senior software engineer

software engineer

senior product manager

sales representative

publisher

Elsevier

This was a difficult task as no day is ‘typical’ and each is extremely varied and ever changing. Daily 9 - 5pm task.  Although, my shift started 9 - 5pm, I generally get a head start around 8:30 to get me through another business day.
 1. Review my to-do list from yesterday
          2. Re-prioritize my list for today
          
          3. Sort through my e-mail
                • Delete worthless messages
                • Answer emails
                • Sort out those that require more time or extra work to answer
                        – move them to my to-do list.

8:30-10:30
        Since this is my most productive time of day I try to tackle my most demanding project.
        This is when I would write important letters, work on a report for the school board, update
        or refine a data sheet. 

11:00
        Great time for meetings.  This is a nice to take a break from desk work and it has a
        definite end time (lunch)

12:00
        Lunch (Away from my desk, because I need to refresh and rejuvenate)

1:00
        Return phone calls, respond to emails, work on to-do list

2:30-4:00
        Do data entry, send or pay bills, prepare mailings, things that are more routine and
        don’t require as much energy.  This is a good time to get routine jobs complete.

4:00-5:00
        Burst of final effort to complete my to-do list. Sort out things that can be moved
        to tomorrow’s list.  This time of day is my best ‘sorting’ time – complete short,
        easy projects, request information from others for my projects, clean off my desk, etc.

In between all of this I answer the phone and deal with the immediate needs of customers and co-workers.  As the face of the business, it is important that I handle interruptions to my schedule with graciousness and unruffled efficiency.

There are times when a few co-workers made poor decisions because lack of team work.  However, you take on that extra responsibility to represent you Company as best as possible.

The hardest part of the job no available for manager.  However, I have learned to build my own financial practice from the ground up.

The most enjoyable part of the days was I have completed all of my daily task in a timely fashion.  In addition, I enjoyed solving problems, creating standard operating procedures, and making customers smile by going beyond their expectations.

A typical day of work starts with reviewing emails in Microsoft Outlook 2010. I look for email alerts that may have been generated from System Center Operations Manager 2012. I also look for email alerts that may have been generated from Symantec Backup Exec or NetBackup. I also look for email alerts that may have generated from Mcafee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.6. I also look for email alerts that may have been generated from Service Now such as trouble tickets or work requests. In addition to configuration and troubleshooting any incidences (or request), I continue to work on projects such as new servers builds (whether physical Dell or HP Proliant servers or VMWare 5.x servers) with Windows 2003 and 2008 OS. Next I continue to work on other projects with different departments such as Human Resources, Finance, Marketing or Sales. I also continue to fulfill work requests in AD for new hires or departures; new email and user accounts; troubleshooting DHCP scopes as well as DNS. I also create and modify DFS replication sites. Each month I configure, test and deploy security patches via LANDesk 7.1 and Altiris 7.1. While at Reed Elsevier Technology Services I've learned many different aspects of engineering, planning and implementation in a mixed use environment from a Windows view. While working at RETS I have had the benefit of working with different managers and their styles. I have even had plenty of opportunities to lead groups and act as management while other managers are out of the office. I am great at working in a team setting as well as a single resource. I have received a Spirit Award for contributing to the employment atmosphere with a positive "can do" attitude and great customer focus. The hardest part of my job is the unexpected and unknown. However that's a great part of working in the IT field. Everyday can bring new challenges to learn from. The most enjoyable part of my job is working with technology that continues to evolve and improve. Learning new information enlightens the mind.

Elsevier is definitely a good company to their employees. They have a lot of events like department Christmas parties, building-wide Christmas parties, costume contests at Halloween, one team outing a year for the team you work on, etc.

The training was very stressful, though. Elsevier does NOT have a good training method in place. I came from a company that had one-on-one training for a few weeks for new positions to a company that had little written documentation (or at least, little you could locate or that was up-to-date), that had the mentality of just giving you a crash course and throwing you in the deep end, hoping you could swim. I can't tell you how many times I was told "Oh yeah, you're supposed to do that. No one told you? Well, you've been told now." Very frustrating and even defeating.

