keep the products in place. We have to look at consumer demand and advertiser demand.
90% of ad revenue was happening on 3 days. The other days didn't hold a lot of revenue. There is not going to be a big change there.
Single section... 32 page broadsheet on other days going forward. We brought in clients as partners instead of as vendors. March 30 day 1.
What about carryover savings from next year on head count?
CD: As an overall, we are basing things on revenue... at the end of the day, we want to put out the right product. Like in Graphics. Yes it creates savings. But in the high quality and the new technology. We are first going to look for those technologies. We don't have specific revenue amount. This will end, at some point.
Our goal is to be properly positioned when we come out of this. I think that will really position us.
GM: Headcount: we did a number of actions in 2008 on the FTE front. In the last 2 quarters... we saved $250MM in the last two quarters in FTE count. Newsprint will be coming down as well. Q1 will not be any significant impact on newsprint [because we bought so much paper].
Are there any papers losing money?
CD: Let me start with Detroit... that model is not going to be deployed throughout. We may be able to leverage some opportunities from what we learned here. We can apply that to other scenarios.
GM: Lions share of our newspapers enjoy great margins. Detroit is having to deal with worst economy in the U.S. So that newspaper has not performed well. And USA TODAY does not have the high margins of some of our other papers.
On Detroit... if you are a subscriber, you get a different looking web presence.
Craig Moon: All subscriptions that we have sold over the last four months had access to a replica edition on-line. We found that existing newsprint readers using this replica product.
CD: Local ad dollars are hard to track. Everything that we are doing... we are going to find opportunity. The product really counts.
[Cutting it short...]
DL: Affiliation agreements... NBC through 2016... the model...
$100MM unfunded pension... future contributions will be dependent on a lot of things including FTE.
[Over... abrupt.]
[general tone didn't sound so great... a lot of uncertainty... but some lift with lower newsprint pricing and continued expense focus. Whether that keeps up with loss of revenue remains to be seen. The qualifier on newsprint (lower) pricing is that it is incremental to the upside regardless of price. Newspapers always charge more for space that the paper that is used to print the ad. So, I guess you have to temper that lower cost with the fact that fewer pages will be printed. As the products get smaller and less useful, the advertising dollars tend to dwindle even in a better economy. If Gannett is positioned to handle an upswing in the economy, the thought is that fewer advertisers and readers will be at the table to give the product any incremental revenue lift. Gannett won't start suddenly hiring more people if the economy gets better, and if they do, those new hires will be cheaper and will not get a pension.]
-Scott
Sorry if this has been posted already, but here's some Tucson Citizen news from the Daily Star:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/284791.php
The commentary here that Chris Saradakis seems to be the go-to guy that the company is promoting is probably true, but what other option does Gannett have?
ReplyDeleteThere's a hapless CEO who seems not to know what business we are in.
There's a board of directors that has historically just been along for the ride, and now that real decisions have to be made they spend more time crafting a document to justify bonuses for top executives than actually dealing with the company's crisis.
And there's the inescapable fact that unlike the car companies and the banks and the rest, Gannett's newspapers are still making money -- less money, true, but still turning a profit. That pretty amazing fact doesn't ever seem to ever get communicated as the Gannett brass slip and slide and try to sound all 2.0 when the future is really buiolt on some of the strong underpinnings the company already has -- news, information and a variety of ways to deliver it.
The company sounds panicked, the board is clueless so of course the young technology guy seems like our last and only hope.
Good luck to him. He'll need it.
This may seem a dumb question, but as an outsider....wouldn't it make sense to lower the prices of advertising and classifieds? Some I talk to say they would gladly put ads in the paper if it didn't cost so much. Everyone says newspaper advertising is more expensive than radio and TV.....why? Why charge a dollar when 75 or 80 cents (for simplicity) will do and not cost any more?
ReplyDeleteJust seems to me newspapers are stabbing themselves in the gut and wondering who did it!
What do you say when your company moves you from a tony golf course home (and then buys the house) to a new home with a green just past the patio?
ReplyDeleteFore!
Haven't been on in a couple days. Last I looked, a number of posters "knew" that layoffs, furloughs, paycuts, plague and pestilence were going to be announced March 18. I know no users of this site ever just make shit up or post things just to make their fellow workers anxious, so I know it happened. So how'd that work out? Also, how's that New Jersey Today thing going? I saw on Gannett blog that that was absolutely going to be announced last Monday.
ReplyDeleteAnyway to find out the dollar amount for MBOs across Gannett? A cessation of MBOs for managers would resolve at least one round of furloughs.
