This is not a major problem, but it gets annoying pretty quick.
I have to deal with a lot of sales reps. Tons of cold calls. Some of them come in and find out that we wouldn’t have any use for their products and leave. Others shoot the breeze and leave information to be passed along to the appropriate person. You never know. I give them a card for one of our staff members if I think it would be anything anyone here might use. Sometimes if what they’re selling seems to overlap departments, I’ll ask Linda what she thinks about who they should be referred to.
Well, today a guy from FedEx Kinkos comes in. He asks if we’ve ever used them or if we do a lot of printing, etc., or if there’s someone he can leave info for. The normal questions. Well, I tell him we’ve only had one or two projects in 6 years that we’ve needed any help for. But we do like to keep things on file in case we need a contact. The only thing in the last 3 years was some employee packets. My boss wanted to send them out, so he wouldn’t tie up my time making all these copies, but he needed them sooner than they could get them to him, so he just had me copy them. I’m in the middle of telling the sales rep this, when a coworker walks up and says, “We really don’t do that much printing. But we’ve used you before when we had books to print out. And we were happy with you.” Except she did it in sort of a tone like she knew more about it than I did. Ummm… OK… You helped put those books together, but I (yes, ME) worked til 6 pm that night and then went running all over Middletown, Cincinnati, and Dayton on my own time trying to find a place to get the things spiral bound. I did a lot more work on that project than she did. I was talking to the guy and you interrupted the conversation and made me look like I didn’t know what I was talking about. SHE was never in on the conversation my boss and I had about the new employee orientation packets, which is what I was discussing with the rep when he came in. SHE wasn’t here the day I had to run all over the friggin tri-county area taking care of this project. He was telling me about special pickup/delivery services when she interrupted about not needing any printing help.
And it’s not like she needed anything else in my area. She came over from her desk, talked to the guy, and went back to her desk.
This lady is nice, and I would consider her a friend. But there are certain things that my boss asks me to keep quiet about. It's HR... think about it... Mainly because if I discuss them with her, they get told to her husband (who works in the plant) and then it's all over the plant. So, it's not like everything I discuss with my boss ends up being normal conversation for the two of us. So, how does she know that we've never considered using them for anything else?
ARGH!
I have to deal with a lot of sales reps. Tons of cold calls. Some of them come in and find out that we wouldn’t have any use for their products and leave. Others shoot the breeze and leave information to be passed along to the appropriate person. You never know. I give them a card for one of our staff members if I think it would be anything anyone here might use. Sometimes if what they’re selling seems to overlap departments, I’ll ask Linda what she thinks about who they should be referred to.
Well, today a guy from FedEx Kinkos comes in. He asks if we’ve ever used them or if we do a lot of printing, etc., or if there’s someone he can leave info for. The normal questions. Well, I tell him we’ve only had one or two projects in 6 years that we’ve needed any help for. But we do like to keep things on file in case we need a contact. The only thing in the last 3 years was some employee packets. My boss wanted to send them out, so he wouldn’t tie up my time making all these copies, but he needed them sooner than they could get them to him, so he just had me copy them. I’m in the middle of telling the sales rep this, when a coworker walks up and says, “We really don’t do that much printing. But we’ve used you before when we had books to print out. And we were happy with you.” Except she did it in sort of a tone like she knew more about it than I did. Ummm… OK… You helped put those books together, but I (yes, ME) worked til 6 pm that night and then went running all over Middletown, Cincinnati, and Dayton on my own time trying to find a place to get the things spiral bound. I did a lot more work on that project than she did. I was talking to the guy and you interrupted the conversation and made me look like I didn’t know what I was talking about. SHE was never in on the conversation my boss and I had about the new employee orientation packets, which is what I was discussing with the rep when he came in. SHE wasn’t here the day I had to run all over the friggin tri-county area taking care of this project. He was telling me about special pickup/delivery services when she interrupted about not needing any printing help.
And it’s not like she needed anything else in my area. She came over from her desk, talked to the guy, and went back to her desk.
This lady is nice, and I would consider her a friend. But there are certain things that my boss asks me to keep quiet about. It's HR... think about it... Mainly because if I discuss them with her, they get told to her husband (who works in the plant) and then it's all over the plant. So, it's not like everything I discuss with my boss ends up being normal conversation for the two of us. So, how does she know that we've never considered using them for anything else?
ARGH!
I hate when people do that!