A typical day in my position was either feast or famine. Usually, you either feel overwhelmed with how much you have to do, or your scrounging around for something else to work on. In the field I work in, though, this seems to be the norm, not something specific to Elsevier. The hardest part of this job is working with the authors. Too often you run into authors who are unpleasant to work with, but because they're considered a customer that must be kept happy, you have to just weather their attitude and hope you have a short schedule rather than a long one. The most enjoyable part is seeing the final product that you've spent months working on in it's complete, professional looking format, with your name on the copyright page as someone who worked on the project. Another good aspect of working here is that most of the people are very friendly, so I had kind people to talk to every day and who were always happy to help if you had questions.

Overall, I liked the company and enjoyed my time working here. Unfortunately for me, though, they conducted cuts in my area, which resulted in me losing my job due to lay offs.

The Human Resources Director, the Director of US Inventory Management (IM) and a local St. Louis HR Manager are engaged in an ongoing civil conspiracy against me in which they are depriving me my right to free trade in my profession, denying my right to possess my personal property, interfering with any opportunity I have to gain employment and continue to defame me through use of false light, libel and slander.
The Director of US IM sent me a letter in which she stated that I caused the IM department to become "unable to function" and that I "insisted on recording every interaction" with my coworkers and managers. First, Elsevier is a $22 billion company and I did not cause the IM department to be "unable to function" at any time. Second, I did not record every interaction with my cowrkers and managers. I did record when I reported violations of company policy and/or law as well as specific instances of harassment and hostility being directed at me but that was not ongoing for the duration of my career with Elsevier. I had earned multiple promotions and awards in a short time. It was only when I reported harassment that I made any recording. Unfortunately even with recorded evidence of harassment there is nothing a victim can do when the DIrector of Human Resources joins in the harassment, threats and hostility.
Elsevier lies. They claim they are "committed to retaining" but then pull "employment at-will" out after you accept the offer and have already turned down other offers.
Elsevier is not even committed to free speech. My friend and former (first) supervisor at Elsevier was going to provide me a letter of recommendation but was threatened with termination if she did so. Elsevier owes its existence to freedom of speech but denies that basic human right to its own US employees. Run, don't walk away from this company!
It's a shame this site forces us to give at least one star for every category. Too bad they don't offer up a big red 'X'.

Work life balance and mental health are a high priority at Elsevier. As such they have generous PTO, flexible hours and work locations (I have been working remotely for 18 months without issue), and plenty of opportunities for stress relieving activities. The people are really great, and they have ample training opportunities/resources available.  

Like most large companies there is a fair amount of red tape involved in any decision that is made. There are also a lot of meetings, emails, and email newsletters sent out. Taken individually it's not a lot, but all together it's quite a bit of information to process every day.

One of the major cons IMHO (or a plus for some people) is Elsevier's political stances. Being an international company I didn't expect them to have (or voice) a U.S. political stance, but during the 2020 Election they clearly supported one side over the other, and they weren't shy about letting the employees know which side they supported in their internal communications. 

Since then it's has gotten more and more political, to the point where people on the opposite side of the political spectrum don't feel free to be themselves. This "inclusive" company is doing everything they can to exclude certain political beliefs.

Personally I don't feel like it is appropriate for an international company to be supporting any political candidates in their company wide communications. I would prefer a company that is politically neutral instead. 

F.Y.I. if you are a U.S. based employee you are now required to get the Covid vaccine to work here. 

I don't know if things have massively changed in the last five years, but when I worked at Elsevier it was a bunch of disconnected, discombobulated compartments, none receiving the support they needed to properly pay their people or often fix the problems that were in play at any given time.  Little to no money was supplied for employee satisfaction (we were forced to assemble a team and were expected monthly to try and cheer up our department with no resources) and, save for an occasional general meeting, everyone was left to their own devices without company leadership/guidance/assistance of any kind.  The tech support team constantly re-iterated the same issues for months/years with popular products in every mandated team meeting that everyone knew would go nowhere.  None of our suggestions for improving workflow, company culture, or anything would make it past a certain level of management; it was an American branch of a Dutch company and we were seen as useful idiots, tools in a toolbox at best.  They tried to send all of our jobs to India when I was there and only failed to do so because the problems that it brought across the board juuuust outweighed the opportunity to fire all of us and make a nickel along the way.  If you want to work for a company that may, at any moment, breathe a sigh of relief and liquidate your department without warning or compensation, Elsevier's a top choice.

