No to the logo

Date: 13 September 2006

The quality of my day is measured by the number of times Grouty barges in and announces he's had an idea. Grouty is the MD and about as lovable as the Porridge sitcom character he's the spit of, hence the nickname.

Just one grand Grouty entrance is enough to ruin the day. Hell, just one's been known to sour an entire week.

His biggest problem is that he's "into" cars, so I get all the grief. You'd think he'd be fascinated by finances, being MD and all, but no, so it's yours truly, the fleet manager, he comes to and the finance director lives a life untroubled by the latest Big Idea. This week his grand plan is to get the entire sales fleet emblazoned with the company logo, with a view to eventually swapping everything to "a motor that'll send our brand awareness to the moon, like a Chrysler 300C". I mean, what do you say to that? Actually, we have a little code. If, miracle of miracles, I actually agree with him, I say "absolutely" and let him ramble. If not, I reply: "I'll look into it", which means "there's no chance, pal, have you finally cracked?" The one problem being, I'm the only one who understands the code.

In a rare deviation from the norm, I actually did look into it. After all, I'd be a hero if I got the sales guys into a fleet of 300Cs. But our costs provider revealed what should have been patently obvious to any sane boss: 47 pence per mile for the CRD diesel, against 29ppm for our current batch of Mondeo TDCis. Of course, I can't tell him that because it would reveal his worst kept secret: that he's an idiot. So I'll just have to hope he forgets.

The cost is not the only reason it's a half-baked idea. All logo'd cars really do is let the driving public know how appallingly your staff behave on the road. Case in point, I was in London the other day when a Mini from a well-known estate agent overtook me, only to slam on the brakes and park up 100 metres later. Instead of thinking: bloody Mini drivers, you've got a target for your ire: bloody (insert company name here) estate agents. Same'll go for us. Everyone will ignore the logos right up to the point when top salesman "I'm just round the corner" Dave undertakes on the motorway, phone clamped to his ear. Cue angry calls, which switchboard will put straight through to me. So this is my plan: set up a mate to complain about a van driver he's identified from the company logo and get him to ring when I've got a legit appointment with Grouty. Then put it on speaker phone and, bam, idea extinguished, everyone saves face. Honestly, that's what passes for work round here.

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