[Rick Lee]

In catching up on work emails today, I saw our new monthly non-revenue quotas for 2009, which are probably unattainable for folks with small territories who live in big cities and totally unrealistic for folks who have huge territories in non-coastal cities.

In 2008 we had to have 35 database activities per week, eight of which had to be either in-person or telephone meetings with clients or prospects. Not too unreasonable at seven per day. And it was totally reasonable for folks like me who live in Phoenix and whose territory goes from Seattle to Austin. Obviously, I have to do most of my client contact via phone and email with occasional trips. And of course, my boss always complained about my very spartan expense reports when I did travel. I never expensed a personal meal or even personal mileage when driving to meet a friend or see a concert in a city I was visiting.

For 2009 we are expected to have 10 in-person meetings PER WEEK, phone meetings no longer count and we also have to call 10 clients or prospects per day. Of the 15-20 new clients I stole from competitors in 2008, I only met ONE of them in person. All others were done through multiple emails and phone calls, which no longer count.

It's bad enough that this stuff is more important to mgt. than actual revenue. But now we have all been warned that we'll be put on double secret probabtion if we fall short one month and could be terminated if our three month average is short. I seriously wonder if this is just a way to get folks fired for cause instead of laying them off. Surely, mgt. knows their folks in Minneapolis, El Paso, Phoenix, Albuquerque can't possibly line up six in-person meetings per week. Last time I rode my bike to CA and met with seven clients in four cities over a week, it took me almost a week of phone calls and emails to line them all up. Time to polish that resume.