Hello all. I hope that this becomes an outlet for all my frustrations at the way we lowly printing company employees are treated. The worst offenders? No doubt our own clients... who are supposed to be business professionals themselves. I work in the printing department of a very very large company that services a specific niche type of business. I will not be naming my company or any of my clients, and all co-worker names if written will be pseudonyms. I have been working in the printing industry for 10 years. It's the only thing I really know and love, and despite a couple of stints in call centers when times were tough, it's all I've ever really done since before I left high school. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a graphic artist, I'm more of a typesetter. I mainly do newsletters, business forms, contracts, flyers and other mostly text-centric items, though I can and do handle the odd bit of design work here and there, but we have other people for that at my current place.
Here's just a sample story, from many years ago at the mom & pop printshop I started out in.
This printshop only has five employees, one of whom is hard of hearing, another is the owner (more than likely in his office playing solitaire), the other is an extremely elderly man we kept around for sentimental reasons even though he didn't actually do anything, and the one other besides me is the actual press man. Hence, I always answer the phone when it rings.
A client, and a business owner no less, calls me up and wants to order 2000 more letterheads & business cards for himself and two other employees. Cool, no problem, man. I give him the price and give him his pickup date. Of course, this is the first thing out of his mouth, "Oh, you mean I can't pick them up this afternoon?"
Me: "Uh, no sir. We have to print the letterheads and the business cards have to go to the thermographer. It's going to be at least 3 business days." [a third-party company handles our thermography and 4-color work as we only have one ancient spot-color press]
Client: "Oh, I thought you had them there in stock. This is awful!! We have a huge presentation tomorrow at a trade show and we're all completely out of business cards!!"
Seriously, dude... you have a tremendously important function at which you're going to be trying to make sales and network and you don't even make sure to call about your business cards at least a week in advance when you KNOW you're out?? Second of all, no, we do not print off 2000 extras every time you make an order. That would be ridiculous. We're working out of a barely 2000 square foot storefront in a strip mall. Where do you expect us to store all your extra business supplies, holding them "just in case" you need some immediately? Not to mention all our other clients. We barely even have room to keep our supplies of paper for the week. And the fact that we pay the thermographer for these? Pish-posh, we know you're totally good for it... you totally aren't going to fire any of the last 50 people you had cards made for (making all those 'extra cards' obsolete trash), or shut your business down and leave us holding the bill.... that never happens.
I seriously don't know where this idea comes from. I've had this same exact conversation with so many clients over the years. What are you people thinking??!! Would you do anything with any other business this way? Would you walk into kinko's after having 50 copies of a flyer made last week and expect them to magically have 100 more just waiting in case you came back in and wanted more immediately (and to eat the cost if you did not, in fact, come back)? Do you expect a waiter to have another portion of your dinner warming on the hot rack just in case you didn't order enough food or wanted some to go? Of course not... but it always happens to us printshop people. Let me get this out there, for the record, folks. Printers do not... EVER (unless you're friends with the owner or a long time client) keep large numbers of extras on hand of your customized print materials. Generic receipt books, plain paper, and anything else non-customized, sure. But stuff with your name and address on it? No. We don't have the storage space, or the money to just eat the cost until you decide to come back in to pay us for previously printed items.
Now if you're paying in advance, that's another story. Low on storage space, but want 5000 menus ready to go at a moment's notice because your menus are just plain paper and people rip them, stain them, write on them or whatever... that's perfectly fine. We'll find the space. And probably won't even charge you a storage fee. But if you want to add a new entree or special and expect your money back for those 5000 menus you now "can't use". No f*cking way. Never gonna happen, man.
-The Printer
Here's just a sample story, from many years ago at the mom & pop printshop I started out in.
This printshop only has five employees, one of whom is hard of hearing, another is the owner (more than likely in his office playing solitaire), the other is an extremely elderly man we kept around for sentimental reasons even though he didn't actually do anything, and the one other besides me is the actual press man. Hence, I always answer the phone when it rings.
A client, and a business owner no less, calls me up and wants to order 2000 more letterheads & business cards for himself and two other employees. Cool, no problem, man. I give him the price and give him his pickup date. Of course, this is the first thing out of his mouth, "Oh, you mean I can't pick them up this afternoon?"
Me: "Uh, no sir. We have to print the letterheads and the business cards have to go to the thermographer. It's going to be at least 3 business days." [a third-party company handles our thermography and 4-color work as we only have one ancient spot-color press]
Client: "Oh, I thought you had them there in stock. This is awful!! We have a huge presentation tomorrow at a trade show and we're all completely out of business cards!!"
Seriously, dude... you have a tremendously important function at which you're going to be trying to make sales and network and you don't even make sure to call about your business cards at least a week in advance when you KNOW you're out?? Second of all, no, we do not print off 2000 extras every time you make an order. That would be ridiculous. We're working out of a barely 2000 square foot storefront in a strip mall. Where do you expect us to store all your extra business supplies, holding them "just in case" you need some immediately? Not to mention all our other clients. We barely even have room to keep our supplies of paper for the week. And the fact that we pay the thermographer for these? Pish-posh, we know you're totally good for it... you totally aren't going to fire any of the last 50 people you had cards made for (making all those 'extra cards' obsolete trash), or shut your business down and leave us holding the bill.... that never happens.
I seriously don't know where this idea comes from. I've had this same exact conversation with so many clients over the years. What are you people thinking??!! Would you do anything with any other business this way? Would you walk into kinko's after having 50 copies of a flyer made last week and expect them to magically have 100 more just waiting in case you came back in and wanted more immediately (and to eat the cost if you did not, in fact, come back)? Do you expect a waiter to have another portion of your dinner warming on the hot rack just in case you didn't order enough food or wanted some to go? Of course not... but it always happens to us printshop people. Let me get this out there, for the record, folks. Printers do not... EVER (unless you're friends with the owner or a long time client) keep large numbers of extras on hand of your customized print materials. Generic receipt books, plain paper, and anything else non-customized, sure. But stuff with your name and address on it? No. We don't have the storage space, or the money to just eat the cost until you decide to come back in to pay us for previously printed items.
Now if you're paying in advance, that's another story. Low on storage space, but want 5000 menus ready to go at a moment's notice because your menus are just plain paper and people rip them, stain them, write on them or whatever... that's perfectly fine. We'll find the space. And probably won't even charge you a storage fee. But if you want to add a new entree or special and expect your money back for those 5000 menus you now "can't use". No f*cking way. Never gonna happen, man.
-The Printer
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment