Text Tuomo Tarvas

Inga Lehtonen and Hannes Lade serve thousands of Finns whose coffee and tea breaks in a familiar coffee corner in the workplace have been changed to be catered for by a vending machine. Lehtonen and Lade work as service consultants employed by Selecta, a giant in the vending field, and their work includes filling and servicing coffee makers.

Lehtonen comes from Lithuania and has lived in Finland for ten years. Her husband is a Finn. Lade, who was born in Estonia, has resided in Finland for 17 years and has a wife and a son, aged 15. Lehtonen has been working for five and a half years for Selecta, Lade nearly equally long. Before she started working in the vending field, Lehtonen used to run a hairdresser´s and Lade used to sell furniture.

– I got the information about Selecta in a newspaper and I´ve enjoyed working here. So far I haven´t had any difficulties, Lade says.

– As for me, I happened to see a van with a Selecta logo in the street and decided to get in touch with the company. This work includes a lot of customer service, which I like. The working environment at Selecta has been very nice, Lehtonen relates.

A different ethnic background hasn´t caused them any difficulty in adapting to the working environment.

– Perhaps at the beginning I didn´t get along that well with everybody, but it wasn´t due to my background, Lehtonen recollects.

In the Selecta office in Helsinki there are approximately 40 service consultants who keep driving across Southern Finland from Hanko to Järvenpää and from Karkkila to Porvoo. The foreman gives out the daily driving lists for a month ahead.

Destinations may change if sales in some spots have been better than expected or a vending machine breaks down or something similar happens, field chief Mia Jyrkänkallio states.

A loaded van goes at full speed

Inga Lehtonen and Hannes Lade, who are early birds, start their day at seven. By then suppliers have delivered the groceries, sweets, coffees and other sales products to the central warehouse of Selecta in Konala Helsinki. Early in the morning the service consultants load them into their own cars.

Selecta has a selection of about ten coffee makers of different kinds and sizes which can cater for tea and hot chocolate too. Lehtonen and Lade serve customers who have purchased a full Selecta service including the filling and servicing of the vending machine.

– Customers choosing a partial service are provided with the cleaning of the vending machine. They fill in the coffee containers themselves, Mia Jyrkänkallio explains.

One of the most important tools of a service consultant is an LTO gadget, a microcomputer, which is a kind of "travel accounting device" The details of the products as well as of their delivery are coded into it. After the car has been loaded, Lehtonen and Lade start their tour. Lehtonen circles just in Helsinki while Lade goes to Vantaa too.

Because the streets in the metropolitan area tend to be labyrinthine with new suburbs being built all the time, moving without a global positioning system can be difficult. Lehtonen admits that at the beginning of her working career she was nearly stumped.

– At first I hardly knew any routes!

Exercise as a work bonus

Usually work shifts go smoothly, but if something unexpected happens, team superior Kaisa Särkiranta is ready to answer her mobile.

– It can happen that you have a tyre puncture or a vending machine can´t be fixed, Särkiranta indicates.

Service consultants visit the same spots regularly. According to Inga Lehtonen, you get gradually acquainted with people in various workplaces. If there´s no elevator, the consultant has to climb up the stairs to the vending machines, which is a good thing.

– I don´t have to go to the gym because I get exercise at work, Lehtonen laughs.

After a working day has finished, many employees gather in the employees´ lounge. They talk a lot and exchange the news and experiences of the day´s events benefiting from the company products which are available for them.

Nowadays Selecta service consultants do only day shifts. However, working life is about to change and employees tend to work on two or more shifts in more and more companies. Starting night shifts has been considered here too.

– If some companies switch over to work on three shifts, it naturally increases the demand for products, field supervisor Mia Jyrkänkallio gives her explanation.

The majority of Selecta employees work in the field. The company provides opportunities for advancing in one´s career although not that many new office jobs are offered, Jyrkänkallio reassures.

– Currently we have an ex-service consultant working as a sales person as well as in the customer service.

Necessary language and customer service skills

For the time being, there are no other employees with an immigrant background but Inga Lehtonen and Hannes Lade. According to Mia Jyrkänkallio, the company is ready to hire even more immigrants, but not that many applications have been received from immigrants. Occasionally Selecta seeks new workers through an employment exchange office and also accepts open applications by e-mail.

No particular training is required of service consultants, but they must have a driving licence. In addition, they have to master skills in customer service. A perfect knowledge of Finnish isn´t required, but consultants have to be able to speak Finnish and understand the written language too.

– In this work you deal with people and you make orders yourself. You have to understand the language well because service consultants use various detergents when they wash vending machines, Miia Jyrkänkallio gives her reasons.

A regular daily rhythm provides Inga Lehtonen and Hannes Lade with the opportunity to go in for their hobbies in the evenings. Since the autumn Lade has been studying at the adult education centre Adulta in the evenings to become an export assistant. The training takes a year. Besides, Lade also goes to watch his son whose hobby is driving motorcross. Lehtonen, on the other hand, has a lot to engage in in her own house.

– We have a house of our own and quite a large yard. In the summer we have to cut the grass and take care of the garden. In the winter we have to shovel the snow, Lehtonen says.

Are Lehtonen and Lade, who work in the middle of coffee beans, really crazy about coffee?

– I don´t usually drink much coffee. In this work I have even reduced drinking coffee, Lade makes a surprising confession.

Lehtonen admits that she drinks quite a few cups of coffee every day, but the popular black drink isn´t an obsession for her.

– When I came to work here, I eagerly tasted all kinds of coffee qualities available in the vending machines in the corridors. I got tired of it in a week, she laughs.