Part II:
“Wait a minute.” Neil blurted. “What are you talking about?”
Joe looked up from his palm-held computer for the first time and glanced at Gladys. He looked back at Neil. “It’s our new company, Neil, The Virtual Engineer. You see, most of these large engineering firms in this area are so poorly run that 60% to 80% of their workforce might as well be out playing golf, or hiking, or camping . . . No one knows what anyone else is doing or even what they are supposed to be doing. Let’s face it, when they’re in the office a lot of engineers spend most of their time playing games and surfing the internet. The only reason most of these people go to work is to collect their paycheck so that they can pay for their golfing, hiking, or camping. We are offering a solution – a better solution. The engineer concentrates on important things (like outings with family and friends) but still collects a paycheck. We take care of appearances in the office.”
Neil was silent so Joe continued, “This is not just a matter of opening an office door, turning on a light and throwing a jacket over a chair. Sure, we provide that service too. We’ll move some items around on the desk or have a cup of coffee appear and disappear. And we guarantee to leave your office POOPI (Protect Our Organization’s Proprietary Information) compliant. But what makes us effective is our extensive use of the latest wireless technology to create a virtual office presence that will be viewed positively by management. With our LLEW service, we focus on eliminating several time-consuming and inconvenient meetings each week. We will manipulate the engineer’s computer remotely, open documents, and print them out on shared office printers. We change the office voicemail message each day, and we will populate an engineer’s computer schedule with important sounding business priorities and offsite meetings. These services eliminate the need to actually appear at the office for as many as three days per week.”
“With an upgrade to the EA service, we’ll take it a step further. We can remotely reply to emails, schedule participation in virtual focus groups (comprised entirely of other Virtual Engineer customers), and even generate Group reports and letters of accommodation and praise from your co-workers and internal customers. This service eliminates the need to appear at the office more than one or two days per month. So far, 65% of our EA customers have actually received raises and promotions after less than 6 months of subscription. The raise more than pays our subscription fee.”
Gladys looked at Neil who was stunned and silent. She handed him a flyer for The Virtual Engineer that included a price list. “Our business is booming, Neil, and we need to add staff. That’s what we want to talk to you about.”
Neil looked around the restaurant at all the engineers. He did some mental calculations: number of large office buildings in the area . . . number of engineers per building . . . He looked at the price list. “This just might work.” He finally said, “Count me in.”
