Coffee.com

Website Links

Description

I responded to a want ad for a service manager's position at Continental Coffee Company, also in Chicago. My intention was to drop super tech for relaxation and simple tech. They had the office complex named after them as the anchor client. I moved back to a big company. I figured it would be hard to outpace my learning curve with time temperature and volume. What I found was an entire industry supported by small appliances scattered across the entire country and even the planet. The service department was a chaotic mess. It consisted of scattered paper and politics. Product sales depended on the complimentary use of appliances. The sales department forced new equipment purchases by the truck loads. Service was considered a black hole. Service personnel roamed the city putting out an endless string of political and mechanical fires. What an unbelievable "opportunity" to show how equipment and service can make or break a company of any size on any scale. This is where I coined the phrase "Sometimes you have to let the fires burn while you search for the kids with the matches". Boy did my young family and I have work to do. Just as I had learned earlier, I started collecting data. I piled invoices to pick out the make, model and serial number of every unit purchased past and present. I scanned through weekly read outs for Customer Sales histories past and present. I started typing. At home my wife and kindergarten age son helped to alphabetize service call work sheets by customer so I could tell which manufactures units lasted longer, and what type of customers were service intensive. I loaded parts purchases to teach what units from which manufactures failed the most. I melded all info into one cohesive system of paper and computer with continuance flow. When my home made computer and software choked on the bulk early on, my boss got his boss, the president, to let me use his unused Compac luggable with this great application called Lotus, version 1.0. I could actually drag this beast into a meeting. I was in heaven. I recovered so much equipment no longer being supported by product sales that we didn't buy new for months on end. The poor Bunn-O-Matic salesman, John Fogarty, what a trooper, was never anything but a gentleman and teacher even after killing his golden goose. It wasn't long before I was involved in every new product and project that anyone contemplated. The projects varied from Gatorade bubblers to waffle makers. If it involved a cord it was sent for my evaluation, or for me to present, or to back up sales at the big meeting or trade show. I was producing my sales and equipment tracking reports for the sales departments at four of the largest Sysco houses in the country. For this I collected a second pay check from the home office. I also developed and ran the first 24 hour, 7 day a week service hot line with technical support in the industry. For this I collected a third paycheck from the home office. More on this hot line appears later.

Companies nearby