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Time to sack my new guide? How many chances do you give someone?
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Posted 3 years ago #
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Obviously as well as a lost guide, he cant navigate round a bike forum or cant read, because if he can hes going to be a bit upset, at whats written here.
Posted 3 years ago # -
If this was about ski/mountianeering guides you'd have dead customers . Your fired ( in an Alan Sugar way). But yeah he doesntneed to carry enough equip for everyone just himself to be self sufficient
Posted 3 years ago # -
Tubes, multitool, pads and lunch and water is something that I'd expect a guest to carry for themselves.
Medical kit, cable ties, emergency shelter, maps and route tracings, ss conversion kit, every group members emergency contact details and a whole host of other kit that experience and training teaches you to carry, I expect to haul myself.
Posted 3 years ago # -
OK. We have just had a sit down and he was a embarassed as a Dane can be I suppose. He suggested that maybe it wasn't working out for him and I unfortunately had to agree. He's apparently going to go do some hiking tours instead. I hope he doesn't loose any walkers in the forest!
With regards to carrying stuff. A lot of my customers are here for a family holiday and are taking a couple days away from the beach or the pool so don't have their own bikes or camel backs full of spares.
Hence we carry as far as possible enough to cover any situation, spare hangers, 4 or 5 tubes, power links, first aid, all the usual stuff you would expect. Now customers who come out with their own bikes for a weeks riding are generally a bit more self sufficient.
EDIT: We're obviously too soft with our customers TrailMonkey. Although we do expect them to carry their own food and water!
Posted 3 years ago # -
If you need a guide who's not such a good rider, give me a job.
I can guarantee entertainment in the form of.
1, riding into peat bogs and going OTB
2, riding into peat bogs on command and going OTB
3, slipping on wet decking whilst holding a sugar bowl full of hot tea and landing on a pointy rock covering myself in tea flavoured caramel....
I can safely think i made things memorable on the particular riding holiday!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Sorry Sharki, it sounds like you might have a sense of direction
Posted 3 years ago # -
I thought you were very useful on that trip sharki. In a sort of " here's how not to do it " kind of way
Posted 3 years ago # -
How do you go wrong with a gps - blindly following it! I have seen this a few times
With a GPS and a map (and possibly a compass) you cant exactly go wrong anywhere. I've never yet had mine go out of signal, despite thick tree cover, for more than a few hundred metres and you can happily blindly follow any route that has been decently constructed. I've stolen loads from bikely and just headed out to ride them!
Posted 3 years ago # -
2 GPS stories (both on boats, neither cycling related, i dont tust them)
First, me steering, my dad navigating, GPS dies (battery fault, not flat, just exploding), had we a foddiest where we were, not a clue! Now unless your conciencious nad get the map out and make a cross every 5 minutes a GPS can get you lost in the middle of nowhere very quickly.
Second, me navigating, dad steering. Follows the GPS perfectly, despite me telig him that i've checked our positio usin a compas and the chart and we're definately heading for the ground. I hate saying i told you so, but unless your 100% sure you got the waypoints right, following them blidly can be more trouble than you were looking for.
Posted 3 years ago # -
thisisnotaspoon - Sea is a slightly different matter but ....GPS battery fault is why I carry at least 2 spare sets, thats an obvious one. As for following waypoints - unless you're a complete tard you can input OS waypoints (or read back a track you already did) to within a few metres. When out in the hills I never see more than 20ft repeatability error on riding the same course time and time again. There is absolutely no reason for the GPS waypoint following to cause any problems.
I used my GPS to plot routes down the alps and follow them next day - they were accurate to within a metre or two. I've used it to trace my steps back while following a map route and taking the wrong fork - no probs. I spent the weekend using one while hiking over the area around Nevis, it matched the map to within a few steps.
I find GPSs with inbuilt maps are sometimes a bit screwy and place you miles from where the road is for example (tomtom), but a normal basic etrex never fails me and lasts 8hours plus on 2AAs in 5 C temps.
