Is Your Journey Really Necessary? Er, no.
Heard a spokeswaffle for these jokers on Wake Up to Money this morning. The usual pressure group whinge about there not being enough roads, and too much tax blah blah.
I was most disappointed not to hear their underlying assumptions being questioned. One of their complaints was that the economy was being damaged because people were late for appointments.
And you wonder... how? I've seen a lot of reps in the course of my work, and they're more often late than not. But since I never expect them to be on time, it doesn't concern me. On the other hand, I frequently question the purpose of their visit. Lots of reps are told by their employers that they have to call on all their accounts on a strict rota. I always tell them not to bother. I don't need to see someone every month, or even every two months. Once a quarter is more than enough.
A lot of the time, they turn up just to give you a new price list. Or to tell you about a new price list, which they then have to send by email. Or they arrive with a laptop to show you pictures on a web site of their newly announced products.
The whole travelling rep job description dates from a time before we had email and the rest of the internet, and before we had mobile phones. Most of the reps I see, I'd rather they were just available when we needed to speak to them - able to answer the phone and confirm something, for example, instead of being "in meetings" and "on the road" all the time.
For someone to travel 3 hours up the motorway for a half hour meeting and then 3 hours back home again - well, that's always struck me as preposterous.
So, fuck off, Road Users' Alliance, and rethink your priorities. In other news, looks like they're thinking of targeting speeding motorists as a means of reducing emissions. Quite a good idea: and a side-effect of this will be to reduce congestion (because speeding motorists only ever catch up slower vehicles and then bunch up and become mired in "heavy traffic".). It's chaos theory, innit?
I was most disappointed not to hear their underlying assumptions being questioned. One of their complaints was that the economy was being damaged because people were late for appointments.
And you wonder... how? I've seen a lot of reps in the course of my work, and they're more often late than not. But since I never expect them to be on time, it doesn't concern me. On the other hand, I frequently question the purpose of their visit. Lots of reps are told by their employers that they have to call on all their accounts on a strict rota. I always tell them not to bother. I don't need to see someone every month, or even every two months. Once a quarter is more than enough.
A lot of the time, they turn up just to give you a new price list. Or to tell you about a new price list, which they then have to send by email. Or they arrive with a laptop to show you pictures on a web site of their newly announced products.
The whole travelling rep job description dates from a time before we had email and the rest of the internet, and before we had mobile phones. Most of the reps I see, I'd rather they were just available when we needed to speak to them - able to answer the phone and confirm something, for example, instead of being "in meetings" and "on the road" all the time.
For someone to travel 3 hours up the motorway for a half hour meeting and then 3 hours back home again - well, that's always struck me as preposterous.
So, fuck off, Road Users' Alliance, and rethink your priorities. In other news, looks like they're thinking of targeting speeding motorists as a means of reducing emissions. Quite a good idea: and a side-effect of this will be to reduce congestion (because speeding motorists only ever catch up slower vehicles and then bunch up and become mired in "heavy traffic".). It's chaos theory, innit?
posted by Anonymous at
Monday, November 14, 2005
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