They are now expected to be jack (jills?) of all trades, who are also secretaries, accountants, logistics technicians, coffee brewers and schedulers of board rooms and catering services, dog walkers and day care providers. I've walked into offices to pick up parcels from poor receptionists who are still frantically putting the finishing touches on a package to go out because the boss needed to make last minute changes after the call for pick up was made, by which time poor receptionist had already embarked on a series of tasks for other bosses, and is trying to do 5 things at once, along with readying my package for me.
At that point, they really don't care if the package gets anywhere near it's destination. Off their desk is a real good start.
Expecting higher productivity for lower pay is what's causing this culture that you talk about. We can thank the bean counters (as Tom likes calling them) for that one.
cheers, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
At some point in the recent past, your humble servant opined:
> And, to be honest with you (as someone who works in the > business), I can tell you that the average receptionist or > mailroom staffer really doesn't care if the package gets > delivered. They care if the package gets off their desk. > Right now. So that when the boss comes, they can say, "Yup, > it's gone. Went out an hour ago." Then it's not their > problem any more. Not delivered? UPS screwed up, not me. > Call tracking, they'll fix it.
Malcolm, with much erudition, retorted:
This is a culture that needs to be changed. It's not good enough to say it's
gone - it needs to be delivered and the customer will think of both the
supplier and the deliverer. Of course it depends on the value of the items
being sent - think of the threads here about choices of delivery from camera
stores on high value items - but if you are sending something to someone, it
has a value.
Why should any delivery company change it's performance figures if the
senders don't much care. The real irony here, is they aren't even paying for
it. It's the recipient who picks up the bill for the item & the delivery!!
Malcolm
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