ReplyDeleteI have a few questions that weren't asked/answered yesterday. How much total revenue less Career Builder was generated by Gannett's web assets last year? Now take out USA today. What's left? What percentage of total revenue does that represent? Is it growing? What makes management think this is the only road to take given these results. Are there any sales initives planned for this year?
ReplyDeleteFTE - Full Time Equivelent - that is all we ever have been or will be to the upper management. Not employees as human beings - just FTE's.
ReplyDelete9:41 If you don't think that what Dickey told the investor conference about consolidating some of the operations at 25 of GCI's newspapers news, then I can't help you. If it is the official announcement of layoffs that you were looking for, just wait and your wishes will soon be fulfilled. Frankly, I have had enough of all this negativity. This board is doing an incredibly great service for everyone who works at GCI these days.
ReplyDeleteRe: 6:18 a.m....I don't think it's a crazy idea. I've heard many potential advertisers here complain about the ridiculously high ad rates. I don't know if those are set by corporate or the local sites. I've also heard there are ways to work around the rates if you know who to talk to and how to talk to them, which makes me wonder if local small business owners and others who aren't in the "in" crowd might be getting shafted.
ReplyDelete10:35: I prefer to think of some or our upper managers as STDs.
ReplyDeleteI hear the rumbles about the New Jersey Today idea, but I am also not surprised that we have yet to see any announcement. It would be one hell of a step that could cost GCI its foothold in one of the nation's richest states. I hope the delay is because the powers are taking a second look at this idea of consolidating the New Jersey papers. People identify with the cities where they live, and putting it all together in a statewide paper would be a huge mistake. They could do the same with a New York Today, or a Wisconsin Today, but those would be a huge error, too.
ReplyDeleteRe: 10:02am
ReplyDeleteMy experience in over 10 years as a GCI ad manager & director was that even though I always had an MBO program, they seemed designed to pay out as little as possible by including things that were out of your control. I never received bonuses when I did not exceed revenue goals, so why does the top management??
With total revenues down about 24% in the first two months, that equates to about 400 million less in rev dollars than 1Q of 2008. Our expenses would have to be about 100 million less than 1Q 2008 just to keep us in the black.
ReplyDeleteEarnings should come out on April 20th. It will be interesting to see the final numbers. If total revenues are only down 20%, that could indicate that the worst is over and March numbers saw a little improvement, if we are still in the 24% range or worse, then we probably haven't hit bottom yet and I see more expense cuts coming down the road.
I heard that CNY papers are cutting all niches and special sections by April. Also cut out all the ad services and sent them down to the Binghamton center. They started down there this week and the ones that didn't transfer will be done tomorrow.
ReplyDeletehttp://gannett.com/go/newswatch/2009/mar/nw0319-1.htm
ReplyDeleteLooks like someone at corporate IS reading the newspapers and websites!! Is this new?
Just a suggestion. I like to vent too and analyze bonuses vs. profits and all the corporate goings on. But I would also suggest, especially the NJ people, to start researching your positions NOW...while you have an income. Read up on how Cobra works. Get the REAL facts about unemployment and furloughs, etc. Gather any correspondence you've gotten from GCI regarding employee benefits (health ins, life ins, etc.) Hewitt/Gannett/BCBS and Caremark are NOT going to help you or answer questions when you are laid off. Trust me. You will be lost in a whirlpool of voicemail, emails and phone calls, all of which will be ignored.And if you or a family member are insured through GCI and are ill, there are difficult days ahead of you so prepare now as much as you can.
ReplyDeletePersonally, if I weren't so ill myself, I'd try to get us together on some of these health care issues. I can't go into detail about what I've gone through but most of it would make your blood run cold. But I will say this much. Imagine finishing a session of chemo, standing at the pharmacy, sick as a dog. You are waiting for meds and the pharmacist says you aren't covered. And...your meds are $10,000. And,you had Hewitt take $1500 out of your checking account 6 weeks ago to pay your Cobra premium. trouble is, Hewitt and GCI are "behind" in telling Caremark you are paid up. You would THINK that Hewitt or HR could just fax something to Caremark and take care of this...right? Wrong. So you either:
1) Pay for the meds out of pocket.
2) Wait
3) Do without them.
I spent the next 4 DAYS calling everyone I could think of. Begging, pleading, trying to use common sense...faxing cancelled wire transfers, sitting on hold, waiting for phone calls that never came. That was over 8 months ago and I've only gotten back 3/4 of what I laid out. My credit card is in collection, I'm broke and I'm sick. I don't want to see ANYONE have to go through this. But from what I hear from other ex co-workers, this is the rule and not the exception.
