I take your point Geoff that it's better to have a scruffy shoe-staring oik who knows what he's doing rather than a slick know-nothing, especially as, at the like of stereotyping, tech staff may not always be "people" persons. And yes the last thing we want is to have companies sign up to yet another piece of paper.
However the reason for my query does arise from real issues we have had with certain staff at certain companies who will just walk in and start poking at equipment or worse still take it away without telling anyone. And if they don't know there and then what the issue is that's fine, but just tell the owner.
Ultimately it does come down to good manners but if there is an industry code of conduct, such as there are for sales reps and bribery hospitality, it would be nice to point to that
