The HRchive CONTENTS

Love 'n Hate Index   >> Issue 1 - SREs     >> Issue 2 - Indies     >> Issue 3 - Clientside Res     >> Issue 4 - MD / Agency Boss     >> Issue 5 - MR Software Sales     >> Issue 6 - Omnibus Researchers     >> Issue 7 - TV Researcher     >> Issue 8 - MR Recruiters     >> Issue 9 - Office Party Planner     >> Issue 10 - MR Marketing Mgrs     >> Issue 11 - Associate Directors     >> Issue 12 - Field Mgrs     >> Issue 13 - JRE & Grad Trainee     >> Issue 15 - Viewing Facility Mgrs     >> Issue 16 - Pharma Res Client     >> Issue 17 - Tel Interviewers     >> Issue 18 - Aussie Researchers     >> Issue 19 - Personnel Mgrs

There are many things I love about my job

On the serious side ...

• Using information and analysis for making business decisions. Being part of a team or project from the outset and using existing data to scope both business and research requirements
• Working in a fast paced sector where the rules are still evolving and participating in that evolution with my counterparts in other companies
• Being the owner and arbiter of consumer and user understanding – having the final say over what consumers think is very gratifying
• Being able to employ judgment alongside ‘facts ’ where the clear interpretation of data is difficult or controversial – a good healthy debate is always a great way to spend time.

And in terms of lighter moments...

• Watching the performances and preening in our ad agency reception – just like the opening credits from Magnum PI
• Leveraging core buzzwords
• Listening to agencies who will ‘add value above mere results ’. But can barely use PowerPoint
• Pretending to be a real investor with my stock options and making enough to buy a Grab Bag of Walkers

To sum up, most of what I love about my job is due to being at the heart of what happens in the business overall. This is a genuinely information-focused company which holds research and analysis in high regard and invests in building this capability. Cynical about these claims? Well,I’m sorry if I seem to have exaggerated any of the above – maybe not a Grab Bag .....

It ’s alarmingly easy to rattle off ten things I hate about being Head of Research.

1. All your friends thinking you are leading a jet-set lifestyle when every overseas meeting involves you getting up at 4.30 in the morning to travel 4 or 5 hours to a business park in the middle of nowhere to return at midnight having eaten sandwiches that bend more than a Beckham free-kick.

2. Having to spend months preparing numerous documents and chasing dozens of signatures to secure a budget for a project that is roughly the cost of a garden shed.

3. Getting about 17 calls every day from research agencies you have never heard of telling you they offer a service identical to every other agency you have spoken to. Being a nice guy and unable to say no, I then have to sit through dozens of creds presentations from agencies featuring the cardinal sin:clip art. And then being hassled by them every week for the rest of my life.

4. Reporting to three separate people all of whom know as much about research as I do about dry-stone walling.

5. Having to inform media agencies that their strategy for communicating the virtues of Bulgarian Home Improvement Products is the most inspiring and innovative that I have ever seen. I then have to scrub myself clean afterwards.

6. Communicating with colleagues who may be fluent in several languages but stupid in every one of them.

7. Working with people in other departments who think that you have the answers to make them look better at their job but who, when the answers are not what they want to hear, will drop you like a stone.

8. Having to speak to people that are “passionate ” about research at conferences and “networking ” events who have had a charisma by-pass.

9. Being patronised by independent research consultants unable to hold down a real job with more hair in their nose than on their head.

10. Seeing people that I hired getting better jobs than me.