Maurice Picks a Winner with Promotional Passport Holders

The mail campaign with the promotional passport holders didn’t quite hit the 7% response that Maurice achieved with his message in a bottle campaign and promotional USBs, but very nearly did at 6.2%.  The people who received them were intrigued because they really believed that there were passports in the envelopes which made sure that they would be opened.

Three days after the envelopes had been posted, calls started coming in and inspection trips to Tenerife were booked.  Whilst Maurice was feeling extremely happy about this success he still had the underlying problem of what he had learned about Gerald’s mailing company in Wales, playing on his mind.

He hadn’t seen much of Gerald up until the calls started coming in from the direct mail campaign but with all the telesales staff very busy talking to people and sending out promotional USBs with the timeshare resort presentations on them, Gerald could hardly fail to notice that something was going on.  It didn’t take him long to find out that another mailing company had done the job and Maurice was forewarned of impending doom by his secretary exactly two minutes before Gerald came storming into his office, slamming the door behind him.

“Why didn’t you use Gordon for the mailer?” Gerald raged.

“I didn’t use Gordon for the promotional passports mail campaign because he was far too expensive over other quotes that I received” responded Maurice.

“Oh, so you have become Head of Procurement now have you?  When did that happen?”

Trying to remain calm, Maurice explained that he was purchasing his promotional products and chose to use the new mailing company because he had to balance his own marketing budget.   

“Yes, well you tell my wife that when she finds out she isn’t getting her new car next week” hissed Gerald.

“What has my mail campaign got to do with your wife’s new car?” Gerald asked trying to appear incredulous.

“I get a commission don’t I?  I’ve always had a commission on the promotional products and the mailing; it’s one of the perks of the job!”

“But from what I hear this is not just a commission, this is more like a second salary”, said Gerald “in fact there are people in this organisation that don’t make that money in a year even with their bonuses.”

“I’m not Mother Theresa am I?  They signed their contracts and accepted the rate of pay so who gives a toss?”

“Actually I do”, said Maurice “what you are doing amounts to stealing in my book and I have to tell you that I mean to speak to Robert.  He is the project manager and he should know about this.”

A smirk appeared on Gerald’s face as he said “Yes, why don’t you go and do that.”

In that moment Maurice knew that Robert was part of the fraud and realised that his career was over with Global C.O.N.S.

He sat in his office, after Gerald had gone, and drafted a resignation letter.  After that he called Antony Showman at Zest Promotional and told him that he was resigning so he could expect that any orders for promotional products that hadn’t been delivered would be cancelled; he should make those deliveries now because Maurice was certain that the company in Wales would be used in the future. 

Antony arranged to meet Maurice for a drink after work just for a chat, because Antony thought that Maurice sounded pretty depressed.