Just lob a waypoint at every major turn or bit thats difficult to identify and remember, if following a dot-to-dot rather than a previously traced route, that the line to the next waypoint could point down the wrong branch depending on relative positions so make sure you add extra waypoints to account for non-obvious curves.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Amazingly over the years my map and compass have never failed me, generally speaking the clues to where you are are often contained on the map.
Sounds like your guide is a muppet. I'd be very scared if he 'guided' me off a GPS, surely the point of guiding is they know where they are and where they go ?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Hey perhaps he could come and work for us in Belgium, I've a worker here who is supposed to visit all of his shops in his area once every cycle (approximately every 7 weeks). I've been working with him for the last two months and I've found over half of his 225 shops on his route have not been visited for the past two years!
Oh and his director isn't much better, I've sat there this week and cross referenced all of the shops in his area and found that the director hasn't routed over 30 shops, so they've not been visited at all!
Oh and because he's been allowed to get away with not doing his job for so long, our lawyers say its now acceptable practice so we can not fire him for it.
Posted 3 years ago # -
well 227 customers in a 7 week cycle = 6+ sales calls per day based on a 5 day week - probably less than 5 days if assume friday pm is out and some time needed for admin
maybe your worker was focussing on the ones that he/she believed gave the most potential - in a culture where business is personal need to determine if tossing it off over coffee with old mates or working on what will give best returnPosted 3 years ago # -
LOL at Spoony
Navigate at Sea using a GPS (or Chartplotter etc) = Fail recepe. I ALWAYS used old skool navigation methods when sailing in coastal waters (fix based EP etc) and offshore (DR). Mark on Chart even at 10 min intervals if a tricky area. GPS as backup reference only.
Posted 3 years ago # -
i like the three strikes and your are out rule.
did you explain that to him after his first strike?
Posted 3 years ago # -
antigee I wish it were the case. The only problem being is 95% of the customers he's not visited are Flemish and he's a Wallone! Its more a case of not going to them because he doesn't want to talk to them.
In the UK we work to a 9 calls a day cycle the work we actually undertake during those visits is over 7 times as much.
He's going round tossing over the coffee with all his french mates and sod the rest of the customers.
Since I've been working him with him his call rates gone upto the 6 calls a day and his actual returns have more than doubled, but it is only because I am actually sitting in his vehicle and making him visit those stores whilst holding his hand. As soon as I leave him alone he reverts back to his previous ways and carries on regardless.
Posted 3 years ago # -
antigee I wish it were the case. The only problem being is 95% of the customers he's not visited are Flemish and he's a Wallone! Its more a case of not going to them because he doesn't want to talk to them.
agree if returns doubled in 2 months then not focussing on right things and if calls uk is 9/day then even allowing cultural difference...one last point Flemish v Wallone is it that Flemish customers won't see him? - have run sales teams in Netherlands, Belgium and Scotland and the Green and Orange divide is pretty strong not that crunching numbers is wrong just that at some point they can hit the great dividePosted 3 years ago # -
Poor guy@guide lol
Then again crap wage crap people.
Blame the manager ;OP
Posted 3 years ago # -
Nope its him not wanting to visit those stores, we've had no problems at all when I've made him go to the stores. He speaks enough Flemish to get himself understood and to service and clean our machines and then replenish the shelves. I understand the divide issues a little too, as I've worked in Northern Ireland, Scotland and now Belgium.
The company when they took him on offered to pay for Flemish lessons for upto 2 years for him to learn the language to a reasonable level, he never took them up on that offer.
There are cultural differences and we aren't expecting him to work to the same levels as the UK, but as a conservative estimate I reckon he's been barely working for more than an average of 3 hours a day and for that he's earning 30,000 euros a year. About 40 euros an hour before tax.
Posted 3 years ago #
Topic Closed
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