Six Apart Founders Head To Disneyland Amid Company’s Job Cuts
File this under “poor timing.” Six Apart co-founder Mena Trott surprised husband and co-founder Ben Trott with what was described as an “irony-free trip to Disneyland” by Valleywag Editor Owen Thomas Saturday.
The irony is that Tuesday, the San Francisco, Calif. blog company cut 16 of its 200 employees.
“I’m so bad with surprises: I couldn’t resist telling Ben that I planned a last-minute trip for us to Disneyland,” Men Trott told her Twitter audience Friday.
A day at Disneyland might relieve some of the stress as ever more tech companies fall victim to the poor economy. However, such a move carries with it a public stigma, much like the PR nightmare AIG exec’s found themselves earlier this week in trying to explain a posh sales dinner while receiving billions in public bailouts.
(Photo: Jackson West)
The irony is that a trip to Disneyland surely meets the legal definition of “cruel and unusual punishment,” and therefore is certain to add stress to any hapless visitor’s life. To have subjected him to such an experience, Mena must be mightily pissed at Ben for some reason.
P.S. Love your new-ish redesigned layout. It’s a pleasure to read here!
Thanks, Anna. I give much of the credit for the new look to Chris Pearson. He’s developed Thesis, the theme PBN uses.
I agree that a Disneyland vacation when pink slips are flying was probably not Ben Trott’s idea of a getaway.
How is this any different from b5Media getting the biggest most expensive booth at BlogWorld complete with high end swag and big rooms at the MGM Grand at the same time they cut pay by more than half to most of their bloggers? At the same time their bloggers were walking out en masse because of the insulting pay packages Jeremy and team are going to conferences, planning the office Christmas party and hiring more full time workers.
Interesting question, Mark. I hope Jeremy adds his two cents to the debate. I’ve encouraged him to respond.
“Mark”, I’ve answered this in a half dozen places before, but let me repeat.
1. We don’t pay for booths. We give away some ads in exchange.
2. All the accoutrements for the booth were reused from last year.
3. The rooms were vastly cheaper than anywhere else on the stip due to a solid relationship we and I have with MGM. And while we could have gotten a handful of rooms cheaper, everyone staying together saved gobs on taxis.
4. The only “big” rooms were ones used for meetings, which were 1000$/day cheaper than booking a meeting room. And they were only 30$/day more.
5. All shows we do are always profitable. Going to less shows, spending less money would mean LESS money for bloggers.
Ultimately this rumour has been spread all around. Fundamentally shows are good for our business. While we are always striving for ways to make more money for less costs we always evaluate the best way to go about these things, the fundamentals of going to conferences continue to hold very, very true.
Fundamentally, though, discussions like this are a bit off base and almost silly. I mean, Ben and Mena are taking a trip to DW. That’s, what, 5K? Of their personal money? How many jobs would that save, really? How would that change *anything*?
It’s almost like when people saw Rock Band in the b5 offices and flipped out after the blogger pay thing. Because, y’know, the 100$ for Rock Band would have given each blogger an extra 5c/month if we hadn’t spent it? And either way b5 didn’t buy it, the team bought it with personal funds, and the Xbox is my personal one.
Ultimately whenever people look at little things like DW, BWE, Xbox’s, etc, and then figure somehow money is being taken from somewhere else, they should actually talk to the company they were or are working for about it because there is almost invariably a misunderstanding.
Hope this helps
Jeremy, thanks for your side. What’s missing appears to be the commonly misunderstood importance of appearances, or as former President Bill Clinton often put it: being able to “feel your pain.”
That lack of understanding is wide-spread. AIG executives repeatedly tried to explain their posh gatherings were actually to boost sales and paid for by corporate clients. However, in this atmosphere, such explanations (while strictly factual) don’t impart the sort of empathy expected by corporations in this economic situation.
So, naturally, spending $5,000 (whether from the corporate coffers or your own pocket) makes little difference to one of the layed-off employees worried how he’ll pay the mortgage. Again, its not whether its right or wrong, whether it would make any real difference, but whether it seems right.
Just today, the CEO of Goldman Sachs said he and other top executives would forego the usual holiday bonuses. GS is one of the profitable financial institutions on Wall Street. They could have continued the bonus tradition, but it just didn’t ‘appear right’ when their employees were struggling.
The problem with appearances is that folk get wound up without necessarily looking at the facts. AIG is a great example of both extremes. On the one hand they may just be pampering folk cause they can. On the other, a half million dollar junket might land 100MM in new deals.
Likewise, while blogger pay as a whole did go down we also trimmed more than half a million dollars in other expenses, cut all bonuses and a host of other things. But we still need to make money, need to support our bloggers, etc, and so yeah we’ll still do things that cost money as long as they continue to return more than they cost.
Utlimately AIG matters because it’s public funds. But issues like DW and Rock Band are internal issues folk should address internally. People speculating on it externally is obviously allowed, and perception is incredibly important. But if the only negative perception is externally, well I’d prefer to keep my head down and continue working my ass off to make as much money for our bloggers as possible vs worry too much about that. And if bloggers have questions or issues, they know how to ask (anonymously, on the record and even directly to me).
Perception is VERY important. Think of how a b5 blogger who had pay cut by three quarters feels after learning about a b5media Christmas party. Think about how that same blogger feels after receiving an email asking him to congratulate some bloggers because b5media is going to pay them full time. You can have good reasons. Heck they could be working for free for all we know. But we just lost a big chunk of pay so do we care about your reasons? No. We’re just going to be angry. We don’t care about the reasons.
When you present yourself as frivolous party animals singing karaoke and playing rock band or planning holiday festivities while folks had pay cuts it lowers morale. A lot. Yes Jeremy everyone can come to you to talk about it, but you’ll tell them it’s all necessary and it won’t make them feel any better. Even if it’s true. Someone on another blog compared it all to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Sure you might be spending money to make improvements or make more money. A blogger who is making $30 a month instead of the $250 he originally made isn’t going to want to see it your way.
Sure, but in that situation, if the blogger is bitter, everything b5 does will be seen the wrong way. If the blogger sees every dollar being spent as coming out of their pay instead of an investment making sure that there is space for the blogger to grow, then there’s every single thing b5 does will be seen in a negative light.
I mean, really, karaoke? C’mon. If people hanging out, having fun and paying for their own drinks makes a blogger upset, then everything is going to make them upset.
And while it sucks, and I empathize (all of my pay went down too), if a blogger has that perception that every expense is being taken from them instead of the truth that it’s being invested in insuring they have a future then there’s not a lot to do. Because we aren’t going to stop investing in our bloggers’ futures.
On this, I have to agree with Jeremy. When all arguments are boiled down, it is a matter of B5 investing in the company and continuing to pay its bloggers. Many companies could simply outsource the work to people that will churn out dozens of posts for peanuts. Or, they could slash the number of bloggers hired.
During these tough times, both employer and employee need to compromise. The blogger may need to accept lower pay in order to continue working and the employer may need to provide more transparency and understanding.
Six Apart’s CEO did the right thing by cutting his salary by 15 percent, when he dropped the 16 employees.