Instead of doing my usual route, today I decided to do a truck ride with my CRS. To contextualize, the CRSs sell Asia Brewery products, such as Vitamilk, Absolute, and Cobra to stores, wholesalers, dealers. They deliver all their own bookings as well as our Tiger bookings.
We depend on the CRSs for all our deliveries. If they don’t deliver, we don’t deliver. As TEs trying to get the biggest volume for our beers from our areas, it’s easy to fall into the trap of blaming our CRS for not being able to follow through on our orders or for not pushing our products enough. But after today, I now understand that their job is much harder than it looks.
First of all, they come in to work at 5:30 AM. For some, even earlier because their areas go as far as Tanay. I spent the day with my CRS Jan. It takes him 4 hours and a 6-ride commute to get to the office from his home. I asked him how many hours of sleep he gets in a day. Four, he says. Four!
Then comes the route itself. Jan had all kinds of brands filling up his truck. Andwith each brand comes various promos for different types of outlets. Price-offs. Plus ones. Merch promos.
We didn’t have Jan’s driver with us today, so he had to drive the truck himself, all while booking future orders, doing some PR work with the outlet owners, introducing new products, keeping track of old ones, issuing receipts, accounting for case and bottle deposits, and guiding me along the way. Not to mention the volume, opening, and booking quotas he has to meet on a daily basis.
And when all visits have been done, there’s still the traffic on the way back to the office. A line of trucks await our arrival. The CRSs take turns dropping all the empty cases and bottles returned during the day, which they all have to account for and present to the office. From there, at least for Jan, it’s a long way home, and tomorrow’s another day.
After all that, I’ve lost all my energy for complaining about anything inconvenient about work. And I’m left with so much respect for Jan, for the rest of the CRSs, and for anyone doing what it takes to get the job done.