Exploitation At Its Finest

I haven't written in my blog for a while now. Not because I have nothing to write about. But there's been a lot of things happening on both the work front - busy, busy, busy as always and taking on more than I can chew - my partner-in-crime Leticia Hsu will agree cos her plate is over-the-top too! - As well as on the personal front - caring for a Hep A patient (MOH), homesick after CNY, trying to keep myself motivated to train for the Ironman (at this point, it is a big joke), etc. Suddenly, in a flash of a flash, it's 1st quarter of the year, GONE.

But today, right now, there is so much anger and frustration in me that I need to channel this somewhere immediately or else, there might be hell to pay! (And I certainly can't go and swim another 100 laps or so since I just did that over lunch hour!).

After months of going back and forth on the Red C budgets for the brand activation work - and I am seriously talking heart-breaking 16 revisions on the costings over a period of 4 months, the client finally piled on the straw that broke the camel's back. For the sake of letting me relief my anger - let's just call him Mr. Deep Throat (part of his name does have this phrase). Now, Mr. Deep Throat is new in Cambodia and is sitting on the almighty throne here thinking he knows best. Ok, he's the client, it's his brand, it's his product. Good.

First round, he came up with all these funny "ratios" on how the budgets and sampling targets work. Funnily - which nobody could comprehend. USD4,500 project budget, to sample a target of 72,000 bottles in 6 provinces. Mind you - Red C themselves had found out that the license fee per province is USD300. You do the math. It leaves us with an unrealistic budget to sample 72,000 freaking bottles. Does Mr. Deep Throat buy that? Of course not! "I've done it before!" he says. Where? In India? But this is Cambodia, my friend!

For those who have done sampling activities for beverages, you will know the process is a tedious one. Chilling, sampling, collection of empty bottles (and believe it or not, Red C only allows a 3% breakage & loss and anything above that, we get charged USD0.50 per bottle unaccounted for), hours in the hot sun, rain, whatever. So we counter-proposed. We keep to the budget, but we sample less bottles. We still want to try to maintain the overall brand image - I mean, after all, it IS Red C. You don't want to look shabby or cheapskate, do you? But Mr. Deep Throat's answer was "I don't care about all that. My sole objective is to touch bottles to lips." Errr...... if so, with all due respect, Sir - why does Red C as a company, spend so much money on branding internationally? Why hire brand managers? (By the way - Mr. Deep Throat is not a brand manager. I do not know his position.)

Nevermind that - I also explained to Mr Deep Throat that has he ever tried to bottoms-up a full bottle of Red C? Since we need to collect bottles and I am short of manpower due to the peanut budget, I need to force consumers to down the bottle of Red C as fast as possible. My team (bless them for soldiering on) did an experiment previously when we sampled another brand - and to down a bottle of carbonated drink takes 2 minutes. They were burping and generally feeling quite ill after the 3rd bottle. Once again - do the math - 2 minutes per bottle for a bottoms-up "brand experience" for the consumers. I don't need to tell you the outcome for your product and the fact that once again - the figures are UNREALISTIC. (At this point, it seems to me, Mr Deep Throat is really pulling numbers out of his freaking ass).

Whatever it may be, we worked on it and worked on it, and worked some more. Finally coming to a reasonably agreeable budget. But was that enough for Mr Deep Throat? No. Today, he said our agency fee should be cut down to a miserable 7% of the total sampling cost. 7%????? This was what angered me so much. Who is this MORON to tell me what my agency deserves to earn? And of course, WHERE THE FUCK is he getting his 7% figure from??? I am so pissed mad. Just because this is Cambodia, you think labour cost is cheap??? Where does he get off?? I ask ANY OF YOU out there - will you consider paying ANYONE USD1.50 to work 8 hours a day - outdoors, rain, shine or snow??? So, yea, where does he get off???

I am waiting for them to send me a black & white confirmation that it is indeed 7% and I will respond with a "No, Thank You Very Much" email of my own. There comes a point where enough is enough, I guess. Whatever your brand may be. So what if it is Red C? You can be fucking Nike for all I care, but when you start exploiting people - it is plain WRONG. Especially more so if you are a global brand. I know it is the economically bad times, but do not use that as an excuse to exploit the people of a third-world country!
I've written about this previously and you can read it again here. Everybody has a budget. Be sensible, SENSITIVE and reasonable.

Some might say this is work. Don't take it personally. Of course I take it personally! This is my work, this is my baby, for crying out loud! I built this company with passion and I train my team to take pride in their work. But if their pride costs a miserable amount of USD0.70 per day (working out to be our current "agency fee" after the 7%  fiasco) - what freaking pride is that? I know they are Cambodians, but it does not make them any lesser of a human beings than anyone of us out there!! So, yes, I am freaking pissed off, hopping mad!

At the moment, I am feeling extreme hatred for Mr Deep Throat and the brand that he represents right now. For those who know me, would know that I hate injustice. Exploitation is injustice. Ok, to rationalize it, Mr Deep Throat is probably not out to get me. He's probably just "doing his job". But that's the difference between him and me - I am a businesswoman. He's NOT.

For my friends reading this article - if you are a Red C drinker - support me by boycotting Red C products for just one day. Take your whiskey on-the-rocks. Drink Blue Pill. Whatever it may be. I thank you in advance for indulging me in my rash display of anger.