Paying Someone to Do the Shopping

I have just finished reading your article about Select Shopping Services and the job that this “operation” is doing (“Shopper Buys Office Supplies for Clients Too Busy to Bother,” Jan. 18). I couldn’t believe the content of the article. It is certainly a condemnation of both middle and top management; the idea of a corporation being willing to pay $23 for someone to “shop” for them. I, for one, ran my own business for 35 years. If we needed anything for our office in the way of office supplies, I would note it immediately, then stop at any one of half a dozen office supply stores that were on the way home and at which I had previously opened charge accounts, and get our needs. These would remain in my car until the next day, when I would remove them and deliver them to my secretary at 8 a.m. This beats the delivery offered by the local stationer, which usually would take another day or two, but still cost nothing.

I just can’t see where a sane office manager, acting in the best interests of his employer and/or the shareholders, could engage the services of the sort described in your article. You specifically mention ITT. How the selection of services of this sort ever got the OK in a supposedly well-run company like ITT is unfathomable. What a waste of shareholders’ money. Now, admittedly, the “unheated warehouse” type of operations do price some of their merchandise a bit lower, but a bit of shopping will generally show that the lack of completeness ultimately forces most office managers into purchasing from houses with a more complete line.

I guess Barnum was right.

WAYNE RIVES

El Toro

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