John Linton
........which is only the unfortunate start to 'full swing' in the banal 'business Christmas season'.
December starts tomorrow and when I briefly looked at my diary I see there are more supplier, and possible future supplier, events to which I have been invited that I could attend lunches and evening 'events' each day of this week - on three days I could attend three events. Being the basically anti-social person that I am (I have no 'small talk' whatsoever) I have absolutely no ability to make any form of positive contribution to the 'host's' objectives and the combination of dull (to me) people, warm bottled beer, cheap wine and distressing 'food' make such events an excrutiatingly boring torture for me - and doubtless anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in close enough proximity to feel the need to make polite conversation. I understand that my attitude is not shared by many/any other people which I base on the evident enjoyment which other people seem to look forward to these events and I have sometimes wondered what is wrong with me for taking the views that I do.
Exetel has 26 'suppliers' this year who have been foolish enough to invite me to various 'Christmas' events and a further 7 companies that, for reasons best known to themselves, think we may buy from them in the very near future. Why any of these companies (with one exception) would think that inviting people to cram in to a room (which always seems too small for the number of people they invite) with noise volumes that make sensible conversation impossible (always assuming there actually were people there capable of saying anything worth listening to) would be either enjoyable or useful to the invitees or themselves remains beyond my comprehension. I think it's a frightening indictment of their joint lack of knowledge of their customer's different attitudes that they would continue to send me such invitations - presumably for those suppliers who have dealt with Exetel for many years the fact that I never attend such functions hasn't registered in their CRM databases.
A bit too - "Bah, humbuggish"? Quite possibly; but the 'art of selling' (and the conservation of scarce 'promotional' budgets) seems to be lost on the people within commercial companies who plan and execute the monstrosities that go by the name of customer Christmas parties - or perhaps they do achieve some benefits that I am unaware of. Mind you, there is the occasional exception and I really did appreciate, and was deeply flattered, to be invited to a Christmas lunch hosted by that company's chairman at Sydney's very best restaurant (Tetsuya's) - but I declined as I was sure that I wouldn't have been able to make any sensible contribution to conversation with people I had never met.
There are three 'supplier events' (nothing to do with the need to drink warm beer/bad wine) that I will attend this week which are all technology or 'operational briefings' by highly credentialled and well respected experts in their different fields. I get far fewer of such invitations and usually not from the suppliers themselves but from acquaintances who, for reasons that escape me, seem to think I would be a suitable person to share views with on the topics concerned and use their own company's invitations to give to me. I truly value these sorts of events as they are pure information dissemination without the 'clutter' of trying to sell some sort of product or service which both shortens the time of the 'event' and makes the information more easily understood. It is a requirement of any 'manager' responsible in some way for future planning to keep themselves as up to date as possible with new technologies/ways of using or selling new technologies and that is, for reasons I can't work out, becoming harder in Australia over the past year or so - though I think this possibly only applies to me with the different workload I now have and the type of company I am involved with.
I am also conscious that I am trying to cover far too many technology issues with the time I have available and that I am failing to deliver the required 'solutions' in the required time frames, if at all. I think that just as - "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" the road to mediocrity is paved with not applying enough thought and research to any individual 'product' by having too many products under the 'control' of too few intellectual 'microscopes'. I used to think that I had both the time and the need and the skills to keep abreast of the various options and developments in the simple product set that Exetel offers. I now have a view that isn't the case. I am hoping that the three briefings I will attend this week will help me solve that problem.
Although "it's Christmas season" for 'business' I'm not sure that is a very helpful view of life....but probably the real reason is that as I get older and older my ability to tolerate mindlessness, self interest and greed has almost entirely evaporated.