If you like being rewarded for selling units of a product that do not work as promised. Great. Sell from screen shots of mock up products, then have to lie when they don’t work. Feels great. Forced to sell products that are not intended for the customers you sell it to. Your products makes faculty and students lives more difficult. If you don’t have a conscious. This is the place to be.  Make your sales goal? Congrats. Your increase is 20% next year. Never want a chance at promotion or new position in another division? This place is for you. Products don’t work, just tell the customers we’re working really hard on making them do what we promised, give them something  free to make up for it. 
Products don’t work in demo presentations? Blame the wifi and bandwidth.  Want to track your revenue for quota and bonus purposes? Good luck. If you ask, you will be ignored or attacked by management. This place broke my spirit. I am sad about the stress and depression I felt for the years I spent here, Next gen products were a disaster. Lying about product abilities is encouraged by management. Broke my heart to make sales to the faculty I loved. But I had to, to make my quota and keep my job. Nice co-workers. Great people who work so hard. So many stay because of the flexibility of Ed sales. But really are miserable. Morale is terrible. I left and never thought about it again. I should have gone years ago.

A typical day is relatively stress-free. Management in some areas is geographically dispersed which can make collaboration more challenging. Managers do make an effort to shed light on accomplishments, which is nice. Employee morale is average; hits occasional lows in times of restructuring and commission payouts (only happen several times a year), but this is pretty normal for any company. The hardest part of my job is self-motivation, since this is a given expectation of management and motivation does not usually come from them or others--this challenge is almost a blessing in disguise however, because it's something that everyone needs to learn and be able to have at any job...so in the long run it has helped me professionally. The most enjoyable part of my job is the fantastic location in NYC, hours and friendly people/connections I have acquired over the years. The experience you might have working here is really a coin toss, because there are so many drastically different departments, sectors, initiatives, etc. all of which operate differently and may have a difference type of culture. The only reasons I have seen people leave on their own accord have been due to lack of career advancement or issues with their comp plans. People here usually stay for a while and will eventually advance (with patience).

Elsevier has completely overturned it's culture over the last 5 years, since about 2013. We've transitioned into a "Technology Company" from what was a "publishing" company. New technologies and ways to leverage the vast ocean of scientific and medical content that we have has been made available and readily consumable in a plethora of new ways; just-in-time, on demand and even in predictive ways to result in much more and better benefit to humanity in general. Sounds like a sales pitch, but its true.  The culture has changed from one that is sales-centric (sales and curation of content) to technology-centric.  Good technologists are appreciated, encouraged, cultivated and recruited to drive our company's tech prowess to the forefront of our marketplace.  There is a never-ending churn to iterate over everything we do, all the time, measurable improvements in each cycle.  Neither management nor technologists fear massive undertakings - they are embraced and vanquished because they are the right thing to do for our company's future.  It is great to work in a company where "vision" is part of the culture from the very top down.

Was contracted to Tier II Help Desk by Modis. Modis lied about the position. It is not IT. The Help Desk job is customer service. You are micromanaged to death and harassed if you aren't constantly staring at a 9 in laptop screen for 8 hours. The work environment can be stressful because it is very unorganized. When you ask for assistance expect to be given incorrect answers on purpose while being sent on 15 hour expedition to find the correct answer. Modis contracts you for 6 months then lets you go 2 months into the contract. The managers lie to your face and tell you there is job security when there is none. If you have not been there for a year or more you will be fired eventually. The environment can be very negative. You would be better off pushing carts at the local Wal-Mart. 

They have a nice cafeteria but they will overcharge you. They hide the help desk contractors downstairs and you are not allowed to go upstairs with the real Elsevier employees. They offer free coffee and food. That is the only good thing. Beware. Contractors that have not been there a year or longer are treated like dogs.

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