2
READERS' LETTERS
Beautiful but bothersome
A pleasant walk
WALKING TO SELL
5400 KIMS A YEAR
Walking to sell, but not always in sunshine.
It was still not possible to wait for readers
letters when preparing this issue, but
we again had questions fired at us
from all sides.
Luigino Campanini has no
driving licence but he does know
how to handle a boat. He
doesn't have a car as he almost always
does his work on foot. He's lived in
Venice all his life and has been selling
Dreher and Heineken beer there for 23
years. You can take the gondola in
Venice, but most of your customers
can only be reached on foot. For the
salesman there are lots of problems.
Campanini doesn't let the difficulties
get him down. He's a cheerful man,
fond of a laughAs a true Venetian he's
also an excellent singer, and singing is
something he loves to do. He's also a
sportsman. He used to play basketball.
Now that he's in his mid-fifties he is on
the committee of his club. He is
married and has one daughter who has
just graduated 'cum laude' in French.
His 18-year-old son will be going to
university this year.
Tourists think Venice is a splendid
place, and rightly so. But for the
businessman all that water is a
tremendous cost item and the source of
a great deal of bother.
"First of all", Campanini starts off,
"there's the fact that boats are much
slower than cars. You can hardly ever
use big boats in this city either, as many
of the canals are much too narrow. And
then you're forced by law to have two
people in charge of each boat. Once
you've reached the landing stage with
your beer, it has to be unloaded by
hand and put on a sort of wheelbarrow.
Then that has to be trundled to the
customer. On your way there you're
bound to come across at least one
Luigino Campanini takes the ferry across
the 'Canal Grande'. That saves him a
long walk to the nearest bridge.
bridge. Each bridge has steps up and
steps back down, as the boats have to
be able to pass underneath. The
customers only have very small
storerooms, because there's not much
space in this water-filled city. The
distributors have only got limited space
as wellOur biggest distributor has 300
square metres of storage space. The
salesman spends a great deal of time
making arrangements for the
deliveries. If a customer has run out of
beer, he'll soon be inclined to choose
another brand if you can't help him out
q uickly enoughThe stocks are usually
stored in cellars, and those tend to get
flooded under in this city. Yet another
reason for the customer to order as
little as possible."
"How pleasant to be able just to walk
all the time, and how healthy it must
be" is what we thought. Healthy it
certainly is, but it's not so pleasant.
Campanini soon shattered our
illusions: "The streets are flat, of
coursebut it's the bridges that get you
There are 465 of them and you have to
climb up and down them time and
again."
With all those problems it's not
surprising that the customers can be
described as rather gloomy
businessmen. But Campanini has got
used to that and has a big store of jokes
and cheerful anecdotes that he can tell
to chase away those gloomy moods.
And his constant good humour
undoubtedly helps as well. He sees the
human aspects of his job as extremely
important. "The links with your
customers carry a great deal of weight.
You must always keep your promises,
they have to be able to rely on you, and
you have to assume that the customer
who is least friendly is the one who is
most in need of a friendly word", says
Campanini decidedly.
A man's wife is usually the best j udge of
his character. And, as Mrs. Campanini
always says to her husband: "You
wouldn't be able to live without people
all around you." Having spent a day
trekking round the city with him during
his work, we're convinced of that.
Every Venetian bridge has steps up and
steps back down.
Is there a god of beer?
No, however strange it may sound.
But there is a character known as
Gambrinus or Cambrinus. He has
sort of taken on the role of beer-god
a little. The name is probably a
corruption of Jean Primus (i.e. Jan,
or John, the First), who must have
been a great lover of beer. This Jan
seems to have ruled as a Count in the
Southern Netherlands long ago.
Some people claim that he was the
inventor of beer, but that's nonsense.
Did people in the olden days think that
ghosts had a big influence on the
quality of beer?
Yes, and that wasn't so very long ago
either. Even in the last century there
were still a great many home-
brewers who got up to the weirdest
tricks to drive away the ghosts or to
appease the evil spirits.
Luigino Campanini, our man in Venice.