The Problem Of Peddlers
More Fun With The Man
God save me from the attentions of an enthusiastic salesman.
Especially the clueless ones...
In my line of work, I get pestered occasionally by someone flogging a product. I work in XX field, their product is for recipients of XX field's oversight, so Hey Presto! Sell it to the oversight guy, and we'll all get rich!!
Er, not so much.
See, I have absolutely sweet F.A. to do with procurement. You'd need to go talk to another department entirely. My budget covers... well, nothing. I even have to "borrow" office supplies from Finance & Accounting when their admin goes on her lunch break and leaves the cabinet unguarded.
The second thing is the assumption that I can trot right down the hall and buttonhole the correct guy on your behalf.
Heh. As if...
I ran into this problem a lot when I was doing tech support. The average caller just assumed that everyone in the Compania de Manzana Computadoras resided in one big facility, and if I couldn't fix their issue, I'd just go scare up a software engineer in the next room.
The Man employs over 22,000 warm bodies. I know that's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things, but from one peon's perspective, it's a metric assload of people. In 8 years with The Man, I suppose I know 300 people fairly well, and I can pick another 200 out of a crowd. The guy that's in charge of buying left-handed concrete chippers? Not a clue, pal.
The other thing that the salesman doesn't grasp is how little The Man gets his own fingers dirty with construction projects. If we farm out the work to the lowest bidder, we're not buying anything at all. Best set up a booth at a trade show and hope the right people attend.
Also, the ethics issue. I don't know you (or your product) well enough to recommend it to anyone, much less an exec-level flack with the keys to the petty cash box. There's no benefit to me to go running around chasing down who you ought to be talking to. And, no, tossing an envelope full of Benjamins on my desk won't help. I'm not going to piss away a million dollars in future income for a weekend in Shreveport.
So, take a hike, Willy Loman. I've got better things to do with my time!
God save me from the attentions of an enthusiastic salesman.
Especially the clueless ones...
In my line of work, I get pestered occasionally by someone flogging a product. I work in XX field, their product is for recipients of XX field's oversight, so Hey Presto! Sell it to the oversight guy, and we'll all get rich!!
Er, not so much.
See, I have absolutely sweet F.A. to do with procurement. You'd need to go talk to another department entirely. My budget covers... well, nothing. I even have to "borrow" office supplies from Finance & Accounting when their admin goes on her lunch break and leaves the cabinet unguarded.
The second thing is the assumption that I can trot right down the hall and buttonhole the correct guy on your behalf.
Heh. As if...
I ran into this problem a lot when I was doing tech support. The average caller just assumed that everyone in the Compania de Manzana Computadoras resided in one big facility, and if I couldn't fix their issue, I'd just go scare up a software engineer in the next room.
The Man employs over 22,000 warm bodies. I know that's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things, but from one peon's perspective, it's a metric assload of people. In 8 years with The Man, I suppose I know 300 people fairly well, and I can pick another 200 out of a crowd. The guy that's in charge of buying left-handed concrete chippers? Not a clue, pal.
The other thing that the salesman doesn't grasp is how little The Man gets his own fingers dirty with construction projects. If we farm out the work to the lowest bidder, we're not buying anything at all. Best set up a booth at a trade show and hope the right people attend.
Also, the ethics issue. I don't know you (or your product) well enough to recommend it to anyone, much less an exec-level flack with the keys to the petty cash box. There's no benefit to me to go running around chasing down who you ought to be talking to. And, no, tossing an envelope full of Benjamins on my desk won't help. I'm not going to piss away a million dollars in future income for a weekend in Shreveport.
So, take a hike, Willy Loman. I've got better things to do with my time!
posted by El Capitan | 5:18 PM
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