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Most of our manufacturers, especially the American ones, invite us to events two to three times a year. I do admit, the manufacturers really do try hard, but unfortunately these events are apparently as inefficient as possible: a one-day session, but arriving one day earlier at lunchtime, and departing the day after the session and the meeting "roundup ". Instead of holding something like this in a practical airport hotel, the event always seems to be located at least 100 km away from the airport, or in a place that you can only reach by transferring three times.

Other nice things are the "team building" and "marketing networking". First: my competition and I are not a team, and we never will be. And "marketing networking" among competitors is not only forbidden, but also stupid. Of course there are "free time blocks": sailing, high rope course, car racing, etc. These things are meant well, but I would rather spend my free time with my family. If I would attend all 50 manufacturer events in 2011, I would never be in the office, thanks to arrival and departure days. But, which manufacturers do you turn down? They are then insulted, or the account manager gets in trouble with his boss, because he cannot "control" his distributors.

I now do it so that I arrive the morning of the session, and depart immediately afterwards. Of course I would be interested in meeting the manufacturing boss and learning about his corporate strategies. But, I give you my word, as soon as anyone starts showing me products specs via PowerPoint presentation, I stand up and leave. The other participants continue sitting there, glued to their Blackberries, usually the manufacturer's employees.

Is it polite to simply stand up and leave? Maybe not, but on the other hand, maybe customers should be treated differently.

I often hear: "Send over an employee". Ok, a) sometimes the manufacturers really want to see the boss, and b) we only hire employees who we need. If we did not have anything to do, then we would simply create PowerPoint presentations: the day goes by quickly, and you can sleep well.