Man I can't tell you how much I agree.  We try not to bug vendors, but a "received eta 24 hours" is very much needed by us.  Otherwise, we don't know if the job went to your spam, or disappeared, or if you won't be going to that county for a few days, or if you are on vacation, etc., etc.. The manpower we spend on getting acknowledgements on jobs, and updates on late jobs is quite a lot, and would be sooooo much better spent on prospecting for more work, which Alix points out, benefits all the vendors under us.  We only ask our vendors to treat us the way we treat our clients--we acknowledge every job with an ETA within a few hours of receipt, and we try to let our clients know before they even ask us if a job is going to be late, along with enough info so that they don't have to ask "what happened."  This way they can report straight back to their clients, who are also breathing down their necks.  We also try to answer every ETA request sent to us.  We have hired one person whose whole job is answering ETA requests, so it is part of the job for everyone.  Each current and prospective client that has talked to me about this has said that the one thing that will keep them working with a vendor or that will make them look for a new vendor to replace an old one is how often and how quickly they reply to ETA requests, and how much they stay in communication.  If the client feels like they are having to "track us down" or "hound us" to get communication, they will pull the plug, period.  So as vendor managers, that's the standard we are held to, and the same standard from others is appreciated. :)

Also, I do know how annoying it is when you reply with an ETA, and then a few hours later, some other person in a company asks for the ETA.  There are a few big companies guilty of excessive ETA requests.  We don't do that.  We have one person over the area, and if you reply back, he isn't going to bug you again, until the job is late, etc.