Editorial.

Sometimes it's the little things that trigger the sense of impending doom. The phone call went like this:

"Are you printing a program listing the exhibitors to the upcoming Rubber Expo?" I was asked by the caller identifying himself as an employee of a certain company.

"Yes we are," I replied.

"I want you to remove my company from your listings," he said.

"Sure, can I ask why?"

"It's not our market."

This rendered me somewhat speechless, being familiar with the company and its products. Also, the word elastomer is part of their name. Thinking that this may be a prank, I asked the person to identify himself again and asked him exactly what market was the company in.

"Polymers and elastomers," was the reply.

"And the rubber exposition is not your market?" I asked incredulously.

"That's right."

I ended the conversation not wanting to argue and suspicious of a hoax. Not that we get many hoaxes. We have had people send us prices of competitor's products for our semi-annual price list and some companies claiming to be reps of products they don't have, but nothing like this. A call to the Rubber Division confirmed that this wasn't a hoax. I wasn't relieved, I was concerned.

The dumbing of American is reaching higher and higher levels. This could probably be blamed on downsizing and reengineering, but these terms are just the '90s' version of saying corporate restructuring, rationalization, etc. But for some reason the '90s version seems to be a lot more scary, at least with our dealings in obtaining information.

The rubber industry runs the whole gamut when it comes to dispensing information - from the companies with the well staffed PR departments or high-powered public relations firms, to the office managers who have PR as one of their duties. Company information may be the sole domain of the president or some PR firm on a retainer basis. There are advantages and disadvantages to almost any method of disseminating information. We know of examples that work and don't work for almost any form used.

You'd be surprised at how hard it is to get basic information from some companies, and we're not talking about the small operation that might not have the time. Some of the hardest have the largest PR staffs or pay top dollar to a PR firm. It's not unusual for PR contacts to be ignorant of some company products, this is understandable. But this latest call was from someone who had a title indicating he should know a whole lot better. Maybe I should have known better and not asked why?