Here’s
Dr. Joti Samra, and she is pretty adamant about this: “It would definitely be a
stretch to say that people on the tour would derive a psychological benefit,”
she says. So,
if those pieces of news haven’t discouraged you, let’s head into the body of
the article.
Remember
that greeting about the world’s greatest sales centre—part exuberance, part
braggadocio? It’s one of the first things you see after stepping out of the
elevator at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. The 19-year-old company has more than 300
franchises operating in Canada, the United States and Australia, and generated
$125 million in revenue last year. (Tours, like magazine editors, are crazy for
numbers—this article has 1,243 words carefully arranged into 26 paragraphs.) So
there is ample reason for it to open its head office, known as The Junktion,
every second Friday for tours (as of May they were already booking into
September).
The
tour is led by Tania Hall, senior public relations manager, who is sufficiently
open to inform us that “the media loves to hear about our weird junk.” Call me
impressionable, but without further ado: a couch full of bees, sex dolls made
from chicken wire, 400 wedding dresses and a World War II-era bomb (defused).
Since
founding the company in 1989 as The Rubbish Boys—compare
that
to the current name for a quick lesson in branding—Brian
Scudamore has gotten his share of press, too. Here he comes now—please note the
untucked gingham shirt, blue jeans and brown suede shoes worn without socks.
Scudamore takes a similarly casual approach toward opening his offices.
“If
the competition wants to take a tour, we’ll run them through,” Scudamore says.
“We wouldn’t give them our financial statements.”
In
fact, the idea for the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? tour came out of Scudamore’s speaking
engagements at which he would reply to questions about how franchisees or the
call centre are managed by inviting people to stop by The Junktion.
If you want to discover dark (and perhaps rotten)
secrets, then Honolulu’s Tour de Trash is for you. I’m told Mayor Mufi
Hannemann is extremely proud of these six annual tours that give an inside look
into recycling and waste management.
But
he is a busy man, so let’s drop in on Suzanne Jones, recycling coordinator for
the City and County of Honolulu. Jones started the tours 10 years ago and has
since learned there “are hundreds and hundreds of people who want to get up
close and personal with trash.”
To
date, those people have all been residents, but Jones is happy to accommodate
tourists if there is space. You might want to check out the Workplace Recycling
tour, a behind-the-scenes trip to the Sheraton Waikiki, Hilton Hawaiian Village
and the Hawaii Convention Center.
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