I deeply resent the comments from people on here who ridicule some of us for thinking GCI should be taking care of us cradle to grave and we didn't see the future and prepare ourselves. Inferring we were taking night classes in real estate instead of concentrating on our jobs. (a complete contradiction, BTW, of the very thing he accuses us of). Who the hell had time for ANYTHING when you were expected in at 5AM and was chewed out for not working hard enough when you then tried to leave at 5PM? Worked either Saturday or Sunday of every weekend? I barely had time to SLEEP with alone take any courses?! I have never expected a company to take care of me cradle to grave. But I DID however expect our insurance company to live up to it's agreement. I pay my premiums ON TIME, you cover me. You make money off the healthy employees and lose money on me Sorry but that's the NATURE of the insurance industry! (Just ask AIG)
Please...just be practical and educate yourself as much as you can. Learn all the coverage rules, the F-U clauses, the pitfalls to look out for. That way, you won't have any surprises. But most of all, learn your RIGHTS under the Cobra Omnibus Act, your state insurance laws, Caremarks policies, etc. Start a file and write down the date, time and name of everyone you speak with. KEEP EVERY SCRAP OF PAPER! Take copious notes.
With revenue down and the bosses looking to cut expenses why is there still an office in Chicago selling ads for USA Today and USA Weekend? The office is located on Michigan Ave, one of the most expensive streets in the city, guessing rent is well over $30,000 a month. If they are serious about cutting back on expenses why don't they consolidate this office in the glass tower and have all the sales people under one roof.
ReplyDelete12:17 PM
ReplyDeleteCOBRA, as part of ERISA, is federal. Maybe you could make a call or shoot an email off to your senator's office immediately.
Anon 12:32 - Before you post on this blog please get your facts straight, there are 3 division in the Chicago office, USA Today, USA Weekend and Franchise Xpress. Between the 3 of them I am 100% positive they bring in enough revenue in ad sales to justify thier office space in the Windy City.
ReplyDelete6:18am and 11:05am
ReplyDeleteThey have lowered the rates, and given all new advertisers a substantial credit line so they don't come up with the $$ in advance of their ads, plus there are small business contracts that are so reasonable that it has devalued newspapers in general. Ad rates at Gannett are too reasonable these days.
1:59....reasonable in relation to what? the usual going rate at a paper or what would be reasonable for the average person or small business. Not long ago someone wanted to put a half a business card sized ad for 3 days in the paper and it would have cost him a week's profit almost. I would think Gannett's papers each have to report to the ABC individually so each papers should get it's own rates.
ReplyDelete1:59. substantial credit lines to new advertising customers?? hmmmm...
ReplyDeleteIncompetence. I think that overall sums up why papers are failing. At our paper this morning they "ran out" of a whole section while putting them together for single copy, which in stupidity gets out the door last around here. 3,000 or so papers out the door missing a whole section (Life, which includes the tidbits a lot of readers desire) plus whatever ads were supposed to be in it. Nobody caught it until they realized they were out. Amazing. But around here nobody's head rolls...just a shrug of the shoulders, an "oh well", and on they go. The worst... higher management most likely won't hear about it, and our people if they do would just point a finger and tell them not to let that happen again, which of course it does. This paper is it's own worse enemy and Gannett doesn't even know it, or care if it does. Sad.
ReplyDelete11:55 Scott -- take a look at the recent SEC filings and you will see GCI has 41,500 employees or FTEs. That compares to 42,000 last year, as said in the annual report. Conclusion: we have lost 500 FTEs overall. Since I know many of those who left, their salaries accumulated do not come close to anything like the figures you suggest.
ReplyDelete9:41 PM Thanks for asking!
ReplyDeleteNew Jersey has been made to feel like the bastard stepchild of Gannett. While there is much we could be reporting about the problems which will most assuredly find their way to all of the company we have effectively been silenced.
Jim, here's a shameless plug for a cool (and easy) online project from basketball land (Louisville). We've got NCAA Tournament brackets posted for our U.S. senators, members of congress, local CEOs, etc.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rednbluefans.com/photo/photo/listFeatured
Anyone else notice a missing character at that investor conference Weds? Where was Tara and any comment on ContentOne. I was thinking of this because ContentOne was supposed to spearhead coverage of March Madness, and yet I hear nothing of these efforts. Do you think it was just a ruse to coverup the demise of Gannett News Service?
