All of the above, although I don't have a strong opinion on Toyota being in Nascar - I'll let others worry themselves over that - it does irk me a little bit, but so does what nascar is today compared to what it was back in the days of true stock car racing.
I hope that Pierre does well. For his sake.
For us, I don't see the point.
I just don't see how this will translate to sales.
I had the same concern about Nortel sponsoring an F1 car.
Other than being able to get prospective customers (or to reward good customers - which can be considered unethical) into a tent with your name on it for a weekend of schmoozing, I don't see the connection between Unified Communications and auto racing.
If schmoozing is what it's about, we can do that at races and any other event anyway.
Perhaps if he scores a few wins or places high and mixes it up with some of the other drivers, people will wonder what the hell Avaya is and go searching the Internet.
That's exposure I guess. But hell, sometimes my eyes glaze over when I listen to someone spiel about what we do.
Unless there is some way to point at something at the event and say, "We made that happen. Its what we do." I don't get it.
The Vancouver Olympics allowed us to do that. As Nortel, we built the entire communications infrastructure - along with Bell as a partner. As Avaya, we continued the sponsorship.
"Our gear made everything to do with communications at the event possible - telephones, Internet access, all of the I.T. related communications, stats. updates, media support. All of it.
It all worked. We can do that for you Mr. Customer."
With auto racing, all we can say is, "We're paying to have our name on that car."
It's not like we own the team or anything like that. It's not like we're involved at all.
and as for things at work, there has been one round of lay-offs since the acquisition. They justified it somewhat, but what they didn't count on was that some people weren't going to stick around and put up with the rest of the bullshit. So, when the lay-offs "got us to the right size", that set us up to be under-staffed when people started leaving... and they have. There's only 3 people that do what I do in central Ontario. We used to be a dirty dozen.
Add to the fact that we have a use-it-or-lose-it vacation policy now, and everyone scrambling to use up their vacation rather than lose it, and we're not doing a lot of selling this summer. LOL!
It all just seems short-sighted and it can be frustrating if you let it get to you. Me. I just make sure that I'm doing the right things and that no one can call me on to the carpet.
Thus ends my 2 weeks of vacation.
and I'm taking Friday off, dammit!
All the while, the upper ranks are just-a-swirling. SO many changes. I just ignore it though. I find out what might affect me and forget the rest.
There have been people that I report to come and go without my ever meeting them. Heck, I've only met my immediate manager twice and as of tomorrow, I have a new one.
I know this guy though. He used to work at Nortel a few years ago. Good guy. Not sure how he is as a manager, though.
Whew! That turned into a vent.... thanks.
