SAGE has a culture of overwork and toxic, type A perfectionism. People are curteous, but there is a vibrant culture of passive aggression and disrespect in regards to pay, opportunity, and work/life balance. It’s a quiet office with little warmth or socializing.
Upper management tends to make false promises about advancement and raises. They spend money on retreats, meetings, and “business” meals, recklessly exceeding company guidelines, but then provide the excuse that the budget is just too tight for raises. And while you’re pinching pennies, enjoy hearing about their latest family vacation to Hawaii - no self awareness. Individuals hired because of a referral from an upper manager see better pay and advancement, with lower expectations. Favoritism is obvious and pervasive.
Extreme lack of diversity. By paying so low in an area where housing costs are so high, SAGE has unconsciously (I assume) discouraged candidates who are not from the immediate affluent areas, which are disproportionately white, and able to live with parents or able to rely on family support to pay rent.
The job itself is a never ending backlog of tedious tasks. Editors receive performance-based incentives (while you do not), so they will push you past your breaking point to get some extra pocket money for their upcoming European vacation they’ve told you so much about.
There is an absurd over-dependence on email and one day out of the office and you’ll come back to 50-100+ emails. Responses to emails are expected fairly quickly, so it’s frowned upon to disconnect from your email for a couple hours to focus on a project. Many hourly employees check and respond to emails off the clock. I would suggest not doing that and setting that expectation with your team from the get-go.
To compound the large workload peppered with constant email distraction, the programs you will spend so much time using are archaic and clunky. I can only imagine how many work hours could have been saved and used for more productive tasks if SAGE would invest in upgrading its primary book program - it’s not very “smart.”
If you can’t afford to be picky, but can afford the inflated local rent, SAGE is a foot in the door, otherwise, consider sparing yourself the drudgery.