ReplyDelete3:37 pm: Tara Connell may have been there; we just didn't hear her speak.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was surprised Chris Saridakis didn't discuss ContentOne. My hunch is that the Obama inauguration test didn't produce enough favorable data.
Seems like Saridakis or Craig Dubow could have found a way to make at least a passing reference to ContentOne, after all the attention it got at the UBS conference in December.
Of course you don't point out this AP article showing how Gannett's CEO took a fairly dramatic pay cut over the last year, nearly commensurate with the performance of the stock price over that time. Now that it's been pointed out to you, we'll get to see the extent of your real, snarky intentions, and whether or not you'll post this to the front of your page:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003953260
3:48 pm: You're digging yourself into an even deeper hole. I reported the fact that Dubow's 2008 pay had been cut in half from 2007 on Tuesday -- TWO DAYS AGO. Here's the short URL: http://tinyurl.com/cdfn7k
ReplyDeleteI was randomly selected to appear at my unemployment office recently.
ReplyDeleteThe rep was very familiar with GCI but couldn't elaborate. But he did say that it made them wonder why GCI always had so many job openings and why so many were voluntarily leaving!
A cut from 8 Million to 3.1 Million is 38.75%. Stock dropped 79%. Pay should have been 1.68 - about what he would have gotten with NO BONUS
ReplyDelete3:48 PM
ReplyDeleteI think you're a day behind things. I read that information (and formed my own opinion)on here yesterday.
RE: 3:46 PM
ReplyDeleteYeah, but Jim, didn't Dubow tout Content one as Gannett's saving grace well after the inauguration?
It was obvious the effort failed on that very day and online numbers can be gotten within a few days.
I just don't see the correlation.
3:37 Jim, yes, but Dubow introduced everyone on the dias at the beginning, including Moon, who didn't speak. I don't think Moon was really wanted there because USA Today's performance was so dismal, since it looks like revenues and circulation have both imploded there. But the absence of any mention of Tara and ConentOne is telling, I think. My contention from the outset is that ContentOne was not a serious initiative, but a cover to get rid of Gannett News Service. I still hear nothing of it involving March Madness, but maybe others know what it is doing in the next weeks.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think is happening is that the Crystal Towers are in a panic over declines in ad revenues that are continuing, even as I write this. They have been quietly hiring tons of people for digital. Yet, while usage is up for digital, revenues are down because ad rates have collapsed for Internet ads. The bad is getting worse. The chickens are coming home to roost for a company that refused to diversify, and insisted their plans for newspapers and TV was the future.
The Newspaper Network of Central Ohio gave bonuses to some managers in excess of $2400.00.
ReplyDeleteThis has got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Gannett wants me to go green to save them money, yet they pay some worthless managers extra money. On top of that, I had to take a furlough. Can anyone say AIG?
3:48 - You're obviously a corporate puke! Standing up for Dubow. The company is in shambles and the stock is worthless. What did you expect? His severance is $30 million. Is that not enough?
ReplyDelete4:57 pm: Roger, that!
ReplyDelete5:21 pm - I agree that it is outragious that ANY managers at the Ohio community newspapers should get any kind of bonus.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the circulations of these newspapers has been plundging that last year or so.
The size of the papers have shrunk and the quality has, as well.
People in those communities loath the papers and Gannett both. They see the paper as a detriment to their communities, not an asset.
Please tell us the problems you are seeing at your Ohio paper. Is your publisher and EE carpetbaggers brought in from somewhere else and live nowhere near the Ohio newspaper they work for? I hear that a LOT!
3:57 According to my calculator, a cut to 3.9 million from 8 million is a drop of 61.25%. I agree that 3.9 is still too much and I think that all executive pay should be in non-voting stock,which they can't sell. Executives should rise and fall with the company as a whole.
ReplyDelete4:57 p.m.:
ReplyDeleteIf your website is using the NCAA widget -- and it probably is -- it's using a ContentOne project that has been put together by USA TODAY, the former GNS employees who are now part of ContentOne, and other employees from other divisions.
http://www.delawareonline.com/section/marchmania
Words of wisdom...
ReplyDeleteGet out as soon as you can, because the worst is yet to come.
I once loved this business, but as most of you know corruption and greed has infiltrated our company... no different than what we're seeing w/ so many other companies now. Your manager, their manager, your publisher, all the way up to the top will sell you out, without thinking twice.
ALL of the signs are pointing to certain collapse and failure... and it will come sooner than anyone can imagine. So many good people (aka worker bees) are the victims. I certainly wish all of them the very best...and good luck picking up the pieces.
Did any other sights get this e-mail today besides Springfield?
ReplyDeleteHi all!
We’re noticing that a lot of employees are using different variations of our products’ names. Please carefully review the following branding standards for Metromix and MomsLikeMe.com. These standards came from corporate, so please help us ensure that we’re all using consistent branding standards for our products. We appreciate the attention you’ll give to this matter.
Metromix
Never break up the word. It’s always one word. Never make the second “m” capital, it’s always lower. As in: Metromix
When using the city, Metromix should always be first, followed by the city. As in: Metromix Ozarks
When starting a sentence, the “m” is always capital, whether with or without the .com. As in: Metromix.com was born in Chicago.
When talking about Metromix as a concept, without the .com, the “m” is always capitalized. As in: I have been working for Metromix for nearly a decade.
The only time the “m” is lowercase is when you’re in mid-sentence and using the .com. As in: Thanks from metromix.com for attending our event.
MomsLikeMe.com
When using MomsLikeMe.com, the M, L, and M that begin each word are always capitalized. As in: Many Gannett properties have a MomsLikeMe.com website.
When using the city with the URL, the beginning letter of the city should always be capitalized. As in: Chat with 3,000 moms at Ozarks.MomsLikeMe.com
Also, for our newest local product, please follow the below standard:
MyOzarksOutdoors.com
When using MyOzarksOutdoors.com, the M, O, and O that begin each word are always capitalized. As in: View hundreds of hunting and fishing photos online at MyOzarksOutdoors.com
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the branding standards for our products.
@5:54 p.m. - your calculator is broken.
ReplyDeletePension update: I met with my financial planner today and am going to roll my paltry pension money into my newly established IRA with no tax penalty. He said, however, that if I had had a signficant amount, he would have suggested leaving it there IF the amount was not over what is guaranteed by the pension equivalent of the FDIC (sorry, forgot the acronym). I was sorely tempted to take the cash and live with the tax implications, but he convinced me that was shortsighted. Anyway, good luck to all dealing with same issues and I hope all of you have received pension info by now. If not, email Tom Burgum, top retirement guy at Gannett. I did and it was amazing how fast things happened after that.
ReplyDeleteI do not think the pension increases after you leave, roll it over and invest it.
ReplyDeleteEVERYONE PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT 12:17 PM HAS WRITTEN!
ReplyDeleteI have gone through the same maze of COBRA, YBR (Hewitt) and Gannett Corporate runarounds and incompetence. YBR is the biggest fiasco Gannett could ever have dumped on us. You can have your doctors, caseworkers, HR people(if they are allowed), etc. talk to them to get you what you are entitled to have. Their most pressing desire is to get you off the phone. Thy will promise to call you back and rarely, if ever, do it. Statements they generate on what you owe are confusing, give different due dates, and generally seem to want to attack and confuse you at the time you are sickest and least able to do battle.
Hewitt operates with a total lack of concern for US and they show the lack of professionalism we have come to expect with anything related to Gannett.
Without being overly dramatic, I have suspected that Gannett believes that if the stress of your actual layoff doesn't kill you, the aggravation involved in getting your medical benefits will bring you to the brink of suicide-- saving them more money!
7:26
ReplyDeleteAn Associated Press analysis of Gannett Co. figures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission show the company slashed CEO Craig Dubow's pay package by 60% last year, passing along the financial misery that has tormented the largest U.S. newspaper publisher. - March 19, 2009 9:46 AM ET
2:13 &2:18
ReplyDeleteThese are facts not rumours. You must not work in advertising or you would already know this.
"sights"
ReplyDelete"dias"
Countless other embarrassing mistakes. Learn to spell, type, and write.
I think eliminating 1,000 production jobs at 25 newspapers is a big announcement.
ReplyDeleteDickey said it yesterday. Did we miss it?
If there is a press close to your newspaper that has a window... start looking for work.
St Cloud Times President/Publisher escorts more employees out of the offices today jobs eliminated after 10 years. Big fat man on outside pretty weak inside. RIP to our fellow friends who have been let go from this poorly run romper room.
ReplyDeleteHey 10:00 PM, I find worse spelling errors in my morning newspaper. Get over yourself. No one cares about spelling on a blog. Or in a newspaper.
ReplyDelete10:29 p.m.
ReplyDeleteWho got let go from the SC Times!?! I didn't even know anything was going on. Nice to be kept in the loop.